“To rush to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to cry. One thinks of Beaumarchais' maxim when discovering Pierre Kroll's latest work. In Signs that don't lie, the Belgian cartoonist brings together 300 cartoons on all the warning signs of the collapse of our industrial civilization. Among which is climate change and its funeral procession: droughts, heat waves, rising ocean levels, accelerated melting of ice, floods, etc. But also the collapse of biodiversity, pollution (plastic packaging, oil spills, etc.), the proliferation of nuclear power, the depletion of natural resources, the excesses of agro-industry or even social inequalities and North- South. In three pencil strokes and two bubbles, Pierre Kroll challenges us with depth on climate injustice. As in this drawing where we see two inhabitants of Bangladesh, the bodies submerged in muddy water following a flood, commenting on the news:
– It seems that with the warming, the people of the North will no longer be able to ski.
- Poor people !
While the cathedral of life continues to burn, our political and economic leaders continue to look elsewhere. Faced with this blindness, Pierre Kroll quotes the philosopher Michel Serres: “If there is a way for a moral signal, it is laughter”. And proposes to raise awareness thanks to this book tinged with a "very Belgian" black humor! so that we can finally take action. Inspired, there again, by Michel Serres whom he quotes in his foreword: “If you only write catastrophic books, if you only write pessimism, we will no longer act”.
His drawings, published for the majority in the media from the 1980s until today, remain – dramatically – timeless. Like the obese American who hands a wad of dollars to a starving African and says to him: "Here, my friend, a little agent and I'll pollute for you". Even if some caricatures echo specific news. For example, this dialogue between two penguins to illustrate, as the author indicates, "the month of July 2019 which was the hottest ever recorded in the world":
– So, for global warming, it's done.
- Way of talking. »
In the foreword that he signs, Pierre Kroll, a graduate in environmental sciences, specifies his intention: "This is not a scientific book or a militant pamphlet, there are quite enough That. It is not inspired by collapsology or green capitalism, it is not gluten-free or vegan. It is above all a collection of drawings”. So many drawings highlighting “signs that do not deceive. »