Sesame Street tackles extreme weather fear without naming climate change

Sesame Street is airing an episode that focuses on the dangerous effects of warming without using the words climate change. The choice captures a long-running challenge for children’s media: how to make a politicized scientific issue understandable to very young viewers without overwhelming them.

The new episode fits a broader push from Sesame Workshop to frame weather risk in child-friendly terms. In July 2026, the nonprofit announced a new initiative to help children and families prepare for and recover from extreme weather, beginning with Storm on Sesame Street, a special that features Post Malone and Michelle Buteau. Sesame Workshop says more families than ever are facing extreme weather events, and that those crises can be especially hard on young children.

Sesame Workshop has also built out an Extreme Weather page that describes work to support children, families and communities when weather crises hit. Separately, Sesame Workshop and Save the Children announced a climate-resilience partnership aimed at young children and caregivers, with a stated goal of preserving continuity of learning amid climate disruptions and protecting children’s physical and emotional well-being. The pieces show a deliberate shift: instead of treating severe weather as a one-off storyline, the organization is building a recurring language for fear, recovery and preparation.

The approach has roots in earlier Sesame Street environmental storytelling. In 2009, The Guardian raised the question of whether global warming and deforestation were too scary for the show, underscoring how carefully producers have had to calibrate the message. Sesame Street: Being Green took a lighter route, with Elmo and Abby learning about being green alongside Mr. Earth, played by Paul Rudd.

The same balancing act has drawn interest outside the show itself. In a May 23, 2024 Los Angeles Times column, Sammy Roth argued that Sesame Street can help prepare kids for climate disasters. The current episode extends that logic by emphasizing warming’s effects while sidestepping the phrase climate change, a sign that even in children’s programming, the language around environmental risk remains politically and emotionally loaded.