Climate change comes to Sesame Street as today’s kids confront 7x more extreme weather

Climate change arrived this summer for the beloved TV characters and landscapes of Sesame Street, in a special episode where Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and friends have to get ready for extreme weather, then learn to help each other through the aftermath.

In the Storm on Sesame Street special, which aired Aug. 3, “Elmo and his friends work together to get ready for a big storm, learning how to be prepared, have courage, and calm their bodies and minds when things feel scary,” the global non-profit Sesame Workshop said in a release. “After the storm passes, Sesame Street looks different, and everyone pitches in to help their neighbours rebuild their homes.”

Along the way, the puppets and two celebrity guests “discover that small acts of kindness, and support from friends, can make the biggest difference of all.”

It isn’t the first time Sesame Street has taken on climate change and tried to help the kids in its young, largely preschool audience find their way through. A previous full-length episode, Sesame Street Gets Through a Storm , first aired in 2001, then ran again in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

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