No place is safe from climate change these days. Not even Sesame Street, where sunny days used to sweep the clouds away.
On Monday, a fierce storm tore through the set of the 57-year-old children’s show, knocking over lampposts, blowing out windows and scattering debris around Oscar the Grouch’s trash can.
The fictional cloudburst was part of a special episode, “Storm on Sesame Street,” created to help children make sense of the extreme weather that has become increasingly common across the world as the planet warms.
In the show, viewable on Netflix and PBS Kids, Elmo, Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Grover and Snuffleupagus prepare for an incoming storm, then assess the damage after the clouds clear.
Left unaddressed in the episode was where all this extreme weather is coming from, and why it’s increasing. There was no mention of climate change, let alone the fossil fuel emissions that are the main driver of global warming.
Rocio Galarza, vice president of U.S. educational programs for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the show, said the Sesame Street team was well aware of the overwhelming scientific evidence showing that human activity is dangerously warming the planet.
