Elmo Recounts Sesame Street Storm at NYC Climate Week — SkimNews
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- Elmo appeared at a Climate Week NYC event called "Big Storms, Big Feelings," recounting his fear during a Sesame Street storm episode featuring Post Malone and telling the audience: "courage is when you feel scared but you still help others."
- Elmo described helping neighbors clean up after the storm with hugs, xylophone music, and a prepper-style "go bag," adding: "Home is the people who make the place special. So long as you're with the people you love, you'll be home."
- Sesame Workshop VP of research and insight Kim Foulds said a global study found extreme weather's biggest disruption to young children is upending daily routines — lost school time, lost outdoor play, and lost time with friends and parents.
- Foulds noted that across all geographies studied, families reported extreme heat as a universal experience, even where other extreme weather events differed by region.
- Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said the two most important things to share with anyone aged five to 95 are that "others care and there are solutions that work," and that kids grasp that faster than adults.
- Experts on the panel — a climate scientist, a Unicef official, and a young climate campaigner — agreed children can engage in direct actions like planting trees, even as the article notes media and political focus on the climate crisis has waned.
- Sesame Workshop said the study aimed to understand how children make sense of extreme weather and how parents navigate those events across a global, diverse context.
Why it matters: Sesame Workshop is positioning itself to fill a vacuum left by waning political and media attention on the climate crisis, commissioning original global research showing extreme heat and weather are disrupting children's schooling, playtime, and family routines. By recruiting Elmo to deliver that message, the nonprofit is reaching parents through a trusted character at a moment when climate communication to young audiences has no clear institutional leader.
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