Climate Action
Humor That’s Hotter Than the Planet
November 26, 2025
Laughter might not solve climate change, but it can certainly help us talk about it. Environmental issues can feel overwhelming, instilling paralysis rather than motivation to act. These environmental jokes can be shared to evoke laughter and spark conversations about today’s biggest environmental issues.
We haven’t found a solution for climate change yet, but we’re definitely getting warmer.
The world is warming at an unprecedented rate, resulting in changes to weather patterns and disruptions to natural processes. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events — record-breaking heat waves on land and in the ocean, prolonged droughts, and severe flooding — are increasing.
Additionally, climate change causes changes in natural processes such as patterns of precipitation (rain and snow), the length of the frost-free and corresponding growing season, and the timing of peak river and stream flows. Thus, the cascading effects of global warming extend far beyond hotter days, altering the basic environmental conditions that determine where and how life can thrive.
The ice caps are having a liquidation sale — everything must go!
Since the start of satellite-based measurements in the late 1970s, the amount of sea ice that survives the Arctic summer has declined by 12.1 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average sea ice loss. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, since 2002, Antarctica has been losing ice mass at an average of 135 billion tons per year, while Greenland has been losing about 266 billion tons of ice mass per year.
Additionally, thawing permafrost in the Arctic region releases carbon dioxide and methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that has a warming impact 86 times stronger than carbon dioxide per unit of mass over a 20 year period.
Albedo describes the ability of surfaces to reflect sunlight. Light-colored surfaces — such as ice- and snow-covered areas — have high albedo, reflecting solar radiation. The melting of these surfaces causes more heat to be absorbed by oceans and land areas, causing an increase in the temperature of Earth’s surfaces. This creates a dangerous feedback loop where warming causes ice loss, which in turn accelerates more warming. Unlike retail discounts, these losses are expected to be permanent and irreversible on human timescales.
How many climate change deniers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
What are you talking about? The bulb is fine.
As early as the 1950s, the oil industry has been aware of the connection between burning fossil fuels and climate change, responding to this scientific fact by disseminating climate change denial and disinformation in order to avoid government regulation.
This has involved advertisements with headlines ranging from “Who told you the earth was warming … Chicken Little?” to “Lies they tell our children” that attempt to ridicule and discredit climate concerns. This climate misinformation and disinformation causes confusion and skepticism about climate science, as well as undermines public trust in climate science.
However, the scientific consensus is clear, with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading scientific authority, concluding in their most recent assessment: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”
As the U.S enjoys Thanksgiving, please take a beat to read “6 Arguments to Refute Your Climate-Denying Relatives This Holiday.”
Did you hear about the power plant that was bad for the environment? He got coal for Christmas.
Climate change is primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels. According to the United Nations, fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas — account for around 68 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. These greenhouse gas emissions trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, driving the global increase in Earth’s temperature.
This is why we must transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy and it is why EARTHDAY.ORG designated 2025’s Earth Day theme as Our Power, Our Planet We are calling for renewable energy generation, globally, to be tripled by 2030.
What is a tree’s least favorite month?
Sep-timber!
Deforestation is the intentional clearing of forested land. Globally, an average of 10 million hectares, nearly 25 million acres, of forest are lost each year. Deforestation is primarily driven by agriculture — clearing forests to grow crops, raise livestock, and produce products such as paper. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that 23 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions from 2007 to 2016 came from agriculture and land-use change — approximately half of which is due to deforestation.
On average, forests absorbed more than twice as much carbon dioxide as they emitted between 2001 and 2019. When trees are cut down or burned, the carbon that they have stored is released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Deforestation also causes biodiversity loss, soil degradation and erosion, and disruption to the water cycle.
Please consider donating to our Canopy Tree Project to help us plant trees to combat climate change, protect biodiversity, and support communities worldwide.
Want to learn more? Please watch our free, brand new content series, Underreported Earth: “Tree Tales”, produced with the Pulitzer Center. The series features three in-depth filmed interviews with investigative journalists working to expose deforestation stories, hosted by Tracy McVeigh (Global Development Desk & Editor of Foundations/Philanthropic Projects at The Guardian). Episode 1: Elisângela Mendonça on the collagen industry and deforestation in Brazil, on X, YouTube; Episode 2: Josephine Moulds on how fossil fuel drilling threatens Congo Basin rainforest, on X, YouTube, Facebook; and Episode 3: Ana Bottalo on Brazil’s mangroves, on X, YouTube, Facebook.
How can you tell if the ocean is friendly?
It waves.
Ocean acidification occurs as the ocean absorbs excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, chemically converting it into carbonic acid and lowering the ocean’s pH level. Ocean acidification threatens shellfish like lobsters, mussels, and oysters, as well as plankton, by reducing the carbonate ions they need to build protective shells and exoskeletons, weakening their structures, slowing their growth rates, and increasing their vulnerability to predation.
Around 90 percent of the excess heat from global warming has been absorbed by the ocean, causing the ocean’s temperature to rise. Increase in ocean temperatures causes mass bleaching events in coral reefs.
If I ride my bike twice, does that count as re-cycling?
While individual consumers should do what they can to reduce plastic consumption, corporate responsibility for the plastics crisis must be front and center in any solution. In 2021, researchers discovered that 20 companies alone — including oil and gas giants and chemical companies — are responsible for producing more than half of the world’s plastic waste.
Additionally, fossil fuel companies have spent millions on a decades-long disinformation campaign to perpetuate the myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis, despite there being no economically viable way to recycle most plastics. The reality is that the only way to end the plastics crisis is to reduce plastics production, which is why EARTHDAY.ORG is calling for a reduction in plastic production of 60 percent by 2040.
What do wind turbines think of renewable energy?
They’re big fans.
The alternative to fossil fuels is embracing renewable energy. According to the United Nations, solar is now 41 percent, and offshore wind is now 53 percent, cheaper than fossil fuels. Renewable energy reduces air pollution, creates jobs, and makes economic sense.
This is why EARTHDAY.ORG is calling for renewable energy generation, globally, to be tripled by 2030. Sign our renewable energy petition to call on global leaders to commit to harnessing renewable energy to build a healthy, sustainable, equitable, and prosperous future for all.
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