The problem
Talking about climate change can feel overwhelming and traditional ways of sharing information often fail to connect with people. It’s hard to engage large audiences on such a serious and complex issue.
Goals
Stand Up! for Climate is an academy organized by DISSCO (Dissemination-Science- Communication) that uses humor to make climate conversations easier and more engaging. The aim is to bring on stage diverse voices and perspectives and explore the potential of climate action with participants and members of the audience.
Approach
Stand Up! for Climate is like a school where participants learn to use comedy to talk about environmental issues. The program combines humor, science and storytelling to make climate communication more fun and effective.
- Diverse Perspectives: Participants come from different fields, such as engineering, activism, science and filmmaking. This mix of experiences helps create comedy that reflects many different views.
- Training in Comedy: Participants are trained in stand-up comedy skills like crafting jokes and performing on stage.
- Climate Discussions: They also join discussions about environmental challenges, which inspire the content of their comedy.
- Comedy Show: The program ends with an open-mic comedy show, created by participants, comedians, and climate experts. The show is both educational and entertaining, showing how humor can deliver serious messages about climate action.
Features
The stand-up comedy show help audiences connect with climate issues in a fresh and memorable way. Both participants and audiences reported “aha” moments where humor helped them see climate challenges in a new light.
Lessons learned
Humor Works! Comedy made climate topics easier to understand and more enjoyable to talk about. Also, teamwork matters as including people from different fields enriched the comedy sets with unique ideas.
Find out more: https://dissco.ch/stand-up-comedy-academy/
What you can do
Visit a stand up comedy club. A good laugh is always welcome!