Climate change is typically framed in the language of crisis – rising temperatures, escalating risks, catastropic economic losses. But what if one of the most effective ways to engage people on the issue isn’t through urgency and fear – but humour?
On this episode of the Eco-Business Podcast, climate comedian Stuart Goldsmith talks about a career turning one of the world’s most complex and anxiety-inducing problems into something people can actually talk about – even laugh at.
As climate discourse becomes increasingly polarised, with the environmental, social and governance (ESG) world facing pushback and geopolitical turbulence reshaping the conversation, Goldsmith reflects on whether it’s getting harder to do what he does. From corporate boardrooms – he has done gigs for the likes of Deloitte, Lego, and Ecovadis – to global sustainability events, he shares what he’s seeing on the ground: a shift not necessarily in the work itself, but in how it’s being framed – from “climate” to “risk”, from “sustainability” to “impact”.
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Comedy gets into the cracks and offers a different version of reality. It’s like planting little vines in the brain – suddenly people see things differently.
Stuart Goldsmith, climate comedian
Goldsmith, whose jokes range from the hypocrisy of flying business class to a climate event to how many chief sustainability officers it takes to change a lightbulb, explores what comedy can unlock that traditional climate communication often struggles to achieve – from saying the “unsayable”, to helping people process fear, guilt and contradiction in a carbon-dependent world.
He also discusses the fine line between humour and seriousness, and why making people laugh about climate doesn’t mean making light of it – even in a climate-vulnerable region such as Southeast Asia. “It’s not about making fun of the dark stuff – it’s about making fun of our complicity in it,” he said. “There’s nothing funny about these events – but there can be humour in how we respond to them.”
Climate comedian Stuart Goldsmith. Image: stuartgoldsmith.com
Tune as we discuss:
- Is climate comedy getting harder?
- Should climate comedy now be called something else?
- How is comedy more effective than traditional forms of communication at changing behaviour?
- Are there elements of climate change that just aren’t funny?
- How does comedy get through to corporates?
- How does climate comedy persuade people to lead more environmentally aware lifestyles?
- Climate gags that bombed
Is your job of selling climate comedy getting harder in the current climate?
It depends. I first went to GreenBiz in Arizona three years ago and had loads of conversations, met potential clients, and did plenty of fun shows – mostly remotely. Being able to perform for a group of lawyers in Canada or a partner summit in the US without flying aligns with my aim of not burning unnecessary fuel.
Last year, I had twice as many conversations – but only secured one client. That was when the current US administration had really begun to shift things, and people were visibly shaken – some had just lost funding, including from USAID. The mood was: we’ll keep doing the work, but we’ll call it something else.
This year, there’s more of a sense of regrouping. I’ve even updated one of my jokes. It used to be: how many sustainability team members does it take to change a lightbulb? One – because there’s only one of them. Now it’s: how many sustainability leaders does it take? Still one – but we don’t call it that anymore. Now it’s “risk impact management”. Same work, different label.
I brand myself as a “climate comedian”, but I’ve wondered whether “impact comedian” might be more bookable – reflecting how the sector is shifting away from words like “climate” or “sustainable” towards “risk” and “impact”. I’m not sure it has the same ring to it, but I may end up doing what others are doing: delivering the same message under a different name.
Ultimately, what I want is to talk about climate, sustainability, and how we feel about it – our anxiety, our hypocrisy, our complicity in the carbon economy. That’s more relevant than ever. If I need to repackage it, so be it.
Where does comedy succeed where traditional climate messaging has failed?
I wouldn’t say scientists or policymakers have failed – they’ve moved things forward enormously. In my lifetime, we’ve gone from “there’s no crisis” to “it’s real, it’s serious, and it’s our fault – but there is hope”.
What comedy can do is say the unsayable. It cuts through the careful language – “challenges ahead”, “political headwinds” – and calls out the elephant in the room. It gives people permission to say what they really mean, and a way to talk about difficult things.
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I have been in briefings where interesting, positive messages are being transmitted by the sustainability lead – and the audience are listening as if it’s a health and safety briefing.
It also gives people permission to feel joy. One of the hardest truths is that this is frightening – and we are scared. But fear doesn’t motivate action; it isolates us. We feel guilty, overwhelmed, stuck.
We need hope, optimism, and connection. Every resistance movement has had art, play, and satire. Comedy gets into the cracks and offers another way of seeing things.
My job is often to ask sustainability leaders: what have you been saying for five years that no one’s hearing anymore? I’ll turn that into jokes and put it in front of people so they hear it afresh.
Are there climate problems that are too dark to make funny?
Of course – there’s nothing funny about mass biodiversity loss or people suffering the impacts of climate change. But there can be humour in how we respond to those things – how we ignore them, avoid them, or struggle to talk about them.
Comedy isn’t moral or immoral – it’s amoral. It’s about combining ideas in a surprising way. It can be used well or badly.
The aim is not to mock the tragedy, but to explore our relationship with it – our discomfort, our complicity. If you share a worry with a friend and they make you laugh, it becomes easier to cope.
I wouldn’t go to a climate-vulnerable community and make fun of how severe their circumstances are. Although we’ve seen incredible work in Gaza with Clowns Without Borders, where clowns make people laugh despite the severity of their situations. My role is more about speaking to audiences in the developed world, reminding them that this is already happening to others, right now.
Take something like the minerals in our phones, often mined under harsh conditions. There’s nothing funny about that. But if I can highlight the absurdity – “everyone else’s phones, not yours” – people can confront it without feeling attacked, and maybe make different choices.
How does your work land with corporates?
I often perform at corporate events – long days full of data and presentations. Comedy gives people a release and helps make the message stick. People ask if I’m “preaching to the choir”, but I think that’s valuable – it’s great preaching to the choir. They sing better. If the choir are burnt out and exhausted, tell them some jokes so they’re not so burnt out.
I have been in briefings where interesting, positive messages are being transmitted by the sustainability lead – and the audience are listening as if it’s a health and safety briefing. They blink twice, smile and go, “oh, that seems good.” And then they go about their day.
I can get in there and use comedy to make it feel real and visceral and like it’s something important to the individual.
I’ve got a joke I’m fond of at the moment. Everyone’s panicking about AI. I’ve got this line, which is “AI has an enormous energy and water cost, but it can also help with climate solutions… according to itself.”
I really like that because people in the room, they get what I’m talking about and I’m just putting a lens on a thing that people have thought – observational comedy is all about noticing things that everyone’s noticed, but they haven’t noticed that they’ve noticed.
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Fear isn’t useful.
Saying that stuff out loud, sparking conversations, sparking debate about it, and hopefully that helps to bring the subject to life, make it more meaningful.
As a comedian, I’ve done a lot of corporate work. I love doing it. I think comedians regard corporate gigs as a necessary evil. They think, “oh God, this’ll be a tough gig”. I’ll get the money and I’ll buy myself something nice to stop the doom feeling.
For me, I feel like I’m doing corporate work for the good guys. I love it because trying to push the needle, by supporting the people who are saying the most important stuff.
Has this work changed your own behaviour?
Yes. I started talking about climate on stage in 2021, partly to process my own anxiety. It made comedy feel fresh again.
I always joke about my own hypocrisy first – it stops it feeling like a lecture. For a while, I was making jokes without changing much. Now I’ve made changes: buying second-hand, avoiding plastic bottles, driving an EV, installing solar.
The key is that I’m doing these things because I want to – not because I feel shamed into it. That reflects how we should communicate climate: not by telling people to sacrifice, but by showing why better choices make sense.
Fear isn’t useful. I used to see climate change as terrifying; now I see it as frustrating and absurd – and that motivates me more.
Have you ever told jokes that have bombed?
Constantly. That’s the job. You’re always refining.
Sometimes a joke is too complex – like trying to explain global temperature averages. You risk becoming a “funny TED Talk”, and that’s not the goal. I want proper laughs.
The danger is that climate communicators are often driven by fear, and that can creep into how they speak. You have to process that separately – comedy doesn’t work if you’re still in the raw emotion.
What’s your favourite joke?
Climate’s full of contradictions. I flew to America to speak at a climate conference. I know that’s bad – but it’s better than flying to America and not speaking at a climate conference… like you’ve all done.”
It works because it shares the responsibility – and gets it out in the open.
