Political satire, carnivale, and Australia’s school strike for climate

In this chapter we draw on insights from historians and other scholars who have documented the role of satire in politics. This revisionist chapter draws attention to the contemporary satire and humour used by many young people in climate change politics. We highlight how it works to disrupt long-standing accounts of “the political” as the work of government and other elites who are adult experts. Young people's satire in contemporary climate change action can be seen in the placards, in the visual images they create, in their puppetry, dress-up costumes, podcasts, online messaging, and memes. Their theatrical pranks, tactical “clowning around”, and satires (e.g., TikTok), and speeches all evoke the carnivaleesque spirit of protest. In this article, we focus on the ways humour and satire are used in their signage to establish: what young people themselves say they are doing, how they identify their politics, and why they deploy the strategies they do. In this chapter, we ask how satire and humour work to invert normal hierarchies, provide comic relief from the frightening reality of climate change, while offering glimpses into alternative social imaginaries. In doing so we demonstrate how this action is deeply political.