Show Your Stripes Day is an environmental awareness commemoration where the world gathers to see how much the planet has warmed since 1895. It was first held in 2017, with landmarks lit up with colored “climate stripes” representing an area’s warming patterns. The seventh anniversary came this past June 21, and the United States had many of its most famous stadiums and infrastructure lit up with regional climate stripes.
On June 20, landmarks in Philadelphia; Baltimore; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Oklahoma City; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Minneapolis; Houston; and San Diego were illuminated by their respective red and blue lights. This effort was possible thanks to the work of Climate Central, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reporting news about climate science. Stadiums like Lincoln Financial Field were lit up, and bridges like the Dublin Link Bridge in Ohio were, too.
Photo Courtesy Climate Central
“As we are an independent group of scientists and communicators focused on producing and disseminating localized and visual content about climate change, it was a natural fit for us to help lead the efforts of Show Your Stripes Day,” Lauren Casey, meteorologist at Climate Central, said in a press release.
“The warming stripes powerfully illustrate the rise in average temperature, and the unique ability to localize them to individual cities makes it possible to customize the stripes’ graphics for each city.”
Ed Hawkins, a University of Reading professor and climate scientist, invented the climate stripes campaign. The stripe graphics are based on an almanac of temperatures from the late 19th century to today, showing the Earth’s warming patterns. Temperatures have risen the most from the turn of the 21st century onward.
“The warming stripes are all about making it easy for everyone to see and understand the impacts of climate change,” Hawkins explained.
Last year, the White Cliffs of Dover were lit up with Kent, England’s, climate stripes. Schools in Reading and Wokingham, United Kingdom, came together for a Youth Climate Summit and gathered at Reading Football Club’s stadium to display them. The graphics were also featured on the front of the football club’s kit (jersey).
Envision Racing’s Formula E car has included climate stripes on the paint job. The move came after Youth Day at COP28 and first appeared in Mexico City when the Formula E season began in January 2024.
It included a feature film with Hawkins’ narration. The goal is to use the car and racing league as a climate awareness tool.
Photo Courtesy University of Reading
Other Show Your Stripes Days include the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, lit up with the city’s climate stripes, Times Square in New York City, and the Alabama Tower in Montgomery, Alabama.
A petition to the White House asked them to display the stripes on the presidential resident to bring attention to the real risks of global warming. The current administration has passed the Inflation Reduction Act, signaling the most comprehensive commitment to climate action at the federal level in U.S. history. This petition is being led by climate scientists and thought leaders and The Climate Reality Project, Al Gore’s nonprofit. “It is about making the data accessible to everyone, not just climate scientists, and bringing everyone into the climate conversation so we can all work together, collectively, to demand systematic action,” Hawkins said.
