Be it Nina Simone and James Brown for civil rights, Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye for the environment, or Jackson Browne and Buffalo Springfield for nuclear disarmament, musicians have long helped push social movements into the limelight.
Today, when it comes to the climate movement, that reality is no different.
Across generations and genres, musicians worldwide increasingly recognize the threat of climate change and are expressing themselves as they know best: through their music.
Though this list is far from exhaustive, these are some of Climate Reality's top musicians discussing climate today!
1. Xiuhtezcatl
Few artists are making music on the climate crisis as vivid and bold as rapper Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh Martinez — a lifelong environmental activist and a trained Climate Reality Leader.
Take his song "Broken," for example.
In just one track, he grapples with (at least) three important truths.
First, the fact that the climate crisis is already taking a devastating toll across the planet:
"While the walls fall and the world burns
Seas rise and the clock turns.
The earth fighting back with hurricanes
And the earthquakes and the pouring rain."
Second, that the climate crisis is an unprecedented intergenerational justice issue:
"How will you look your child in the eyes and tell them
Their future wasn't worth fighting for, could've done more but didn't listen
Didn't wake up, didn't speak up, didn't fight back when there was still time."
And third, that if we can change as individuals and as a society, there is still hope to avoid the worst of the climate crisis:
"The apathy is so poisonous and it's killing us…
Gotta recognize that the change we want in the world has to start inside us…
Fight for what we love, start healing the world's hate.
Build beauty from the ashes after the world breaks.
2. Paul McCartney
In 2018, the legendary Paul McCartney released the album Egypt Station, and with it "Despite Repeated Warnings," a powerful piece that expresses his frustration towards climate inaction.
As McCartney explained to the Sun, this song challenges "[T]his idea of: 'It's all gonna be fine, don't worry.' Oh yeah, sure, there are icebergs melting but it doesn't matter because they're not melting in London, so no need to worry."
What's more, as he goes on to describe, "[T]he person in the song will be symbolic of politicians who argue that climate change is a hoax."
With lines like "Below decks the engineer cries / The captain's gonna leave us when the temperatures rise / The needle's going up, the engine's gonna blow / And we're gonna be left down below" McCartney gives voice to the danger of putting off climate action any longer.
3. Childish Gambino
In 2018, actor, hip-hop artist, and all around it-should-be-illegal-to-be-this-talented Donald Glover A.K.A. Childish Gambino released "Feels like Summer." Though lyrics like "You can feel it in the streets/ On a day like this, the heat/ It feel like summer" initially make this feel like a mellow summer tune, a closer look reveals a much different reality:
"Every day gets hotter than the one before
Running out of water, it's about to go down"
Of course, the song is actually a sobering wake-up call on the climate crisis. Rising heat and vanishing water aren't all that worry Gambino, though.
"Air that kills the bees that we depend upon
Birds were made for singing, waking up to no sound"
As he acknowledges, climate change is already taking a devastating toll on the natural world. Additionally, he repeatedly expresses his lament for our inability to change with the lines:
"Oh, I know you know my pain
I'm hoping that this world will change
But it just seems the same"
We're with you – this is a full-on climate crisis.
4. Jaden Smith
Jaden Smith is another rapper who's been taking on the climate crisis through his music, often teaming up with others to do it.
Take "Boombox Warfare," an activist's anthem Smith made with Xiuhtezcatl (see above).
With lines like, "If I fly as a butterfly in my dream, or a bumblebee / As we going extinct, will we still live on in eternity," Jaden makes us consider the impact of the climate crisis on the natural world and, specifically, on increasingly threatened wildlife.
Be it through his music or through separate activism, there's no doubt Smith shows what it means to #LeadOnClimate.
5. Billie Eilish
Teen superstar and Grammy Award-sweeping phenomenon Billie Eilish is another prominent voice calling on the world to wake up.
Though her activist spirit might show in many ways, there's no question one of the clearest is through her music. Take her song "All the Good Girls Go to Hell."
Really, just a few lines into the song make it clear that this eerie chart-topper is about our warming world and the climate-fueled wildfires in her home state.
"Hills burn in California.
My turn to ignore ya.
Don't say I didn't warn ya."
And just in case the lyrics left any doubt, the video features a winged, petroleum-covered Eilish burning.
6. Neil Young
Throughout his multi-decade career, Neil Young has never been one to shy away from environmental activism. Regardless, it's still exciting to see the legendary guitarist take on climate so directly today.
Just last October he released Colorado, an album lamenting the climate crisis and issuing an aggressive call for action.
As just one example, "Green is Blue" is a mournful ballad about how much time has gone by since we first learned that our planet was warming.
"We heard the warning calls.
Ignored them.
We watched the weather change.
We saw the fires and floods.
We saw the people rise
Divided.
We fought each other
While we lost our coveted prize."
As the song "Shut it Down" shows, however, he's not waiting around any longer and has hope for the future.
Lines like "When I look at the future / I see hope for you and me / Have to shut the whole system down" make one thing clear: Young believes that we can still act in time.
7. Foals
English rock band FOALS is quickly becoming one of the most notorious climate advocates in the music industry.
To see why, you don't have to look much further than Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, an album simultaneously full of electrifying anthems and bold environmental advocacy.
Just take the music video for the song "Like Lightning," where a furry protagonist wakes up society to its mindless destruction of the planet, capturing the band's climate concern and distaste for rampant consumerism.
8. Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey is another high-profile artist that's making climate change a central theme in her music — and many critics are entirely here for it.
Pitchfork Music, for example, recently granted her song "The Greatest" — a ballad that yearns for a simpler past — the number-two spot in its list of the 100 best tracks of 2019.
As the Pitchfork review describes, "In Lana Del Rey's latest song 'The Greatest,' an entire generation is burned out. The world is getting hotter. Hope is a dwindling resource. We don't have much time left… Lana's songs have always sounded like lonely missives from the end of the world with a beachside view; the difference is now we're watching the clock tick down alongside her."
Much like Billie Eilish, Del Rey sings of California's growing fires. Towards the end of the song she wistfully sings "L.A.'s in flames, it's getting hot… 'Life on Mars' ain't just a song".
Del Rey knows what profound changes the climate crisis is bringing and wants us to know it too.
9. The Climate Music ProjectÂ
Who says all climate change songs have to have lyrics?
Really, some of the most thought-provoking music addressing this crisis today is entirely instrumental.
To see how that's possible look no further than the Climate Music Project: a San Francisco group that takes real climate data to produce what could be considered the sound of climate change.
As the group's founder Stephan Crawford explained to the New York Times, "Music is really visceral… Listening to a composition is an active experience, not just a passive one. It can make climate change feel more personal and inspire people to take action."
Snippets of the Climate Music Project's work can be found at climatemusic.org/our-music/#climate.
10. Bon Iver
Bon Iver, a band whose very name is derived from the French for "good winter," is understandably distressed by our warming world.
In "Jelmore," from the 2019 album I,I singer Justin Vernon wrestles with the failures of world leaders to see the danger right outside our window, asking, "How long? / Will you disregard the heat?".
Join the Fight for Our Climate
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You'll learn just how the climate crisis is transforming our world and how together we can solve it. You'll also learn what you can do and develop the skills and know-how to mobilize your friends, family, neighbors, and more to act while we still have time.
As we say, give us three days. We'll give you the tools to change the world.
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- Capturing the Climate Crisis — in Song - EcoWatch ›
A bill that would have banned fracking in California died in committee Tuesday.
The bill, SB467, would have prohibited fracking and other controversial forms of oil extraction. It would also have banned oil and gas production within 2,500 feet of a home, school, hospital or other residential facility. The bill originally set the fracking ban for 2027, but amended it to 2035, The AP reported.
"Obviously I'm very disappointed," State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), one of the bill's two introducers, told the Los Angeles Times. "California really has not done what it needs to do in terms of addressing the oil problem. We have communities that are suffering right now, and the Legislature has repeatedly failed to act."
The bill was introduced after California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would sign a fracking ban if it passed the legislature, though his administration has continued to issue permits in the meantime, Forbes reported. Newsom has also spoken in favor of a buffer zone between oil and gas extraction and places where people live and learn, according to the Los Angeles Times. The latter is a major environmental justice issue, as fossil fuel production is more likely to be located near Black and Latinx communities.
Urban lawmakers who want California to lead on the climate crisis supported the bill, while inland lawmakers in oil-rich areas concerned about jobs opposed it. The oil and gas industry and trade unions also opposed the bill.
This opposition meant the bill failed to get the five votes it needed to move beyond the Senate's Natural Resources and Water Committee. Only four senators approved it, while Democrat Sen. Susan Eggman of Stockton joined two Republicans to oppose it, and two other Democrats abstained.
Eggman argued that the bill would have forced California to rely on oil extracted in other states.
"We're still going to use it, but we're going to use it from places that produce it less safely," Eggman told The AP. She also said that she supported the transition away from fossil fuels, but thought the bill jumped the gun. "I don't think we're quite there yet, and this bill assumes that we are," she added.
Historically, California has been a major U.S. oil producer. Its output peaked in 1986 at 1.1 million barrels a day, just below Texas and Alaska, according to Forbes. However, production has declined since then making it the seventh-most oil-producing state.
Still, California's fossil fuel industry is at odds with state attempts to position itself as a climate leader.
"There is a large stain on California's climate record, and that is oil," Wiener said Tuesday, according to The AP.
Wiener and Democrat co-introducer Sen. Monique Limón from Santa Barbara vowed to keep fighting.
"While we saw this effort defeated today, this issue isn't going away," they wrote in a joint statement. "We'll continue to fight for aggressive climate action, against harmful drilling, and for the health of our communities."
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World's 5% 'Polluter Elite' Responsible for 37% of Global Emissions Growth, Study Concludes
By Brett Wilkins
As world leaders prepare for this November's United Nations Climate Conference in Scotland, a new report from the Cambridge Sustainability Commission reveals that the world's wealthiest 5% were responsible for well over a third of all global emissions growth between 1990 and 2015.
The report, Changing Our Ways: Behavior Change and the Climate Crisis, found that nearly half the growth in absolute global emissions was caused by the world's richest 10%, with the most affluent 5% alone contributing 37%.
"In the year when the UK hosts COP26, and while the government continues to reward some of Britain's biggest polluters through tax credits, the commission report shows why this is precisely the wrong way to meet the UK's climate targets," the report's introduction states.
The authors of the report urge United Kingdom policymakers to focus on this so-called "polluter elite" in an effort to persuade wealthy people to adopt more sustainable behavior, while providing "affordable, available low-carbon alternatives to poorer households."
The report found that the "polluter elite" must make "dramatic" lifestyle changes in order to meet the UK's goal — based on the Paris climate agreement's preferential objective — of limiting global heating to 1.5°C, compared with pre-industrial levels.
In addition to highlighting previous recommendations — including reducing meat consumption, reducing food waste, and switching to electric vehicles and solar power — the report recommends that policymakers take the following steps:
- Implement frequent flyer levies;
- Enact bans on selling and promoting SUVs and other high polluting vehicles;
- Reverse the UK's recent move to cut green grants for homes and electric cars; and
- Build just transitions by supporting electric public transport and community energy schemes.
"We have got to cut over-consumption and the best place to start is over-consumption among the polluting elites who contribute by far more than their share of carbon emissions," Peter Newell, a Sussex University professor and lead author of the report, told the BBC.
"These are people who fly most, drive the biggest cars most, and live in the biggest homes which they can easily afford to heat, so they tend not to worry if they're well insulated or not," said Newell. "They're also the sort of people who could really afford good insulation and solar panels if they wanted to."
Newell said that wealthy people "simply must fly less and drive less. Even if they own an electric SUV, that's still a drain on the energy system and all the emissions created making the vehicle in the first place."
"Rich people who fly a lot may think they can offset their emissions by tree-planting schemes or projects to capture carbon from the air," Newell added. "But these schemes are highly contentious and they're not proven over time."
The report concludes that "we are all on a journey and the final destination is as yet unclear. There are many contradictory road maps about where we might want to get to and how, based on different theories of value and premised on diverse values."
"Promisingly, we have brought about positive change before, and there are at least some positive signs that there is an appetite to do what is necessary to live differently but well on the planet we call home," it states.
The new report follows a September 2020 Oxfam International study that revealed the wealthiest 1% of the world's population is responsible for emitting more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorest 50% of humanity combined.
Reposted with permission from Common Dreams.
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By Paul Brown
It may come as a surprise to realize that a plant struggling for survival in a harsh environment is also doing its bit to save the planet from the threats of the rapidly changing climate. But that's what Mexico's cactuses are managing to do.
Research published in the journal The Science of Nature shows that desert soils supporting a high density of cactus contain large quantities of stored bio-minerals (minerals produced by living organisms), formed by the action of the plants in extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Not only that. Cactuses can also be harvested, processed and turned into a form of leather used to make fashion accessories like purses and wallets.
These two attributes have been turned into a successful business by a Mexican/American company, CACTO. It claims to be the first "carbon negative fashion company in the Americas" − in other words, its activities remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it creates in making and marketing its products.
No Animals Involved
This is a bold claim in an industry struggling with its poor environmental record. According to McKinsey and Co. the worldwide fashion industry emits about the same amount of greenhouse gases as France, Germany and the United Kingdom combined. But CACTO gives Mexico's cactuses special treatment.
CACTO's products are vegan and so allow a growing class of consumers to buy leather objects that are made without any animal products.
The research into the ability of cactus to extract carbon from the atmosphere and store it was carried out on one cactus species, the saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea), which can grow to 40 feet.
It is native to the Sonoran desert in Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora, and shares with all other cactus varieties the same abilities for dealing with carbon. This has proved a bonus for CACTO because cactuses are the most numerous plants in Mexico.
CACTO's plantations are organic, fed by rainwater, free of herbicides and pesticides, and renewable, and after the ears, or leaves; of the cactus are harvested, the plant grows a replacement in six to eight months. This regeneration allows repeat harvesting. The leaves are then sun-dried to avoid using any electricity. The company's products (available only in green or black) are on sale in more than 100 countries.
CACTO was founded by Jesus Chavez, a climate campaigner, and was designed to have sustainability as a guiding principle at the core of its operation. The entire production cycle is closely monitored by its staff, from the sourcing of materials to production, packaging, distribution and shipping.
Through a partnership with a Swiss non-profit organisation, On a Mission, CACTO says its staff have measured and offset 150% of its CO2 emissions through sustainable reforestation worldwide.
The measurement and offsetting process will take place every six months for the next 10 years. Through several emergent partnerships, the company says it aims to offset at least 1000% of the emissions it generates by the end of 2021.
Engaging Entrepreneurs
Jesus Chavez said: "If we want to succeed in reaching net zero carbon emissions well before 2050 and avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we must all work in concert in whatever capacity we are able to.
"Industries across the board need to benefit from existing technology and offsetting programs to become carbon-negative, and to invest in new research and innovation to reach that goal faster. The decisions we make this decade will determine the fate of humanity for centuries to come. It is up to us now."
He said customers around the world wanted alternatives to materials that increased pollution and to unethical manufacturing processes.
CACTO hopes to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs to make clear what has been evident to specialists for decades, that decoupling emissions from economic growth is not only feasible, but is the smartest, fastest and most responsible way to grow. Mexico's cactuses bear a heavy responsibility on their ears − or leaves − or branches.
Reposted with permission from Climate News Network.
Climate change, activities that contribute to it, and dams pose grave threats to America's rivers, according to American Rivers.
The annual report ranks the county's 10 rivers most endangered by human activity that also have a critical decision point coming in the next year that could change the river's fate.
Four dams are choking the Snake River — earning it the top spot in the report — obstructing salmon and posing an existential threat to Native American tribes in the region who depend on the fish for food, culture and their identities.
Advocates are calling on President Biden to remove the federal dams and revitalize the river and its ecosystem.
Toxic coal ash pollutes the Lower Missouri, which also is experiencing an increase in climate-driven flooding, putting it second on the list, while Iowa's Raccoon River, at number nine, faces threats from industrial agriculture.
Between them are rivers befouled by sewage, polluted or threatened by mining, and otherwise dammed or mismanaged.
"Rivers are among the most degraded ecosystems on the planet, and threats to rivers are threats to human health, safety and survival," American Rivers head Tom Kiernan said.
"If we want a future of clean water and healthy rivers everywhere, for everyone, we must prioritize environmental justice."
For a deeper dive:
The Guardian, USA Today, Mother Jones, Reuters, E&E
For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, sign up for daily Hot News, and visit their news site, Nexus Media News.
Japan will release radioactive wastewater from the failed Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, the government announced on Tuesday.
The water will be treated before release, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said the country's plans were in keeping with international practice, The New York Times reported. But the plan is opposed by the local fishing community, environmental groups and neighboring countries. Within hours of the announcement, protesters had gathered outside government offices in Tokyo and Fukushima, according to NPR.
"The Japanese government has once again failed the people of Fukushima," Greenpeace Japan Climate and Energy Campaigner Kazue Suzuki said in a statement. "The government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes."
The dilemma of how to dispose of the water is one ten years in the making. In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan killed more than 19,000 people and caused three of six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to melt down, The New York Times explained. This resulted in the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, and the cleanup efforts persist more than a decade later.
To keep the damaged reactors from melting down, cool water is flushed through them and then filtered to remove all radioactive material except for tritium. Up until now, the wastewater has been stored on site, but the government says the facility will run out of storage room next year. Water builds up at 170 tons per day, and there are now around 1.25 million tons stored in more than 1,000 tanks.
The government now plans to begin releasing the water into the ocean in two years time, according to a decision approved by cabinet ministers Tuesday. The process is expected to take decades.
"On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release," the government said in a statement reported by NPR.
Opposition to the move partly involves a lack of trust around what is actually in the water, as NPR reported. Both the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, say that the water only contains tritium, which cannot be separated from hydrogen and is only dangerous to humans in large amounts.
"But it turned out that the water contains more radioactive materials. But they didn't disclose that information before," Friends of the Earth Japan campaigner Ayumi Fukakusa told NPR. "That kind of attitude is not honest to people. They are making distrust by themselves."
In February, for example, a rockfish shipment was stopped when a sample caught near Fukushima tested positive for unsafe levels of cesium.
This incident also illustrates why local fishing communities oppose the release. Fish catches are already only 17.5 percent of what they were before the disaster, and the community worries the release of the water will make it impossible for them to sell what they do catch. They also feel the government went against its promises by deciding to release the water.
"They told us that they wouldn't release the water into the sea without the support of fishermen," fishery cooperative leader Kanji Tachiya told national broadcaster NHK, as CBS News reported. "We can't back this move to break that promise and release the water into the sea unilaterally."
Japan's neighbors also questioned the move. China called it "extremely irresponsible," and South Korea asked for a meeting with the Japanese ambassador in Seoul in response.
The U.S. State Department, however, said that it trusted Japan's judgement.
"In this unique and challenging situation, Japan has weighed the options and effects, has been transparent about its decision, and appears to have adopted an approach in accordance with globally accepted nuclear safety standards," the department said in a statement reported by The New York Times.
But environmentalists argue that the government could have found a way to continue storing waste.
"Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the long term, they have opted for the cheapest option, dumping the water into the Pacific Ocean," Greenpeace's Suzuki said.
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