Climate Crisis Songs: Music Inspired By Climate Change
Content Warning: Pictures of animal bones.
For Earth Day this year, I wanted to write about something that’s stood out to me as of late: references to the climate crisis in music. Especially on days when the crisis feels extra heavy, whether it’s abnormal local weather or extreme weather in other states or countries, these “climate crisis songs” and their themes appeared more consciously. I wondered if other people felt the same when they heard these songs or if they heard them and sang the words without processing their meanings or feeling anything in response.
So, I’d like to share my thoughts! Please join me as I break down my interpretation of a couple of my favorite songs relating to the climate crisis. Please remember these are my interpretation of things and may or may not have been the artist’s intention. That said, music’s all about how it makes us feel and this is how I relate to these beautiful songs.
And, if you know me, you know I like to dive deep into things in my writing. So what started as a simple, “fun” article quickly morphed into a long, in-depth essay-like piece where I got into the nitty-gritty of the science and data that I related to the lyrics in these songs.
To save you all one long consecutive article to read, I’ll instead publish these as separate parts, focusing on one of the climate crisis songs in each article. So, let’s dive right into this wave of the climate crisis that is the ocean at our door. (You’ll understand that reference by the end of the series!)
We begin with the longest part of the series and the song that relates most to the season we already feel: summer.
Feels Like Summer – Childish Gambino (2018)
MiM Mag does not own the rights to this video or song.
When Climate Crisis Songs Hit Home
This first one has been around since July 2018 but is one of my all-time favorites on my playlist. I don’t think I’ve ever even skipped it once. The whole song is a beautiful commentary on society, but these lyrics, towards the end, are incredibly somber:
“Every day gets hotter than the one before;
Running out of water, it’s about to go down; go down.
Air that kill the bees that we depend upon,
Birds were made for singing, wakin’ up to no sound
No sound.
…
“Oh, I know you know my pain,
I’m hopin’ that this world will change,
But it just seems the same.”
“Every day gets hotter than the one before.”
Applying to the long-term, grand scheme of things, to me, these lyrics coincide with how we’ve seen record-breaking heat every year for the past several years.
Even back in 2018, we were beginning to see the worsening effects of climate change, so Donald Glover shared some profound insight into what our future has now become and is on track for.
In January 2022, the Washington Post reported that new NASA data showed the “past seven years have been the hottest in recorded history.”
The heat waves we witnessed last year made 2022 one of the warmest on record.
“NASA data indicate June through August [2022] tied 2020 for the warmest summer worldwide in records dating back to 1880” [Washington Post].
“Running out of water…”
The lyrics that follow the commentary on our warming planet provide some warnings. As the earth heats up, our available fresh (and clean) water is declining, which will undoubtedly lead to conflicts between people on both a foreign and domestic scale globally.
Major world powers already rush to secure control over the Arctic Circle, where most of the world’s freshwater supply exists as ice (also melting and decreasing in volume).
Aside from that, we are seeing worsening droughts worldwide, threatening water supplies for billions of people. Here in the Southwestern United States, specifically in Southern Nevada, we’re no strangers to drought. After all, it is a desert out here. However, the climate-change-fueled drought we’re experiencing is more concerning than you may realize.
According to Scientific American, NASA climate scientists have determined that the current Western ‘megadrought’ “is the worst in 1,200 years.”
Seeing how badly Lake Mead’s water levels dropped last year, the states relying on the lake and the Colorado River should be extremely wary of how much more severe the situation has become. And while Southern Nevadans are among the best in the nation at water conservation, our neighboring states that share the lake are not as conservative about our water supply. (Looking at you, Utah!)
Without water in the desert, life can’t exist. So the possibility of Southern Nevada residents, as well as people in other states and countries, becoming climate refugees is a potential outcome of the climate crisis in the relatively near future if we don’t start behaving sustainably and acting to address the climate emergency.
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“… It’s about to go down.”
Some Implications of the Climate Crisis
“It’s about to go down” has other societal implications. The civil unrest that will accompany the worsening climate emergency, particularly relating to the issues of water insecurity, food shortages, infrastructure collapse, and subsequent migration of climate refugees, will be unlike anything seen in history. And again, we’ll see this globally, especially in countries expected to see the worst of the effects and displace the most significant number of people.
Water
When I hear this lyric, I think of how very soon (i.e., in the next decade or two, most likely), we very well could be seeing conflicts and even wars over water. The one who controls the water supply (and the food, for that matter) controls the people. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a Mad Max-style dystopian future.
Crop Failures and Food Supply Shortages
Following the loss of water security, with worsening heat waves and winter storms, you can expect crop failures galore and, subsequently, food supply shortages in most, if not all, regions of the globe. And that includes if we can combat the weather aspect with technology like indoor hydroponic farming or other solutions. If there’s no water, there’s no crops. And if there are no crops, there goes everything else.
Whether it’s crops we eat or crops used to feed livestock (and don’t get me started on the amount of food, water, and land usage, is involved with that), if climate change frequently destroys our food supply, it’s going to become nearly impossible to feed eight billion people on this planet. If we don’t get our act together fast, many people will starve—more than they already are.
Displacement of People
Infuriatingly, the people who will be affected most are people living in poorer countries that produce far less emissions than wealthier ones like the United States or European countries. So while wealthier nations overconsume our planet to the point of destruction, the Global South is the one who will be mainly footing the bill, socially speaking. And then begs the question of where these people will go when forced to migrate to other countries.
Infrastructure Collapse
Even here in the States, the people most affected by climate change live in poverty. Additionally, Black Americans and other people of color will be disproportionately affected too. They already are.
For example, whenever a hurricane hits an area, people in poorer regions and their communities may never recover financially after the storm. Hurricane Katrina is a prime example, where many people, particularly Black Louisianans, lost their homes in low-income and impoverished areas. Some places in Louisiana are still abandoned almost 20 years later.
Moreover, part of why Katrina was so devastating was because the infrastructure in place literally collapsed, and their levees burst. And every time a major weather event occurs, infrastructure is destroyed, which is repetitively costly. So if we don’t act to mitigate and prevent climate change induced-infrastructure collapse, we’ll spend more on rebuilding efforts than it would cost to do prevention in the first place. And at this point, we must invest in it more than ever before. (And yes, I mean more than the recent climate change bill funded. WAY much more than that.)
Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like now if we had taken that storm as a warning and had spent the past two decades changing things for the better. Instead, we’ve wasted precious time doubling down on our consumption of fossil fuels and the destruction of the environment.
Loss of Life
“It’s about to go down” is a forewarning that the effects of the climate emergency are already here and that they’re escalating into a conflict that none of us are prepared to handle and that our governments appear resistant to address as if our lives depend on. This should have been an issue that united the world. But we are too stubborn and selfish to learn or act, even to save our own fucking lives and home.
Because on top of all the issues we face in this crisis, there’s one major one that I wish would halt us collectively and motivate us to act if nothing else will. And that is the fact that we’re facing an insurmountable loss of life. From global biodiversity loss to the millions, if not billions, of people who will die directly as a result of climate change, the death toll will be unimaginable. And if that doesn’t wake people up, I don’t know what will anymore.
“Air that kill the bees that we depend upon; Birds were made for singing, wakin’ up to no sound.”
This verse is particularly straightforward; we’re killing off the bees, and not just honey bees but all the native bee species, too. According to Nevada Bugs and Butterflies, “There are 1,000 native species of ground-nesting, twig-nesting, and parasitic bees found within Nevada.”
Not to mention all the other pollinating insects at risk of extinction from the climate crisis, pollution, and other human-caused factors. This, of course, relates back to our food supply. Without pollinators and other beneficial insects, crop failures and lower yields are on the horizon, even without considering the water insecurity we face.
But more than that; insect populations in general are in massive decline. According to NPR, “In 2019, Biological Conservation reported that 40% of all insect species are declining globally and that a third of them are endangered.” And humans will be in big trouble if our little bug friends disappear.
Piggybacking onto this issue is how, as insect species decline, so do birds and other animals that rely on insects in their food webs. The premise of “birds were made for singing“, waking up to no sound” can be haunting to think about, especially with the knowledge that it would be because the birds literally died out.
It’s a special time in the morning when I’m sitting outside in my garden listening to the birds wake up, singing to let each other know they made it to another day. The idea of waking up and there being nothing but silence or cars driving is unnerving and even mildly terrifying to me on a deep level.
“Oh, I know you know my pain, I’m hopin’ that this world will change, But it just seems the same.”
Looking back over the years since this song’s release, it hits home how things haven’t just worsened exponentially on so many levels; we’re actively moving backward on any progress we’ve made. And it’s painful to witness and feel helpless to stop it.
For the past several years, we’ve been rolling back regulations on pollution, limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate in the first place, and counteracting any steps forward towards renewable energy with increased investment into fossil fuels, among other damaging moves and decisions.
Even the recent infrastructure/climate bill Congress passed (a.k.a. The Inflation Reduction Act), which was touted as the “most significant climate legislation in U.S. history,” only invests $369 billion for climate and clean energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This is less than half our yearly defense budget. On top of that, the same bill allows for millions of acres of federal land to be auctioned off for oil and gas drilling and mining operations.
According to Columbia Climate School, “In order to get the unanimous support of the Senate’s 50 Democrats — including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, who has received significant financial backing from the fossil fuel industry — concessions had to be made.”
So while I, too, “hope we change,” the world appears to have learned nothing over the past several years, and things are very much “like the same.”
Some Change to Hope For
That said, locally, here in Clark County, our community is actively trying to take action through the All-In Clark County Climate Initiative. So at least here at home, there is some hope on the horizon.
And as I look towards the impending summer that will likely push all of us to our limits, I’ll sing this song, and my other climate crisis songs, and try not to let the weight of the world or the heat get me down too much.
A Peek at the Next of the Climate Crisis Songs
In the next part of my ‘Climate Crisis Songs’ series, I will break down the song, ‘Split‘ by 88Rising & NIKI. This song will continue the trend of addressing the worsening heat here in the Western United States. And it will cover the flip side of the extreme weather the West witnessed recently: unprecedented precipitation.
Stay tuned, and get ready for another record-breaking summer as it drags us out of spring.
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