Culture and Climate Change – Arts

Pop musicians are discovering their environmental awareness. They raise money for the rain forest, go on carbon neutral tours and agitate against the consumer society. The new green-mindedness is changing the entertainment industry.

On this winter day the Tresor offers an unusual sight. At other times, it is dancing to the techno music of the legendary Berlin club that makes the convulsive, strobe-lighted bodies flow with sweat. But tonight the sweat is flowing because fans on bicycles are producing the power for spotlights and cameras: the techno temple has been transformed into a green laboratory.

The idea: the reggae artists Mellow & Pyro wanted to shoot a video clip, but one as carbon-neutral as possible, To this end, volunteers pedaled out the required energy on converted bikes. Additional needed power was tapped conventionally from the socket and amounted in the end to only a single kilowatt hour. The shooting used a total of only 0.93 tons of carbon dioxide, which was itself neutralized by a donation to a foundation. Mellow & Pyro had shot the first environmentally friendly video clip in pop history.

A symbolic action, but it threw light on one thing: in the pop industry too, if comparatively slowly, environmental awareness is asserting itself. Signs of this may be seen not only in dimly lit Berlin techno catacombs, but also in the bright lights on the stage: the Black Eyed Peas support the project “Green For All”, and when New York’s Carnegie Hall invited pop artists to a funding gala for the “Rainforest Fund”, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Sting and many others came in order to raise money for the rainforest.

German musicians have also taken up the cause: in 2008, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, supported by the Green Party, sent some of the most famous German bands on a “Climate Tour”. Relying on their popularity, Wir sind Helden, Mia and Polarkreis 18 set off to put ecological ideas in a positive light for their fans.

That the entertainment industry itself emits huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when often dozens of trucks cart stage sets across the country on tours, the entourages of stars jet all over the world, and tens of thousands of fans travel to open air festivals and set up camp has only recently sunk in. Hence spectacular promotional events and image campaigns are now being increasingly supplemented by quite concrete measures which ensure that the make-believe world of pop glitters greener. This April the Gera Songtage, for example, took the motto “Good climate for good music”. The festival in the Thuringian city gave a platform to the campaign “Climate Seeks Protection” and strove to keep CO2 emissions as low as possible: advertising flyers were printed on recycled paper and visitors were encouraged to travel by public transport.

Green Pop is becoming institutionalized

In Germany pop music’s effort to make its contribution to climate and environmental protection has even been institutionalized: in 2009 the Green Music Initiative was founded “as a national platform to promote a climate-friendly music and entertainment industry”. The Initiative’s most recent action: prior to the presentation of the German music prize Echo, it invited the music industry to a “Green Music Dinner” and, together with “Melt!”, the most famous German indie rock festival, it started an environmental offensive to minimize CO2 emissions from fans and festivals. Even the goth scene, usually interested in more unworldly matters, already has its own environmental initiative: during the wave-goth meeting in Leipzig, the biggest of its kind, “Goth for Earth” organized a roundtable conference. On the flyer, a model dressed in vinyl and leather raised a spade smeared with mother earth.

The subject has also long arrived on the other side of the oil spill threatened pond. Pearl Jam donated $ 210,000 in order to offset the 5,474 tons of carbon dioxide emitted during their 2009 world tour. The money was used to plant trees outside Seattle, the band’s hometown. Pearl Jam knows that this is mainly a question of giving a signal: the climate expert who calculated the volume of CO2 emissions for the band noted that it would take at least fifty years until the newly planted trees would absorb the equivalent quantity of pollutants. Even before this gesture, Dave Matthews, Coldplay, Radiohead and even the Rolling Stones had demonstrated a green awareness with similar actions after concert tours. One of Germany’s best known rock groups, Die Ärzte, has also gone on environmentally correct tours, and the Berlin reggae band Seeed performs only in halls that run on green electricity.

That these measures are sometimes scarcely targeted-oriented and their use for the environment sometimes doubtful is hardly to the point. It is mainly a matter of artists and consumers gaining a clear conscience, and for some musicians it may also in part be about cultivating an image. Caring for the world, it seems, is now considered good form in the scene.

No wonder then that this new awareness of the problems has increasingly found expression in pop music itself. Even a band consisting of comic-book figures cares about the planet: The Gorillas recently brought out a concept album, Plastic Beach, that draws attention to the island of civilizational garbage, now almost as large as a continent, which is drifting across our oceans.

Change of heart in German pop

In German pop music too we may observe a change of heart: in the early eighties a certain Markus could still land a big hit with the refrain “Gib Gas, ich will Spaß” (Step on the gas, I want to have fun) and the legendary electro-pioneers Kraftwerk could pay homage to the “Autobahn”. Today a band such as Wir sind Helden can climb to the top of the charts with a decided criticism of consumerism, and the singer/songwriter of “Alle in einem Boot” (All in the Same Boat) admonishes us to environmental responsibility.

Moreover, Germany can be proud of having produced the world’s first and only green rapper: in his rhymes, Meyah Don sends forth the superhero “Plantman” to fight against environmental pollution and climate change. Yet despite this unique selling point, the rampant bio boom in Germany has passed the Berlin-based rapper by. The 34 year-old Tim Hirschfeld, the man behind this pseudonym, has sold only a few thousand CDs and tinkers parallel on his normal life. As an agricultural engineer, he can perhaps do more for the environment than as a rapper. For all on its own, pop music is hardly apt to save our planet.