Climate change has become more alarming than ever before, and these five musicians are outspoken activists who are putting their money where their mouth is.
1. Bjork
Bjork has been outspoken for several years about climate change. Climate change impacts virtually all ecosystems on the planet, from fungi to wild salmon. Bjork has been quite vocal about protesting salmon overfarming in Iceland and even said she greatly admires famed biologist David Attenborough.
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“I always wanted to be David Attenborough,” Bjork said in 2023 after she was asked to narrate a documentary about fungi, Entangled Life.
Bjork has been hard at work to help end the practice of factory salmon farming in Iceland, which has since threatened the country’s wild salmon populations as well as the ecology of the ocean as a whole. She has also spoken about how climate change has affected Iceland’s natural landscapes, as seen in the above video clip.
“We were organic before organic,” Bjork said. “But now what is starting in the last five or 10 years is this open-pen fish farming, basically factory farming.”
2. Paul McCartney
Former Beatle Paul McCartney released the album Egypt Station back in 2018. “Despite Repeated Warnings” is one song from that album that very directly challenges government and cultural inaction toward climate change. McCartney said the song challenges the belief that everything will be fine because nothing noticeably terrible has happened close to home.
“The person in the song will be symbolic of politicians who argue that climate change is a hoax,” McCartney told The Sun.
McCartney has also addressed the European Parliament about the need to combat climate change, as well as a number of other activism efforts.
3. Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish is an excellent example of the younger generation heralding the fight against climate inaction. The Grammy Award-winner included lyrics about California’s wildfires in her song “All The Good Girls Go To Hell”. The music video for the song also featured an angelic winged Eilish covered in petroleum against a landscape on fire.
Eilish has also made it a point to make her music’s environmental footprint as low as possible, in addition to a number of other climate-related endeavors.
4. Neil Young
This entry on our list of musicians who are activists against climate change comes as no surprise. Neil Young has been a real one in the fight against climate inaction for decades. The album Colorado was entirely about the climate crisis and the need for action.
He’s also the co-founder of Farm Aid, a nonprofit that seeks to help small farmers achieve success with clean energy and without contributing to pollution. Young has spoken about environmentalism since the 1960s and has consistently used his platform and fame to do so.
[Buy Tickets To See Neil Young Live In Concert]
5. Bon Iver
Bon Iver is one of many bands composed of musicians who use their art to draw attention to the need for climate action. The band’s 2019 song “Jelmore” criticizes world leaders who continue to ignore the growing need for action. Really, the entirety of the album i,i tackles climate change and the general state of the world.
Photo courtesy of Farm Aid
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