When you turn on your radio most likely you will hear music. A lot of the songs you hear surely are insignificant. Most of them are about the usual issues like love & hate and who is the biggest pimp or has the lowest lowrider… But sometimes you will stumble upon a song that contains more than just blah blah. We are talking about popular music refering to climate change and how humans have an impact on the environment. Here's a short list that definitely needs to be extended. So if you know a song that matches this list, add a comment and let everyone know!

The first song we would like to present is from some time in the 80s by a band called Tower of Power. The idea is pretty easy to get: Stop driving that much, oil won't be available forever: "There's only so much oil in the ground / Sooner or later there won't be much around / Tell that to your kids while you're driving downtown / That there's only so much oil in the ground"

Punkrock of course is the class A music for controversial issues and Bad Religion is the band if we are talking about fairness, human rights and, obviously, climate change.

Cake on the other hand are more plain and simple:

"Car after bus after car after truck / After this my lungs will be so f*** up…"

Depeche Mode, the synthi-gods of ancient music times have written a song that is quite catchy as well. It says: "The landscape is changing, the landscape is crying / Thousand of acres of forest are dying…" Sounds pathetic in a way but who cares if the message is delivered right, right?

And last but not least the old but still heavy Heavy Metal band Megadeth has a heart for biodiversity. The song "Countdown to extinction" is a call to save the animals of our planet (because they can't take revenge for themselves). We don't know if the WWF would like this kind of music very much. Anyway, here's a quote from the lyrics: "Endangered species, caged in fright / Shot in cold blood, no chance to fight…" The song goes on with a martial (and metal-like) description of mankind: "You pull the hammer without a care / Squeeze the trigger that makes you Man…" Hell, yeah!

Do you know more songs like these? Do let us know! 🙂 You can add a comment right here with YouTube links to your favorite climate song or video.

When the Berlinale, Germany's biggest film festival, takes place early every year even Hollywood is stopping by. For ten days lots of well known actors and directors are giving the capital the shiny flair of a movie metropolis. The eyes of the media are on Berlin.

Could you imagine a setting more fitting to highlight the importance of saving our climate?

That's why the festival is accompanied by a huge display of the iconic "HOLYWOOD" lettering from the Hollywood hills – in the "Tiergarten" park in Berlin's center. Artist Ralf Schmerberg has build up the installation to support the initiative "10,000 Trees for Berlin" and a book about the forest. The installation will be at the Tiergarten until the 20th of February 2011. You will hardly miss the sign between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburger Gate, because the letters are huge, 13 meters tall and all together about 53 meters wide.

So, what is the initiative meant to achieve? Well, 10,000 trees are currently missing on the streets of Berlin. The NGO's plan is to fill the empty spots in the city with new trees. Everyone can participate by sponsoring one or more of the missing trees. Trees are valuable and wood is holy, so to speak – hence the apparent misspelling in the sign.

For more information please visit the project's website.

Angella Katatumba is the International climate change icon in Uganda, appointed by the British Council. The idea of the song and the appointment of course is to make climate change an exciting topic to the young people.

Here's a short interview with Angella featured at the Pied Magazine, an african eco online mag.

More detailed informations are available at musicuganda.com, a pretty interesting website that claims to be Ugandas leading music and entertainment website.