A Look Inside the Music

There are a few songs that continue to stay in my head when I think about music and the environment.

String Cheese Incident – 100-year flood

“The water's rising and the rain's still coming down, There's a river five feet deep running down Main Street.” By no means have we had anything that compared to the 1993 Mississippi River flood, but this year has seen flooding in many places; Maine, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and other states as well. Recent reports from climate change experts claim the amount of flooding with continue to rise over time. This beautiful song from SCI’s early days tells the story of 1996 flood that resulted in a dam break. We may one day find ourselves redefining what it means to have a 100-year flood as these instances become more frequent and severe.

String Cheese Incident – ‘Round the Wheel

Possibly out of context, but on the opposite end of flooding, this SCI song cries out, “I’ve been waiting for the snow to fall.” As some of the world will experience greater amounts of precipitation, others will face severe drought situations. The ski bum inside of me hopes this never affects any of my favorite places to ski, or some of the places I have yet to try. The emergency preparedness person inside of me hopes that business and residents in these areas have plans in place to deal with such situations or the economy of these Regions will take a big hit. Water is needed for just about everything, snow for the mountains, and the snowmelt to fill reservoirs for drinking, irrigation, industry, and recreation.

Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon – The Grid

“Yes I did, I wanted to find myself, Off the grid.” As energy independence continues to be a national security issue for the United States, our individual energy dependence is a thought provoking topic. What if we couldn’t rely upon the often reliable electric grid. Just as we take for granted water coming out of the tap when we turn the faucet handle, so to do we take for granted the lights coming on each time flip the light switch. Most likely written by Gordon, this quirky tune tells the story of someone not really thinking about not being able to rely on the grid, but someone wanting to get off the grid and away from it all. Our modern urban culture has led to much economic efficiency, but the ability to survive without our infrastructure is something most of us would not know how to do. Is there a critical point where more people will seek a life outside of the city or town? We may already be there as we return to a more distributed electricity generation system with wind farms, methane generation from agricultural and municipal waste, and solar panels in high demand.

“Don’t Let It Bring You Down (Neil Young)”, “Tonight’s the Night (Neil Young)”, for change in a better direction, at least I hope so. Maybe with all of this attention on climate change will take us away from the 80’s attitude of, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough (Michael Jackson).” Regardless, you may as well, “Funkify Your Life (The Funky Meters).”

To reduce your impact on the environment, consider making your next iTunes purchase through Tunes for Trees (http://www.tunesfortrees.com/). For every 10 songs, they will plant a tree and have planted over 2,000 trees since launching Earth Day 2007.

V Festival Goes Green (from DCist)

http://dcist.com/2007/08/06/the_virgin_fest.php

Nobody that went to this year's festival left without learning a few things about environmental consciousness. The program guide informed us that an average festival of this size produces about 192,000 pounds of landfill waste. To get that number closer to zero, there were 50 "waste reclamation stations" around the venue, each with compost, recycling and landfill bins, and volunteers to tell you which receptacle your trash went in (it's worth noting that those volunteers were very well educated on the subject and willing to answer questions and engage in conversation). Cups, utensils and even garbage bags were made from compostable corn, all paper products were made from recycled material, all inks were soy-based, all energy was solar, wind or bio-diesel, and public transportation was encouraged. They even got festival-goers involved with the green efforts by rewarding people who collected empty bottles and cans with prizes from band merch to iPod speakers.

Greening Your Book and Music Collections ( A Fresh Squeeze)

http://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:6513.675661677/rid:b8bee1c44f0b470b80bd4e0470047814

Most of us have been guilty of it at some point or another: scanning our friends' libraries trying to uncover clues to their true nature. But tracks and titles alone won’t tell you how green they might be.

Now, two new websites let you express your greenness while expanding your collection of books and music. Eco-libris, based in California, allows bibliophiles to plant a tree for each book they read. Founder Raz Godelnik explains, “the idea behind Eco-libris is to enable book lovers and readers to take action and to make their reading habits more sustainable.” For $5, you can offset 5 books and plant 5 trees in a developing country.

Tunes for Trees is a similar concept but for music lovers. Started by Live It Green, a Chicago-based company, Tunes for Trees has partnered with iTunes to plant 1 tree for every 10 tracks purchased through the site. The cost of each song is the same, and you needn’t buy 10 to get started. Every track purchased counts towards planting a tree. It’s a simple idea, according to Hans Fedderke, founder of Tunes for Trees. “You’re already online buying music, why not do some good?”

Both Tunes for Trees and Eco-libris took care in selecting their tree-planting partners. Fedderke, whose site works with Trees for the Future, says the group was chosen because of its history and credibility. Eco-libris, according to Godelnik, used a screening process headed by environmental experts to select its three partners. Organizations had to guarantee that the trees would benefit local communities as well as the environment. “We wanted to know that the right species were being planted in the right places,” Godelnik says.

To learn more about Tunes for Trees and Eco-libris, visit their websites. You can also read about their partner organizations: Trees for the Future, the Alliance for International Reforestation, Sustainable Harvest, and Ripple Africa.

Jack Johnson Records New Album In Eco-Friendly Studio (http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=2807)

On the music side of green entertainment, we’re starting to see more artists taking their earth-friendly values away from the tour scene and into the studio. Recently, we talked about a UK group called Razorlight recording a single at a solar-powered studio called The Premises. Taking this a step further is the original “green jammer”, Jack Johnson.

Jack is no stranger to the environmental scene, having been praised for his eco initiatives on the Hawaiian islands many times here. Sometime after his fourth album, the surfer/rock star decided his Brushfire Records HQ in LA needed to be more in line with his green values. Now, as he starts jammin’ away on a fifth LP, the finishing touches are being placed on a new, eco-friendly structure. From the article,

“‘They’re still laying the bamboo floor in the control room,’ Johnson tells Billboard.com, ‘but we’re loading the equipment into the studio and ready to get started.’”

While fans (including your’s truly) are getting excited for Jack’s new release, his commitments to Live Earth will prevent us from enjoying some new grooves anytime soon. Originally slated to headline Live Earth Australia, Johnson is instead one of the leading acts next to Aussie favorite Crowded House. Either way, we can expect the same style and tone that has turned Johnson into a rising star and inspiring activist.

“The new songs, he says, deal with ‘a little bit of peace, a little bit of that feeling of the whole climate change and being overwhelmed by that [and] little sappy love songs, like usual. A little bit of everything.’”

Sounds like easy listening to me.