BP backlash and Extinction Gongs: can climate art save the world?
(The Guardian Culture News)

Artists have long struggled to make environmental activism cool. A new wave of culture could make a difference In 2015, the United Nations feared that the climate crisis was reaching a point of no return, threatening our very existence. With the Paris summit round the corner and a rare opportunity to get world leaders to commit to meaningful change, it needed a way to get the message out to every citizen in order to save the world from global catastrophe.Its answer? To commission a song featuring Paul McCartney, Fergie from Black Eyed Peas, Natasha Bedingfield and Jon Bon Jovi, artists whom one must presume were chosen because their careers were in similar danger of extinction. Their effort, Love Song to the Earth, has a melody-agnostic chorus that goes: `Looking down from up on the moon, it´s a tiny blue marble / Who´d have thought the ground we stand on could be so fragile?` The song did not chart in any country. Continue reading...