Beds Are Burning

No better time to post a video of a song that now speaks to us Pinoys who are in a listening mood, in a language we understand, after the climate lashed out at us in anger the past 2 weeks.  All the yak yak yak about climate change and global warming sometimes falls on deaf ears, especially to the local folk, who have, understandably, more urgent things to worry about, like a grumbling stomach and the lack of a roof above their heads.  But after Ondoy flooded even areas that have never before been inundated by any amount of downpour, everyone’s suddenly thinking, maybe there IS some truth to all this talk about climate change.  Fine, many scientists argue that this is a natural cycle and so forth, but natural or man-made, it needs addressing nevertheless.  And besides, it would only benefit us to change some environmentally harmful ways, with or without the threat of global annihilation.  So with or without global warming, it still makes sense to conserve energy, to use recyclable materials, to dispose of garbage wisely, to reduce our carbon imprint, and so on.  So you can say we’re over-reacting, but IMHO, I’d rather rally behind this cause, than to sit on my ass and wait to see if you’re wrong.

So this December 7, 2009, the United Nations will converge in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the Climate Change Summit to finally agree on a binding climate deal.  In conjunction with this  make-or-break global event, more than 60 artists banded together to cover an 80’s iconic anthem, “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil.  The band members themselves rewrote the lyrics to fit the cause more accurately.  It features artists like Fergie, All American Rejects, Duran Duran, Lily Allen, Mark Ronson, Jamie Cullum, Scorpions, Milla Jovovich, Marion Cotillard, Vincent Perez, and many others, even dignitaries like Kofi Annan and Desmond Tutu.  Not very high-octane celebs, but it’s all good, because the real star of the show is the song itself and its timely message. You can download the song for free and become a Climate Ally at www.timeforclimatejustice.org.

Maybe it’s too late.  Maybe we’ve begun on our irreversible march to self-destruction.  But for the minute possibility that it isn’t, that there are still things we can effect on a global and an individual level, don’t you think it’s a worthy enterprise to invest in?  The song sums it up perfectly for me:

“How do we sleep while our beds are burning?”