I’ll Be Climate Caroling for Christmas

I first discovered a set of wonderful climate carols in early November. They were attached to a Climate Action Families email. I printed out a copy, laid it in a pile of papers, and told myself I needed to plan some Christmas Climate Caroling.

Then a friend wanted to do a Non-violent Direct Action around the holidays and although I didn’t think we could pull it off with a short planning time, wanted to be supportive. I set aside the caroling plan and helped focus efforts on his idea. We gathered folks together on Zoom. We discussed the pros and cons. In the end, we decided to table the potential action to a later date. Some time and momentum had passed, but I still had my desire to sing climate carols.

Then came the request from the Resist Line 3 campaign to join a nationwide call to the Army Corps of Engineers to perform a Federal Environmental Impact Statement. The date was to be December 14th. We had a little over a week to hash out a plan, location, and message. I was thankful for the experience of 350Seattle.org members in helping fit the pieces so quickly into place. It was the first time I was intimately involved with the planning and execution of a large event. I learned a lot.

But while I was busy planning that event, I was not planning climate caroling.

More time had passed. I still really wanted to sing these climate carols in public. I asked a whole slew of people and got the thumbs up from 8. We planned to go on Christmas Eve eve.

On December 23rd we met to sing!

There was terrible traffic getting to the mall, a friend had to drop off some shoes for her daughter at her ex-husband’s house so she was a little late, two people canceled and one unexpectedly showed up.

We had an appropriate level of red and green, Santa hats, Extinction Rebellion flags, and warm clothes. Omicron told us to just go ahead and stay outside of the mall. One friend brought copies of Extinction Rebellion climate carols for us to sing.

Now, maybe this was not our best audience — people willing to go into a mall despite the news of the variant’s high transmission rate, people who felt the need to do last-minute shopping at all. But aside from the manager of one restaurant who thought we were “awesome,” and the mall security who asked us to leave, people didn’t really seem to notice us standing together belting out these tunes. Some walked quickly to the entrance, others came out carrying bags full of who knows what.

To start, we reminded each other of the melodies. Then we sang out of sync, laughed, and started again. We tried different octaves. We moved to different stores when asked. One of us live-streamed on Facebook for an audience.

These were my favorites:

Wake Up!

Tune: God bless Ye Merry Gentlemen

Wake up you sleeping gentlemen

You sleeping ladies too.

There is no one to save us

It’s only me and you.

To halt the march toward tyranny

Abolish corporate rule.

Climate crisis is threatening life on Earth

Life on Earth

Stand up, push, back and fight for all we’re worth.

Wake up you sleeping moms and dads

You gram and grandpas too.

Your kids are marching in the streets

And looking back at you.

They cannot win this fight alone

There’s way too much to do.

Climate crisis is threatening life on Earth

Life on Earth

Stand up, push, back and fight for all we’re worth.

Wake up you politicians

Ignoring this is cruel.

They say we have just ten more years

To banish fossil fuel.

We didn’t vote you into power

To be a corporate tool.

Climate crisis is threatening life on Earth

Life on Earth

Stand up, push, back and fight for all we’re worth.

We’re sorry little children

You did not make this mess.

Our future’s not just in your hands

This sentiment we stress.

To save our world from climate change

We must all coalesce.

Climate crisis is threatening life on Earth

Life on Earth

Stand up, push, back and fight for all we’re worth.

Have Yourself a Capitalist Christmas

Tune: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Have yourself a capitalist Christmas

Buy yourself some crap

Plastic junk all packaged up in plastic wrap

Have yourself a capitalist Christmas

Love is not enough

Family’s fine but what you really need is stuff

Once again record CO2

Gives us déjà vu each year

Buying stuff gives us false relief

From our climate grief and fear

Someday soon we all will face extinction

Unless we act now

But this time of year’s a billionaire’s cash cow

So have yourself a capitalist Christmas now.

After a couple of hours, chilly and ready for dinner, we returned to our meeting point, said our goodbyes, and gave goodbye hugs. Next year I’ll plan ahead sooner and hopefully get some more voices to join us. I hope we also have as much fun as we did this year.

And here’s someone better than us singing Climate Change is Coming to Town

Andrea

December 2021

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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