Raffi’s New Songs About the Climate/Environment
Posted on August 26, 2019 at 8:15 pm
Raffi has been making families happy with his wonderful songs so long that today’s parents can remember singing along with Raffi with their own parents, probably songs like “Baby Beluga” and “Going to the Zoo.”
His two new songs address his concerns about climate change in a tuneful, frank but hopeful way. “Young People Marching” is a tribute to Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who inspired climate marches by young people around the world. The song begins with her trademark clarity: “There is no middle ground when it comes to the climate and ecological emergency!”
“Do We Love Enough” is a melodic ballad that asks some tough but essential questions that we now face. “With our future in jeopardy … how can the kids dream and plan? … Will we do enough?”
These powerful songs mark an evolution in Raffi’s decades long advocacy for children and the Earth, and in the call for climate action heard in his 2007 song “Cool It.”
In a 2017 essay for NBC news, Raffi wrote, “Kids born today will face unprecedented global crises within their lifetimes, including the possible collapse of fisheries, accelerated mass extinctions, decimation of coral reefs and rising sea levels… Finding a remedy for our species is a matter of survival.”
Once called “the most popular children’s singer in the English-speaking world” (Washington Post) and “Canada’s all-time children’s champion” (Toronto Star), pioneering troubadour Raffi has spent more than four decades delighting successive generations of kids–and their parents– with his playful personality and timeless songs. In that time, he has recorded numerous gold and platinum albums and performed countless sold-out concerts.
Raffi has refused all commercial endorsement offers and has never advertised to children, a distinction for which he received the Fred Rogers Integrity Award. His non-profit Raffi Foundation advances Child Honouring as a universal ethic. An online course in Child Honouring is now offered for parents, educators and policy makers.
“Young Greta is the moral voice of our times,” says Raffi, “urging the world to action on the global climate emergency, the greatest threat to all our lives—a matter of survival.”
, Raffi’s latest album (now available on CD and digital download) is one of his best. The title song is inspired by the owls that call to each other in his back yard, what he calls “the charming hooo hoo.” You can hear them for yourself at the beginning and end of the song. He’s adapted some classics, too. Now it’s the Dog on the Bus, and the Lion Pokey. I especially loved his version of the classic folk song “Abiyoyo.”