Do you ever get a holiday song stuck in your head? Whether you love them or hate them, those tunes really are catchy! Hearing the same earworms over and over each year has inspired me to launch the Climate Song Parody Challenge.
The rules of the Climate Song Parody Challenge are simple. Take a popular song and make it about the climate crisis or climate justice. This can include any aspect of the problem and its solutions. Example topics include greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel corporations, dirty energy subsidies, fracking, the systemic racism of the climate crisis, youth climate strikes, renewable energy, community solar, green jobs, the Green New Deal, and so on.
From mid-November to New Year’s Eve, the main emphasis of this challenge is winter holiday music. All of your favorite (or least favorite!) holiday classics can become climate ballads. For the rest of the year, any pop song is fair game. All you have to do is add or modify words to turn it into a song about the climate crisis or climate justice.
Do you have a climate song parody? Share your creation on social media using the hashtag #ClimateSongParody. If you like my #ClimateSongParody image, you can use that too. I’ll pick my favorites to highlight on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I also co-host a radio show called Your Community Spirit on Friday mornings at 10 a.m. Central on WDBX. If I see any really exciting climate song parodies, I’ll share them on the radio too (with your permission).
You can share your climate song parody in whatever form you like. At a minimum, please share the full lyrics, including your modifications. If you’re feeling bold, post audio or video of someone (you or a friend) performing the song. Viral videos featuring climate song parodies would be a great way to break the climate silence!
If you’d like some inspiration, please check out my submission for last year’s challenge: I Want Climate Justice For You. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing your climate song parodies!
My name is Treesong. I’m a father, husband, author, talk radio host, and Real Life Superhero. Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Ko-fi for my latest climate fiction releases and superhero adventures. Sign up for my newsletter to receive free cli-fi in your inbox. Check out my bookshop for climate change books, including both climate fiction and climate nonfiction!
