Restore Nature Now
22 June 2024: The rousing chorus People Have the Power by Patti Smith rang out on Whitehall as sixty thousand marched to demand, in the days before a general election, that the government ATTENDS NOW to the wildlife crisis. Inspiring musician and bard Kimwei led the Climate Choir singing with huge crowds I’m Loving Nature Instead, an adaptation of a well-known Robbie Williams song. In remarkable synchronicity, just after naturalist Chris Packham, hosting the day, had said that a peregrine falcon is occasionally seen above the Houses of Parliament, three peregrines appeared directly above! A line-up of powerful speakers included Nemonte Nenquimo, Indigenous activist from the Amazonian region of Ecuador, Asad Rehman from War on Want, and inspiring 10-year-old Aneeshwar Kunchala who flagged up the risk of extinction for many species, along with organisations including the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts, and direct action campaigners.
Great Big Green Week
9 June 2024: Great Big Green Week is a UK-wide celebration of community action to tackle climate change and protect nature. Here’s Sheffield Climate Choir singing ‘Earth’s Child’ by Emily Roblyn to celebrate Sheffield’s rivers in an event organised with the South Yorkshire Climate Alliance. At Castlegate, looking out over the river, the Sheffield Climate Choir was joined by singers who had been raising their voices as part of the National Street Choirs Festival which filled the streets of Sheffield with music throughout the weekend.
Standard Chartered AGM
10 May 2024: The Climate Choir sang Fossil Fuels are Trouble during Standard Chartered Bank’s AGM in Aldersgate, City of London. Hey Standard Chartered, with everything at stake, it’s time, time to choose what kind of bank you want to be – lyrics adapted from Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’. SCB is currently chairing the Net Zero Banking Alliance with the stated aim of ‘aligning members’ lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050’ – Hey SCB! Wake up! The climate emergency is Now! Your investments in fossil fuels in Mozambique and the Philippines have Zero intention of reducing carbon emissions. Listen to the message and take action towards renewables Now.
Defend Our Juries
7 April 2024: Taking inspiration from the early Quakers’ principle of ‘speaking truth to power’ and the view that juries must be allowed to vote according to their conscience, climate choir singers met at the Monument in the City of London to sing Sing Truth to Power composed by Kate Honey. Defend Our Juries campaign is protesting that climate activists be allowed to state their reasons for civil disobedience (some judges are not allowing this). Choirs joined a silent Quaker Meeting and vigil near the Monument in the City of London. Singers and campaigners then walked to the Royal Courts of Justice bearing banners supporting Defend Our Juries at this vital moment for our democratic processes.
Houses of Parliament
7 March 2024: Stop Rosebank! No drilling in the North Sea! Over a hundred Climate Choir singers entered the Houses of Parliament in an extraordinary action to protest the idiocy of a new oil field that will emit tonnes of carbon dioxide and whose profits will largely go to the Norwegian company Equinor. Choirs from all over the UK surged through Westminster Hall to St Stephen’s Hall near the centre of power as MPs and struck up a Handel-inspired chorus that stopped staff, MPs and visiting public in their tracks. On the day after the budget the message was green energy is cheap and radically more sustainable. The government needs to listen up.
Eradicate Ecocide, The City, London
4 December 2023: Financial decision-makers in the City of London were serenaded with a specially-composed rousing song. Its message: that environmentally-damaging decisions and acts (ecocide) by powerful institutions must be made a criminal offence. Such legislation is already proposed in the UK, also Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scotland. The song ‘Eradicate Ecocide’ was composed by choir leader Kate Honey. The law can get behind sustainable futures and convince financiers to change values and choices in favour of life and futures on earth. Singers marched through the streets of the City to coincide with the COP28 conference in Dubai.
Unite to Survive South West
28 October 2023: Nature, climate and social justice groups gathered to raise the messages that must be central to all on the planet. The all-age crowd marched through the historic city of Bath with around 75 singers from the burgeoning Climate Choir Movement singing of determination to act against polluters and awareness of the intersectional issues facing everyone on the planet. In unison we’re beautiful, harmonies are strong.
Flash mob at the Science Museum
7 October 2023: Fossil fuel funding corporations Adani and BP are sponsoring education programmes and an exhibition on the future of energy – can this be right? Singers massed inside the world-famous Science Museum in London to sing ‘Raise Your Voice’ and ‘The Climate’s Changing’. Visitors in the museum listened and joined in. The message to museum trustees is: get with the message, take an ethical lead, give up the greenwash.
Songs for Gaia at Bath Abbey
30 September 2023: Gaia, the whole earth, suspended over singers from Bath Climate Choir, reminding all of the vital need to protect our planet. The work by artist Luke Jerram, together with songs from forty singers from Bath Climate Choir led by Barrie and Kate, made a powerful combination, enhanced by the historic setting and wonderful acoustic.
Royal Courts of Justice London
26 July 2023: Singers support justice for climate activist Marcus Decker who has appealed against the length of a sentence given last year. The song: ‘The Climate’s Changing What Are We Doing?’ was written by Marcus.