Climate change lingers, increasingly threatening life around the world, and electronic pop duo Marian Hill fronted by vocalist Samantha Gongol and beat-smashing producer Jeremy Lloyd is using its platform to prompt their fans to get down with climate change.
“The problems can feel a bit overwhelming, and it feels good to get people involved,”Gongol said.
Marian Hill, whose single “Down” rocked to #1 on iTunes Electronic single chart, joined forces with CLIF GreenNotes and the Nature Conservancy on the Get Down With #ClimateChangeFacts campaign to bring attention to climate change so their fans can become involved in combating it. CLIF GreenNotes helps artists like Marian Hill and Bon Iver utilize their voice along with nonprofits to fight for social change. The Nature Conservancy is a global charity that addresses threats to conservation involving climate change, fire, fresh water, forests, invasive species, and marine ecosystems— aided by more than 500 staff scientists.
Marian Hill gave incentives to its fans like winning meet-and-greets with the band, concert tickets, band merch, and other prizes if they posted videos with climate change facts using the #ClimateChangeFacts hashtag. Fans responded well to the campaign, posting their own videos, helping spread the message about climate change to over 3 million people across social media platforms.
“It’s nice to see that fans care and feels good to get people involved,” Lloyd said.
Although they are musicians, they see their platform as a great opportunity to speak up about climate change. They have both personally seen the effects of climate change. Gongol spoke of a recent trip to Western Washington, an annual camping trip she takes with her family. She described sometimes not being able to make this trip due to forest fires and the devastation of actually seeing houses having to be rebuilt after having been burned down.
Lloyd talked of his friends in Denver dealing with Japanese beetles killing vegetation there and how this increase in Japanese beetle destruction is related to climate change.
In their climate change video and during a recent interview, they mentioned the disproportionate effects of climate change on poor people and people of color and the challenges this brings.
“When people are struggling to pay rent, it is hard to worry about energy efficiency. More energy needs to go into making these measures affordable,” Gongol said.
The website climatechangefacts.earth compiled by Nature Conservancy scientists and researchers is where Marian Hill fans can post their videos. It also gives facts about climate change related to the world’s richest countries being among the biggest carbon emitters while the burden is on the poorer countries. The website also dispels myths.
Lloyd hopes that exposing people to these facts will prompt them to take action.
“Everybody has a voice, even those that don’t have the same platform that we do,” Lloyd said.