I’m a 26-year-old musician and I’m part of a generation that has inherited a profoundly serious problem – the global environment is tapped out and on the verge of collapse. Our oceans are heavily polluted and overfished, climate change is happening faster and more aggressively than most scientists anticipated,
and we seem to be in the stranglehold of multi-national corporations and special interest groups, hell bent on maintaining the status quo.
The problem is that the status quo is completely unsustainable. Our over-consuming, infinite growth-oriented society makes no sense on a planet with finite resources and will surely leave my generation and future with severe challenges. Food scarcity, water shortages, and an increasingly hostile global climate system are an impending reality if we continue on our current path. The good news is that there are plausible solutions. We just need to assert the collective will to act right now.
Three years ago I was like many other people my age – I had respect for the environment but had no idea of the dire straits our planet was in and just how much was at stake. My time was divided between working a day job to pay bills and pursuing my passion for music on my days off. This was the formative period of Mindil Beach Markets, a rock band I started with some of my childhood friends. When selecting our band logo, we stumbled across a jellyfish, and aside from being a majestic and visually stunning image, we learned that the jellyfish is a powerful symbol for the fragility and declining health of our world’s oceans.
Jellyfish are an indicator species; changes in their populations represent greater changes in the ecosystem. Around the world today, jellyfish are thriving in record numbers due to a global increase in ocean temperature and acidity (conditions in which jellyfish thrive) and the relentless overfishing of their predators.
Growing up on the serene Sunshine Coast in BC with the mountains and beaches as our backyards, my band mates and I shared a deep appreciation for the natural world. As our fan base grew, so did a desire to spread a message and make a positive contribution to the environment.
The Jellyfish Project
In 2012 we created The Jellyfish Project, an educational initiative focused on generating awareness among youth about the declining health of our world’s oceans and our environment at large. Through the power of music and live performance, students are engaged in environmental conversation and are given information on how to become active participants in the sustainability movement.
Available free of charge to all Canadian middle and high schools, a typical Jellyfish Project presentation begins with a high energy show by our band, Mindil Beach Markets. The performance grabs the students’ attention, earns their respect, and serves as a perfect segue into our important environmental messages. Delivered through a captivating slideshow, including images, animations, and videos, we present a stunning portrayal of the environmental crisis our planet is currently facing. Students are educated on topics such as overfishing, plastic pollution, and climate change.
Last fall we took The Jellyfish Project from Vancouver to Halifax and brought our environmental messages to over 35,000 Canadian students. We invited students to join the environmental movement and engage in activism with the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (CYCC), one of our partner organizations. We’re home in BC now. 90 days, 12,300 km round trip, 62 high school presentations, 21 bar shows, 2 moose sightings, at least 100 chicken shawarmas, and only 1 RV breakdown. What a trip!”
As we say during our presentation, “music has always gone hand in hand with the revolutions and movements of the past, and it’s our job to continue that tradition and spread awareness of the most essential revolution of our time: the transition to a fully sustainable existence of human beings on planet earth.” This is a sobering reality and it’s something we spent hours pondering during our long drives in the RV.
Cornerstone of Change
We are living in a truly pivotal time in history. Human civilization is faced with a simple choice: evolve and transition smoothly into a sustainable way of being, or face certain catastrophe as the effects of climate change and the myriad of associated environmental realities worsen and inevitably envelop every corner of the globe. Some might call me an alarmist for such statements, but when current biological indicators and the unilateral confirmation of this crisis by the world’s foremost scientists are taken into account, any informed (and uncorrupted) individual will agree. Unfortunately, this choice isn’t so simple. We are still heavily entrenched in an archaic system that is controlling mainstream media and keeping the general public in the dark about the defining issues of our time. This system is effectively preserving the bottom lines of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of our planet and future generations. We can’t let this happen.
We believe quality education to be the cornerstone of change. When a person has the good fortune of achieving a thorough understanding of the depth and breadth of the problem, it’s nearly impossible not to care and be motivated to become part of the solution. As Einstein said, “those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.” And they are acting. Due to the rising popularity of social media and web video (which we can now access from our smart phones) critical information is spreading like never before. This unprecedented access to information is changing the very fabric of our culture and is proving to be a massive force for global action and change, significantly increasing the reach and impact of many new movements. It’s a very exciting and a very important time to be alive.
Music With A Message
Our days on tour can be long and gruelling, but we are fuelled by the mutual satisfaction that we are engaged in extremely important work and that our message is being heard. Personally, I feel excited and energized and have just come off of what I would describe as one of the best summers of my life.
It was a transformative season of profound realizations and epiphanies, the most significant of which being the decision to invite other bands to join The Jellyfish Project, exponentially increasing the reach and impact of our program. We believe that many bands are aware of these issues and care deeply about the state of our environment, but don’t know how to be a part of the solution in an impactful way. The Jellyfish Project provides an answer to this need and will give bands a number of realistic opportunities to meaningfully engage in the environmental movement.
Although our organization has achieved tremendous recognition and success in its short life, we have not yet scratched the surface of its potential power.
The universal language of music is something that reaches almost all people regardless of age, gender race or religion. Adored by endless millions worldwide, music has the power to save lives and change the world. It has been and will continue to be the voice of generations. The inspirational power that musicians have over their legions of loyal fans is unmatched in any other field of entertainment; many groups have achieved god-like status in the eyes of their followers and have an incredible ability to be a major influence in their lives.
It is the belief of The Jellyfish Project that the mobilization of the music industry to promote environmental awareness and activism could be the catalyst to the tipping point for the most essential revolution of our time: the transition to environmental sustainability.
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Daniel Kingsbury is the Executive Director of The Jellyfish Project and vocalist and guitar player in the band, Mindil Beach Markets.
www.thejellyfishproject.org
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