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The Sustainable Hour’s musical messages for the planet | Transcript and playlist | Podcast notes
What happens when climate activists turn into songwriters – and then ask their audience to vote?
Welcome to a special musical edition of The Sustainable Hour – our very first Sustainable Climate Song Contest Hour!
This episode is a celebration of the power of music to inspire change, spark conversation, and bring joy into the climate movement. We’ve selected a dozen of our favourite tracks from the 40+ original songs we’ve written and produced since the beginning of 2025 – using the power of lyrics, melody, and yes, even artificial intelligence, to bring sustainability themes into song.
🎧 Listen in – and help us create a Top 10!
Visit www.climatesafety.info/music to hear the full list and vote for your three favourite tracks.
“This is the Geelong version of the Eurovision Song Contest, only with a very environmental slant. So Tony’s got his glitter outfit on. I’m still being very traditional. I’m just wearing a pair of Elton John glasses. But at the same time, we’re very serious about the base topic and we really would relish your opinion on which songs you think are well worth picking up and running with. So please vote!”
~ Colin Mockett, Sustainable Hour co-host
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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Transcript and playlist of The Sustainable Climate Song Hour
Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General: (00:00)
It’s time to wake up and step up
Jingle: (00:12)
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson:
Welcome to the Sustainable Music Hour. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wathaurong people. We pay tribute to their elders past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re broadcasting from stolen land, land that was never ceded – always was and always will be First Nations land. They are the oldest surviving culture on the planet and in that culture lies an ancient wisdom that was honed by nurturing their land and their communities for millennia before that land was stolen. And in that ancient wisdom lies so many of the answers we’re going to need. as we face up to the climate crisis.
Mik Aidt:
Sustainability songs, climate songs. We’ve always here in the Sustainable Hour been on the lookout for that type of songs, like where singers and songwriters would be singing about the same kind of topics that we talk about here in the Sustainable Hour, about making this world into a better, a greener and more climate protecting, safer place.
After the summer break and as we were entering 2025, I thought: let’s take things in our own hands now because we don’t have to sit around and wait, you know, hope for that some musicians out there eventually would begin to write a song that would fit to the topics that we talk about here in the sustainable hour with a clear focus for instance on the climate emergency that we are in. There are so few songs about that. So why not just begin and use this new tool that we’ve all been given at our hands now, AI, where we can produce our own music for the sustainable hour. And in that way we would get songs with precisely that message that relates to the topics we’re talking about.
So we’ve been doing that now for half a year, and we’ve been building up a base, you could say, of 40 songs. They’re all listed on a page… If you go to climatesafety.info/music, then you’ll see a list there of 40 songs which you can play one by one – but you can also… there’s a player on top of the page where you can just click and then it will play all 40 songs in one go.
And here’s the thing: we would really like it if you would help us create some sort of a Top 10 list so we can find out which among all these 40 songs are your favorites and to begin that process, you could say.
We’ll be playing some of our own favorites in the program in The Sustainable Hour here today. We can’t play – of course – all 40 songs in one hour. That would take almost two hours. But what we can do is play the first 10 or 15 of them. And then we are hoping that you would go out on climatesafety.info/music and give us your vote. Which are your three favorite songs?
Colin Mockett:
Yes, this is the Geelong version of the Eurovision Song Contest – only with very environmental sluts. So Tony’s got his glitter outfit on. I’m still being very traditional. I’m just wearing a pair of Elton John glasses. But at the same time, we’re very serious about the bass topic and we really would relish your opinion on which songs you think are well worth picking up and running with. So please vote.
Tony:
Yeah, and I’ve got that glitters in my eyes. So yeah, it’ll be good if let’s have some fun with this. Let’s get some audience participation and see how we go with that.
Mik:
And then as usual, when we get to around Christmas time in December, then we can reveal which of the songs got the most votes and make a little music show out of that as well. But first of all, let’s head straight into it. Are you ready for some Sustainable Hour music?
Tony:
Yeah, let’s have it, Mik!
Colin:
Let’s play some tunes. Sustainable music are our top picks. Starting with…?
Mik:
I think we should start with a recent one that has become, I think, one of our biggest hits so far. It’s the tribute to the American Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. A tribute to his fight for climate safety. He’s held 300 speeches now about this topic and we took his speech number 300 and literally turned it into a song.
Colin:
We should make a point here that it’s US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. It’s not made by one of Australia’s senators. When they come up with something interesting, we’ll include them in one of our songs too. But at the moment, the top pick goes to an American senator who is of course a Democrat.
Mik:
He calls his speeches, ‘Time to Wake Up.’ Here we go.
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Featured songs in this episode:
- Time to Wake Up – A tribute to US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s relentless call for climate accountability
- Be Eco-nnected – A catchy reminder that our connection to the planet matters
- Because Local Matters – A love letter to local resilience and community power
- Demand the Shift – A call for bold systems change
- EV Smile – Celebrating the electric vehicle transition with a wink
- How Many More Must Die – A raw, emotional reflection on climate inaction
- Hush Now Little One – A lullaby of hope for the next generation
- Learn to Listen – A powerful reminder to tune in to nature and each other
- Return Again – A spiritual journey back to nature
- Richer Than Before – Finding abundance in simplicity
- Stand Up – A rallying cry for courage and collective action
- Symphony of the Shift – An orchestral anthem of the green transition
- This Is the Time – A declaration that now is the moment to act
- Starting From Today – A fresh beginning, in tune with nature
- I Heard It On The Sustainable Hour – Just a one minute excerpt
Vote and listen to more songs here: climatesafety.info/music
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Live-streaming on Wednesdays
The Sustainable Hour is streamed live on the Internet and broadcasted on FM airwaves in the Geelong region every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time).
→ To listen to the program on your computer or phone, go to www.947thepulse.com where you then click on ‘Listen’ on the right.
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