Shows
Cool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 33Episode 33 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet strikes a somber note to the chaos unfolding in our streets – violence led by agents of destruction wearing ICE uniforms. These are dark times in our country, around which we hope music can shed some light, echo what’s in our hearts, generate a little catharsis, and maybe even light a spark of resistance.
2026-02-0119 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCoolTunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 32Episode 32 is an in-depth profile of bassist, composer, and activist Jason Davis, who started the Climate Stories Project as a way to help people discuss climate change and how it manifests in their own lives. Since its inception, the Project has collected personal narratives of climate change from all over the world. As a composer, Jason began creating musical settings for some of these narratives, creating uniquely intimate and revealing soundscapes that infuse our understanding of climate change with empathy and emotional depth. Host Warren Senders' lengthy interview with Jason is interwoven with excerpts from his compositions.Mu...
2026-01-1546 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 31Episode 31 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet meets the New Year with new resolve to inspire all our listeners to do something healing for our planet. It can be making “good trouble,” as John Lewis once told us; it can be raising awareness with song; it can be coming together in community. Or simply being a caring person to those around you. We dedicate this episode to the future.
2026-01-0222 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 31Episode 31 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet meets the New Year with new resolve to inspire all our listeners to do something healing for our planet. It can be making “good trouble,” as John Lewis once told us; it can be raising awareness with song; it can be coming together in community. Or simply being a caring person to those around you. We dedicate this episode to thefuture.
2026-01-0122 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 30Episode 30 (Season 2) is a profile of the legendary activist collective The Church of Stop Shopping, led by Reverend Billy (William Talen) and Savitri D. Beginning with anti-consumerist actions in New York's Times Square in the 1990s, the church grew into a powerful performing force, with infectious gospel grooves, dozens of voices in harmony, and Reverend Billy's heartfelt, eloquent anti-consumption message delivered in true prophetic voice. Warren Senders' interview with Reverend Billy and Director Savitri D is interspersed with video of the Church's music-filled activism and activism-filled music, and supplemented with historical and cultural context.
2025-12-1546 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 29Episode 29 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet enters the holiday season with songs and talk about coming together to make things better. Whether it’s finding peace in sharing voices musically, even in the midst of war; of joining hands to combat social injustice; of convening world leaders to confront climate change; or just helping each other through the dark times of recent decades. We enjoin you to dispense with the consumerism of the season, and spend quality time with those you love. Share more – buy less. And have a happy holiday.
2025-12-0123 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 28Episode 28, "Thinking About Farms," hosted by Warren Senders, features a long interview with NYT Bestselling author Michael Grunwald about his new book, "We Are Eating The Earth," which examines the problematic role of our farming and agriculture systems in climate change. Grunwald's perspectives are interwoven with examples of music from all over the world on farming and agricultural themes. You'll never think of farms and farmers the same way ever again!—— Music and Video ——"Land Is Not Free"Grant LivingstonJuly 14, 2025Books & Books, Miami, FLMichael Grunwald InterviewRecord...
2025-11-1547 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 27Episode 27 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet starts out with a song about ordinary Americans banding together this month to celebrate No Kings Day. But most of the show will be focused on the disparity between the obvious importance of food and farming, to the struggles that farmers have faced every day for over a century – from sharecroppers to struggling family farms, to the plight and heroism of Hispanic farmworkers in today’s fields. Along the way we’ll hear short clips from an interview with Michael Grunwald, author of We Are Eating the Earth, sharing a new perspectiv...
2025-11-0125 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 26Episode 26 profiles the Climate Music Project, a San Francisco-based team that brings together scientists, musicians, and graphic artists to create new ways to communicate climate science. The CMP's innovative multi-media presentations offer hard data with an emotional score and compelling visuals to transform audience members' personal engagement with climate change. We feature interviews with co-founders Stephen Crawford and Fran Schulberg, climatologist Garrett Boudinot, and composer Erik Ian Walker, along with excerpts from five of the CMP's groundbreaking pieces.Music:"What If We Change?"composed and performedby Wendy Loomiswith Royal Kent"Why Does The S...
2025-10-1545 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 25Episode 25 is a mixed bag of tunes, starting out with Pay Attention by Joyce Johnson Rouse, singing with her group, Earth Mama. It’s a simple – even childlike – doo-wop kind of song that asks us to pay attention to the earth, and all the wonderful things it gives us. But it also makes clear our responsibility to keep it clean and whole.Building on Earth Mama’s insistence to take responsibility for our planet, next is Crys Matthews, singing her Waking Up the Dead, a song about our generational responsibility to the slaves, some dead hund...
2025-10-0120 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 24Episode 24 — "Old and New Sunlight"When we remember that fossil fuels are simply the sunlight that fell on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, it changes our perspective on energy use. It's ALL solar power; the only difference is whether it's old or new. All these forms of energy have their own music, and this episode of "Cool Tunes For A Hot Planet" brings together songs of coal miners and anti-mining activists, the songs of oil drillers and of those fighting to preserve their lands, the songs of anti-fracking campaigns...and songs from all over the world in a...
2025-09-1543 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Season 2 Episode 1Airing September 1 is a special edition of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet - it's our one year anniversary. We're offering an expanded show this time, with each of our producers looking back on what we've accomplished, and presenting a variety of music videos that stand out as representative of the year gone by. Some of the songs are reprises from earlier episodes, others are new. And for the centerpiece of the episode, we are proud to present an interview with the renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, Third Act, and author of numerous globally recognized publications about clim...
2025-09-011h 16Cool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For A Hot Planet-Episode 22Episode 22: Music Beyond Humanity — A Profile of Inter-species Musician David RothenbergClarinetist, author, and philosopher David Rothenberg has spent his life making music far removed from the usual contexts of performance stages or recording studios. Rothenberg's collaborators have included cicada swarms, katydids, nightingales, lyrebirds, warblers, whales, and dolphins. His experiences have given him a unique and valuable perspective on our human musicality and how it relates to the totality of Earth's ecosystems. In this episode we hear David interacting musically with his non-human collaborators, and thinking aloud about what they have to teach us in a time of cl...
2025-08-1545 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes for a Hot Planet-Episode 21The August episode of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet is a somber one, commemorating the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945, ending World War II and unleashing the atomic age. Our feelings about that momentous event have evolved over time, from triumph to uncertainty to horror - and our music has reflected those changes: country songs with pride and religious fervor, pop songs with dark humor and irony, folksongs of protest, jazz and classical both elevated and discordant, reflecting the anxieties of a world facing potential nuclear extinction. This month's show presents a powerful se...
2025-08-0127 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For A Hot Planet-Episode 20"Thinking About Woody" offers a cornucopia of perspectives on the life and legacy of the great American balladeer Woody Guthrie. Interviews with Guthrie scholars Will Kaufman and Gus Stadler are interwoven with spoken and musical excerpts from Woody himself as well as Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Mile Krajina, Adama Kammisoko, John McCutcheon, Joshuah Brian Campbell, Watermelon Slim, Tantrum Zentrum, David Amram, Sihasin, The Missin' Cousins, Tim Grimm, Keith Secola, Benya Stewart, and the Resistance Revival Chorus with Rhiannon Giddens.At the Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet website, you can find full information about the sources of...
2025-07-1547 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 19This episode of Cool Tunes for a Hot planet is all about the power of music to help bend the arc of the moral universe. Today we highlight songs about social injustice, asking questions like who are we, and where are we going? Song is the most sacred form of peaceful resistance, and we need to sing it over and over, as was done during the Civil Rights movement with the anthem We Shall Overcome - a song we'll take a deeper dive into, looking at its cross-cultural importance as far away as India - and ending the episode...
2025-07-0131 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 18Changing the climate conversation in India! Episode 18 features passionate performances of Indian classical music in wild settings: rainforests, riverbanks, beaches — and the musicians' fascinating conversations with Indian environmentalists and scientists — all documented in beautifully producedvideo. We profile the "Blue Planet" project, from the Mumbai-based video production group First Edition Arts, under the direction of Devina Dutt.Musicians include:Ramakrishnan MurthyPantula RamaNAVA featuring Christopher Gurusamy and Vignesh IshwarBudhaditya MukherjeeWaseem Ahmed KhanVishnudev KSTM KrishnaUday BhawalkarDe...
2025-06-1541 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 17The theme of episode 17 is "Planting Hope," which is much needed now. There are four songs in this episode. The first is Mark Lagerwey's "Plant a Tree," which reminds us, if we want to leave a viable planet for our children and our children's children, we need to think on the time scale of the trees, some of which can live for hundreds of years -- if we don't cut them down or create unsustainable conditions. We can find a better balance and a purpose through thoughtful stewardship. Mark suggests, "Plant a Tree."
2025-06-0122 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 16Cool Tunes For A Hot Planet Episode 16 is all about bees. This fascinating 40-minute video/podcast shares songs and instrumental music from all over the world, along with interviews, history, facts and faces. Meet Rev. Charles Butler, who transcribed honeybee music and turned it into a choral fantasy...in 1609! Meet Bramhari Devi, the bee goddess of India. Listen to "Burt's Bees," an original piece by world-famous composer Terry Riley.Three special guests: bumblebee scientist Jessica Braun, honey expert Brian Woerner, and apiculture historian Jennifer Richards. Hear music from:Henry Barnes (old-timey fiddle)
2025-05-1542 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 15Episode 15 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet kicks off May 1st. May Day has been celebrated for centuries as a celebration of rebirth, fertility, and the mystery of life - and then a further declaration of workers' rights since the late 19th century. But in addition to name-checking May Day, today's episode presents songs by singer-songwriters from MusicToLife.org - a nonprofit organization that mentors young musicians with a mission to work in their communities for social and environmental justice. Songs include Walkin' the Hi-Line, by Jocelyn Wilkinson and Don Barrozo, a story-song about Don's immigrant father working on th...
2025-05-0231 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 15Episode 15 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet kicks off May 1st. May Day has been celebrated for centuries as a celebration of rebirth, fertility, and the mystery of life - and then a further declaration of workers' rights since the late 19th century. But in addition to name-checking May Day, today's episode presents songs by singer-songwriters from MusicToLife.org - a nonprofit organization that mentors young musicians with a mission to work in their communities for social and environmental justice. Songs include Walkin' the Hi-Line, by Joselyn Wilkinson and Don Barrozo, a story-song about Don's immigrant father working on th...
2025-05-0131 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 14This is Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet’s EARTH DAY episode, offering three very different strains of eco-music. Solartopia, by David Bernz, Harvey Wasserman, and Pete Seeger– the renowned elder statesman of folksong and righteous causes – envisions a day when our energy needs will all be met by the sun. I Wanna Be Cool, by Will Kimbrough and Brant Miller, is a rousing international collaboration about all the ways we ferventlywish for a cooler planet. And Que Corra el Rio is Karla Lara’s beautiful, moving tribute to the defense of the Gualcarque River, in Honduras, when it was thre...
2025-04-2222 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 13Global Notes: Meet flautist & composer Linda J. Chase, whose oratorio "For Our Common Home — Resounding Ecojustice" will receive its world premiere in May! Ms. Chase talks about her work with host Warren Senders, and shares excerpts from a preview performance of the music, which blends classical, jazz, gospel, and other world traditions in a heartfelt setting of Pope Francis' 2015 climate-change encyclical "Laudato Si."
2025-04-1534 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tune For a Hot Planet-Episode 12This week's installment of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet is an eclectic mix of thematically related songs. Ukrainian Now, by Tom Paxton and John McCutcheon is an ensemble production lamenting the Russian invasion and exhorting us all to come together in support of the embattled Ukrainian people. Larry Lobert's Isn't This a Time is a call-to-arms folksong raising the alarm about the current-day rise in fascism. O the Ocean Rolls, by James Kahn, is a sea shanty looking at the personal struggles of a boat full of refugees. And The Right to Live in Peace, a group song inspired...
2025-04-0130 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 11 Global NotesAn interview with Lola Perrin. Lola Perrin's work integrates her original music with the process of bringing audiences into the climate discussion. It's a fascinating and necessary approach to a thorny problem at the boundaries of performance art.
2025-03-2429 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 10This episode focuses on one of the immediate human costs of climate upheaval -- immigration. The refugee population is growing worldwide, accelerated by drought, famine, floods -- all environmental pressures that result from global warming, and will only get worse. The first step in combatting this ongoing disaster is developing empathy for all displaced persons. Music is one way to jumpstart that process.
2025-03-1030 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 3This special edition of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet celebrates Indigenous Peoples and their contributions to the environmental movement. muhu'wit, begins by chanting "Toki Toki," a song first recorded over 100 years ago by Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island.Next up is "No More Pipeline Blues (On This Land Where We Belong)," composed & produced by Larry Long.This song celebrates the courage of “water protectors” and the inspirational leadership of indigenous women against Big Oil. Featuring Waubanewquay, Mumu Fresh, Pura Fe, Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt, Joy Harjo, and many other allies. "Book of Life," by David Huckfelt and Keith Secola...
2025-02-2831 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 4In this episode, Lisa Rogers and the Therapy Sisters sing Do Something, an energetic Western Swing song about all the things we can do to reach a sustainable future, politically and ecologically.In Precious Right, Patty Carpenter sings about the sacred right to vote, a right people have fought and died for not only a right, but a prayer for the disenfranchised, a precious obligation for each of us personally that becomes universal in its scope.Smash, by Zoe Lewis, is a boisterous, all-hands-on-deck pre-election anthem about smashing the glass ceiling, and reclaiming joy in that action.Kamala is...
2025-02-2829 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 5Seth Bernard's The Time Has Come asks us to come together now, there's no more time to wait in the fight against the men whose greed is accelerating the climate change that is destroying our planet. The heartfelt lyrics implore us to find meaningful pathways to action, in our shared humanity.Our House is on Fire, by Emma's Revolution, is a bluesier rock song with a similar message: our house - the earth - is going up in flames, literally and metaphorically, and we have to join hands to put those fires out. The fires of polluted air and...
2025-02-2828 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetColl Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 6In Last Winter, Mark Lagerwey expresses his longtime love of winter weather, and his sadness at its diminishment as global warming eats away at it all over the world. In floods, fires, and heatwaves, the warmth is overwhelming the cold - but we can solve the problem if we just muster up the will power, and the good will, to honestly address it.James Kahn's Workin' That ER is a poignant, tender look at the life struggles of those around us, as seen through the lens of the emergency room. A reflection of the wounded and damaged souls wandering...
2025-02-2826 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 7Episode 7, entitled New Moon, New Year, celebrates the December 30th “black moon,” and the impending new year, commencing with Michigander Carrie Newcomer’s video for the song “Sanctuary.” This beautiful song was inspired by a letter she received from her good friend, Quaker writer Parker Palmer, who was responding to her wanting to know what can we do now, when things seem so bleak. Parker’s response is both hard and easy — we do what we can, and when we falter, we need to find sanctuary and refuge where we can, in the beauty nature still retains, in friends and family, an...
2025-02-2828 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 8The release of Episode 8 falls on January 20, 2025: Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Opposite polls of the spectrum, considering who won the presidential election. Our songs for this show cover that gamut, from anger about the man in the White House, to an alternate National Anthem; from a call to resist lies about oppressions in our country's past, to turning all our fears and anger into love, as MLK would have wanted.
2025-02-2828 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 2Songs to inspire action for justice and a cooler planet.Featuring Roy Zimmerman's rallying song for social justice, Harriet Jerusha Korim and Purly Gates singing Harriet's ode to Mother Earth, a song from the new Broadway musical premiering September 25, Distant Thunder, sung by Sean Taylor-Corbett and an all Native American cast, and bringing it home with Seth Handelman's very personal, homemade anthem celebrating the voting rights movements of yesterday and today.
2025-02-2727 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 1Songs to inspire action for justice and a cooler planet. Spotlighting Grammy-nominated songwriter Eliza Gilkyson, with award-winning Third Actors James Kahn and Kerrville Folk Festival finalist Purly Rae Gates. Broadway veteran Joanna Rush and youth activist Veronica Vevang host and offer inspiring stories about recent climate actions.
2025-02-2728 minCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot Planet-Episode 9Episode 9 of Cool Tunes for a Hot Planet is all about the water. Oceans, rivers, floods, droughts, and all the ways our waters are affected by climate change: the cost to habitats, to species, to communities – the price we all pay for the effects of global warming. Today’s explorations of this existential threat are presented by Kenyan jazz singer Gabrielle Agachiko, rhythm and blues artist Rick Arnoldi, sea shantyist JamesKahn, and New Orleans blues rocker Watermelon Slim.
2025-02-0925 min
Cool Tunes For a Hot PlanetCool Tunes For a Hot PlanetThe release of Episode 8 falls on January 20, 2025: Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Opposite polls of the spectrum, considering who won the presidential election. Our songs for this show cover that gamut, from anger about the man in the White House, to an alternate National Anthem; from a call to resist lies about oppressions in our country's past, to turning all our fears and anger into love, as MLK would have wanted.
2025-01-2028 min