Rebellion Rises: Ziggy Marley Rebukes World Leaders Guilty Of Ignoring Climate Change
Ziggy Marley on the weekend, ramped up his advocacy against environmental destruction, rebuking world leaders and conglomerates whom he says are guilty of constantly turning a blind eye to the public’s concerns about climate change and pollution.
On Saturday the Rebellion Rises singer posted a futuristic soliloquy about what the earth will become if the leaders of the world continue to drag their feet and not address Climate Change with a sense of urgency.
“It was good to see you green mountain with your green trees, sustaining life selflessly, sitting there quietly , beautifully, hopefully hoping, waiting, contemplating is this another beginning is this another end are we starting over again
from monsters to men suffering , crying ,regret, their last breath, rocks crumble to graves
like human remains
self inflicted with shame
self inflicted pain
wasteful , recycled, reused #inspired #planetearth,” he wrote on Instagram.
Ziggy’s musings did not stop there. He juxtaposed the lackluster treatment of the climate change issue with that of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If only climate change was a deadly virus huh; the effort, the urgency, the emergency, who would wait,” he added.
Ziggy then went on to make comparisons between the attitude towards Climate Change and the world leaders’ penchant for war and flexing of their military muscles.
“If only climate change had a military solution we would be at war right now,” he argued.
Ziggy, who is the eldest son of Reggae legend Bob Marley, then took his reflections a step further.
“If only climate change and it’s human made causes were a terrorist organization trying to destroy civilization and life as we know it, the mobilization, the conviction, the implementation, the strategizing , the resources no expense no conveniences would be speared,” he wrote.
Over the years, Ziggy has complained bitterly that politicians and businesses have been ignoring global concerns about climate change and pollution.
He had used his 2018 album Rebellion Rises, featuring songs such as The Storm is Coming and See Dem Fake Leaders, to drive home his point.
The Storm is Coming spoke to among other things, deforestation, while See Dem Fake Leaders took to task incompetent leaders fighting to make their friends profit from war. The song also noted that the leaders were making enemies out of friends, making the onus to be now on the general population to rely on themselves to remedy the situation.
In April this year, Ziggy told The Associated Press ahead of his Earth Day concert, that everyone on the planet everyone should be concerned about the earth’s changing climate.
“Whatever happens to this planet is going to happen to us all. It’s not going to happen just to the rich or just to the poor. It’s going to happen to us all – the good and the bad,’ he had pointed out.
Ziggy has, in the past, given his support to environmental preservation campaign groups such as Extinction Rebellion, a movement which fights against food insecurity, climate breakdown, loss of biological diversity and the risk of social and ecological collapse.
The Tomorrow People artist had told the BBC in an interview at following his performance at the Womad world music festival that he felt groups such as Extinction Rebellion were necessary, and that “we have to be more willing than those who are in a place of power”.
“The politicians and the industrial complex of financial institutions and big billionaires who profit from the destruction of the planet see no urgency in making an effort to make a change because of the bottom line…They are making a profit. They don’t want to jeopardise that,” the Jamaican, who now lives in California said at the time.
“We have to be more willing than those who are in a place of power, who want to see a continuation. The politicians are not on our side. The religious leaders aren’t on our side. Only we, the people, are on our side,” he had also told the BBC.