Busking for change — environmental change

How a young local musician is engaging other artists to take action on climate change

Good news can be pretty hard to come by on the climate change front. Records continue to be broken worldwide for heat, drought, forest fires and “weather events.” I haven’t decided if calling something a “weather event” is just the meteorology biz throwing up its hands in despair, not knowing what to call our unstable weather. Are they just having great fun making up words to pique our curiosity — like firenado, mackerel sky, downspouts and stratopause?

I have a particular fondness for the word petrichor — the smell after rain. Then there is virga, described in the Canadian Environment and Climate Change (CECC) glossary as “wisps or streaks of precipitation that evaporate before reaching the ground.”

Every Canadian kid learns (true or not) that the Inuit have at least 50 words for snow. But how many know the vast number of words for sea ice in the CECC ice glossary? They include agglomerated brash and Arctic sea smoke, nilas (could be dark or light), frazil ice, sastrugi and recurring polynya (not to be confused with plain polynya).

They’d all make great band names. That’s my segue, by the way, to where environment meets art. And some good news.

Buskers for Change (was founded earlier this summer by local musician Keenan Reimer-Watts and made possible through an environmental improvement grant from the City of Kitchener. A young, talented multi-instrumentalist with a deep concern for the environmental health of our planet, Reimer-Watts has been able to engage many other local musicians and artists to set up shop at farmers’ markets, food truck events and street corners. Although based in Waterloo Region, there are performers from Ottawa, Toronto, North Bay and Elora, and a few as far away as Taipei, Taiwan.

An interesting spin on the usual open guitar case or hat for your loose change and bills is that you can now make donations to charitable organizations using your cellphone. You have the option of donating either $5 or $10 using software made possible through the Mobile Giving Foundation Canada. The amount is charged directly to your wireless bill, with all proceeds going to the supported organizations. It its first year, Buskers for Change has partnered with REEP Green Solutions in Kitchener. You will get a tax receipt for as little as $5. (Text IMPACT or INNOVATE to 41010. IMPACT supports REEP’s workshops and INNOVATE supports REEP House. This will be live until November.)

It will take time for people to adapt to this new method of giving. I am happy to say that I went through the steps without any guidance or snorts of derision from younger folks who grew up with continually changing and advanced technology. If you can text, you can donate. And you don’t even have to be there to toss change into the guitar case. Although, speaking as an amateur musician, we do love an appreciative audience.

So try it. REEP is working for you and with you to make our community more sustainable through workshops, the demonstration REEP House for Sustainable Living on Mill Street in Kitchener, and a climate change action plan with multiple local partners. Buskers for Change is helping them do that. As Keenan says, “I truly think that this has the potential to change the way we approach environmental issues, all the while building a community of like-minded performers who want to be part of a flexible fundraising platform.”

If you’re a performing artist, think about contacting Keenan at www.buskingforchange.net to participate. Anyone can join. I already have my band name picked out — Petrichor.