 |
Sustain What?A regular dose of sanity and substance amid the spin around climate and sustainability challenges. Author: Andy @Revkin
Sustain What? is a series of conversations, seeking solutions where complexity and consequence collide on the sustainability frontier. Revkin believes sustainability has no meaning on its own. The first step toward success is to ask: Sustain what? How? And for whom? revkin.substack.com Language: en Genres: News, News Commentary, Science, Social Sciences Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
We Sent an Army to the Desert To Keep This Country Free - and to Liberate Some Carbon, Baby, for You and Me...
Wednesday, 4 March, 2026
Most of you already know I’ve been writing and performing songs for 30 years, mostly hidden behind my journalism. Only a few of my tunes cross directly over into my “beat” - and none more so than “Liberated Carbon,” which I wrote as the United States invasion of Iraq played out in the early 00’s and which I included on my first album, A Very Fine Line, in 2013.I’d first touched on how oil access delineates areas of global interest and conflict in 1991, as I explored yesterday:But I thought it worth posting the annotated lyrics to my song as the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz and American, Israeli and Iranian salvos continue, and the oil (and gas) impacts of this new Middle East war move to the foreground. Do check the footnotes!Dear subscribers. I really would appreciate your help SHARING this post, or others, with friends or colleagues who might appreciate what I’m trying to do with Sustain What.LIBERATED CARBON music and lyrics © 2013 Andrew RevkinIt took a thousand generations for our species to rise.But gathering and hunting was no way to get by.We yearned to burn more than dung and sticks.Then someone came along and said, “Hey, try lighting this.”He opened up the ground and showed us coal and oil.He said, “Come liberate some carbon. It’ll make your blood boil.”Liberated carbon, it’ll spin your wheels.Liberated carbon it’ll nuke your meals.Liberated carbon, it’ll turn your night to day.Come on and liberate some carbon, babe, it’s the American way.Now I got peat swamp fossils running my TV.BP’s black label burns in my S.U.V.We can light up the planet like a Christmas tree.They say that things are getting hot but, hey, we’ve got A.C.Liberated carbon, it’ll spin your wheels.Liberated carbon it’ll nuke your meals.Liberated carbon, it’ll turn your night to day.Come on and liberate some carbon, babe, it’s the American way.Pump those electrons and that gasoline.No sweat or hurry, just turn on a machine.We sent an army to the desert to keep this country free,And to liberate some carbon, baby, for you and me…Liberated carbon it’ll spin your wheels.Liberated carbon, it’ll nuke your meals.Liberated carbon, it’ll turn your night to day.Come on and liberate some carbon, babe, it’s the American way.There are various performances online, including with John Munson, the bass player from the Minneapolist band Semisonic, at the 2018 National Geographic Explorers Festival, and with melting ice chunks onstage at a Play for the Planet event in San Francisco.To support my music side, you can buy my album, A Very Fine Line, on Bandcamp or buy Liberated Carbon as a single. Sustain What can best be sustained if a few more of you consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit revkin.substack.com/subscribe
