“I’m a 12-year-old boy who likes music and doesn’t like global warming.” This is how Aitan Grossman opens his website, KidEarth, where he is using his love of music to help solve the climate crisis: “I’m not old enough to solve the problem,” he says. He’s old enough to try, however, and try he does.
While still a 6th grader and in preparation for the community service requirement for his bar mitzvah, Aitan composed and wrote a song he called “100 Generations,” which he sent out to schools around the world, asking students everywhere to join the chorus. Enlisting the aid of friends, their school’s music teacher, and his own father, Aidan recorded his song, posted it on YouTube, and formed the nonprofit organization KidEarth to funnel money from sales and donations into the environmental movement. That was in 2008. From all over the world, children responded. Aitan’s song has been sung and recorded in Botswana, Ethiopia, France, Guatamala, Taiwan, and, of course, many places across the United States, where Aitan and his family live. His instructions are simple: “Sing our song with us, share it with your friends, and, if you can, buy a copy so we can give money to environmental groups that are working hard to stop climate change right now.” He has three goals: to raise awareness of this problem that is gripping the earth and endangering the lives of all the species on it, to get his song recorded by lots of children, and, as he says, “to inspire kids that if they want to do something, they can get it done. He chose the theme of a hundred generations because he wanted to get across that while nature is eternal, humankind can cause its destruction.
