Each Winter as the World Grows Warmer

[bnewman]

Based on a haunting and pointed Advent hymn, this song is a pointed rebuke to religious conservatives who blame natural disasters and the decline of nations on the "sins" of the same people they've always picked on, while ignoring the very real sins that scientists agree are responsible for the weirding of Earth's climate — the very sins, even, that the Bible calls out as leading to the destruction of nations (no, not carbon emissions specifically, the ancients didn't know that, but refusing to let the Earth rest).

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Each Winter as the Year Grows Older" by William & Annabeth Gay

listen to this song
 

/ Em AmEm / AmD Em / - AEm / Cmaj7 D / Bm7 Em /

 

Each winter as the world grows warmer

We see the climate changed

Each year is hotter than the former

Earth's cycles rearranged

Grow dangerous and strange

 

The seasons now are out of order

And fields and forests burn

And even as the days grow shorter

The ice does not return

And still we do not learn

 

For those who fix the fall of nations

On others' sin and pride

Ignore the noisome exhalations

That issue far and wide

The sin that they've denied

 

They shame us for our noncompliance

With doctrines harsh and old

But scorn to heed the voice of science

Which candidly foretold

The flames we now behold

 

And yet the Word they claim to cherish

The very book they've blessed

Says this is how the nations perish:

When Earth's denied her rest

We've nearly failed the test

 

Yet I believe, with hope and reason

If we are wise and skilled

Our world may see another season

When no more oil is spilled

We have but to rebuild