In a fortunate trend, it's becoming cool to care about global warming. An increasing number of musicians are using their considerable influence to promote green issues, and encouraging their fans to take what steps they can.

     Barenaked Ladies, this month's featured artists, have been very active in this area with the formation of Barenaked Planet, an offshoot of Reverb which exists to get the band's fans motivated to help protect the environment. At each show there is a Barenaked Planet booth at which fans can buy stickers, the proceeds from which are used to buy carbon credits which offset the emissions for the fans' drive to the show and back. They also have a wealth of information available about alternative energy options, invite local green agencies to have their own representatives in place at each show, and auction signed guitars to help raise funds for environmental causes. The band themselves are committed to using biodiesel fuel for their tours, offsetting the energy usage for their shows, planting trees in their spare time and recycling everything they can get their hands on.

     Obviously, we can't neglect to mention Guster, the band whose singer/guitarist Adam Gardner co-founded the

above-mentioned Reverb. Guster have worked with numerous other artists on the road to ensure greener tours and to teach environmental awareness before, during, and after their shows.

     Seattle rockers Pearl Jam have been strong proponents of renewable energy, and recently announced their Carbon Portfolio strategy: on top of using alternative fuels on tour and reducing emissions, they have made donations to nine different environmental non-profit causes, for a total value of $100,000.

     Recent quintuple Grammy honorees the Dixie Chicks have also been active, partnering with Conservation International (CI) to help offset the carbon footprint associated with their 2006 Accidents and Accusations concert tour. The band’s investment will help preserve one of the last remnants of pristine rain forests in Madagascar, the island nation off the coast of Africa. Martie, Natalie, and Emily also offset their personal CO2 emissions for the entire year.

     British act Gomez went the whole nine yards on their last tour; in addition to carbon offsets and biodiesel, they also made certain that all printed materials were on recycled paper and using non-toxic soy-based inks, and all of their tour

merchandise was made from organic cotton.

     One of the world's hottest tickets - Coldplay - have been working with CarbonNeutral.com to offset the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the manufacture and distribution of their albums by planting enough trees to soak up that CO2. For their second album, A Rush Of Blood To The Head, the band planted ten thousand mango trees in India. For its successor X&Y, they chose an rainforest area in Mexico which has been under threat, a forest containing a wide variety of rare species which are in danger of extinction.

     Even as far back as 13 years ago, Irish rockers U2 were working with Greenpeace on environmental causes. More recently, Bono addressed the attendees of the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast, and spoke out about pollution, among other issues plaguing the nation and world today.

     There is an ever-increasing list of environmentally-concerned musicians, far too numerous to name here, and we hope to see still more acts going green, and still more fans taking inspiration from it to make a change themselves.