This past Friday night, I went to an Andrew Bird concert. If you don’t know him, you should start listening. He’s interesting because his main instrument is violin. He’ll play it like a guitar, record it, and loop it, then play over it with another violin line, loop that, then add another line and loop that. And then sing and play guitar over that. It’s quite cool. One of the most innovative things I’ve ever seen, actually. But this, though incredible, is a digression from the topic at hand.

Point being, I love Andrew Bird. Though not usually a merchandise buyer, I could not help myself in this case. So, I bought my shirt (it’s quite pretty, in fact), and was surprised to note that it was 100 percent organic cotton. Organic cotton?! In a concert T-shirt?! Unheard of. Well, this led me to further research.

Turns out, Andrew Bird is one of the many musicians advocating going green. Last spring, he led an environmentally-friendly tour, using only vegetable oil biodiesel for his tour bus and making it his goal to be carbon neutral (having a carbon footprint of zero) throughout the two-month tour.

His songs are littered with references to the environmental state that the world is currently in, and he makes strong statements in them advocating a move towards green–making actual changes to help curb global warming. He sells pins saying, “Dear Dirty. Be carbon neutral” at his shows, from which the profits go to Reverb, which supports alternative energy sources. He argues for sustainability, for green.

This, of course, only makes me love Andrew further. But he is one of many musicians advocating green; popular musicians are in an invaluable position to make the cause for green and for eco-friendly lifestyles, for they are in the public eye constantly and have a huge impact on their fan bases. Other musicians doing an incredible job of spreading the word “green”–and, of course, implementing green themselves–are Jack Johnson, Green Day, Pearl Jam, The Roots, Sarah Harmer, Thom Yorke, Willie Nelson, KT Tunstall, Sheryl Crow, Cloud Cult, and Guster, among others.

Take a look for yourself at the stances these bands are taking, and make a point to support them. Grist’s list of 15 green bands has something for everyone–country, hip-hop, pop, rock, alternative, indie. Cool to think that so many different kinds of musicians could be united by green. So check them out!

Note to self: Green music for the win.

Lily Berthold-Bond grew up in a chemical-free zone and has struggled her whole life to understand and accept this non-commercial lifestyle. Now a sophomore at Tufts University, she has embraced her green life and hopes to share its possibilities with the rest of her generation.