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T<\/span>wenty years after Hurricane Katrina<\/a> ravaged his home town of New Orleans, Jon Batiste has released a new song imploring people to take action against climate change \u201cby raising your voice, and insisting, and voting the right people into office\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an artist, you have to make a statement,\u201d the global star said in an interview on Tuesday with the international media collaboration Covering Climate Now. \u201cYou got to bring people together. People power is the way that you can change things in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a warning, set to a dance beat,\u201d Batiste said about the song, Petrichor, which appears on his new album Big Money. The Oscar- and multiple Grammy-winning composer and his band performed Petrichor live during Tuesday\u2019s interview.<\/p>\n The word \u201cpetrichor\u201d refers to \u201cthe scent of the earth after the rain\u201d, Batiste said, \u201cwhen there\u2019s been warm, dry soil for a long time, and then things come back into balance. And right now, we\u2019re out of balance \u2026 the natural life support systems of the planet are under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n With a refrain that repeatedly declares \u201cthey burning the planet down\u201d, Petrichor does not sugarcoat the dangers of climate change, yet Batiste remains optimistic. \u201cWhen you make a song, you want to inspire people, but you also want to let them know what they can do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the things that we can do [are] really very simple. It\u2019s clean energy technology, right now, that we can switch to. We can make the world be powered by things that don\u2019t destroy the planet.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a blanket of pollution around the Earth,\u201d Batiste added, referring to the planet-warming gases released by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal and by cutting down forests. \u201cThe summers feel hot, everything is hot, the weather patterns are shifting. Nobody wants that. And we know what the solution is. There\u2019s an overwhelming majority of people that believe in clean energy \u2026 and switching to these new technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardian<\/a> and other Covering Climate Now partners earlier this year launched the 89 Percent Project<\/a>, reporting that 80 to 89% of the world\u2019s people want their governments to take stronger climate action<\/a>, according to numerous scientific studies. Batiste confirmed that he is part of that 89% climate majority \u2013 as is his mother, Katherine Batiste, who did environmental work for the state of Louisiana for most of Jon\u2019s childhood and sat next to him throughout the Covering Climate Now interview.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe in science,\u201d Katherine Batiste said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere you go,\u201d Jon said, smiling. \u201cYou heard it.\u201d<\/p>\n Many people know that Jon Batiste comes from a storied musical family in New Orleans \u2013 his uncle Lionel Batiste was a mainstay of the Treme Brass Band, and his cousin Russell Batiste Jr was a celebrated jazz drummer \u2013 but Jon also comes from a family of activists. His mother\u2019s father, David Gauthier, a leader of the Louisiana Postal Workers Union, supported the sanitation workers\u2019 strike in 1968 that drew Martin Luther King Jr to Memphis, where King was assassinated. Among other causes, Jon has been active in the Black Lives Matter protests<\/a>, a stance his mother saw as a continuation of her father\u2019s legacy. Her dad \u201cbelieved in standing up for what\u2019s right\u201d, said Katherine Batiste, \u201cand that kind of rolled over on me some, and I passed it on to Jon\u201d.<\/p>\n