Prince Ea’s Earth Day Anti-Deforestation Video Surpasses 30 Million Views

Spoken-word artist Prince Ea has received an overwhelming response to his video for his song “Dear Future Generations, Sorry,” an apology for the destruction of trees. The video released on Monday has generated more than 32 million views, 983,000 shares, and 498,000 likes on Facebook.

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The St. Louis artist filmed the short during a visit to Central Africa to witness the annihilation of the rainforest. In the song and video, he discusses the impact the loss of trees has on the environment. “They clean up our pollution, our carbon/They store and purify water/Give us medicine that cures our disease/Food that fees us/Which is why I’m so sorry to tell you/That we burned them down,” he says in the song.

After the video, Prince Ea shares footage of his trip to the continent. “Statistics show that we are destroying the planet to the point that we may not be able to live on it in the next couple years,” he told Yahoo Music. “Deforestation rates are incredible, 40 football fields every day of forest are wiped out.” He adds that deforestation affects climate change. “When you cut down a tree, you release CO2 carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Every scientist recognizes that carbon pollution is changing the climate in ways that are unsustainable.”

Prince Ea also makes a plea for viewers to support Code Redd’s Stand for Trees campaign. The poet, who routinely takes on social issues in his videos, has also received millions views for his worksCan We Auto-Correct Humanity?” and “Why I Think the World Should End” that address social media overload and societal ills, respectively.

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