Simon Kerr is a Melbourne based New Zealand songwriter, guitarist, singer and environmental thinker. A prolific songwriter, he has released three studio albums and performed on a number of compilations. Eclectic, innovative, funny and serious, he has performed extensively both in New Zealand and Australia, and has garnered a strong and loyal following in Melbourne since moving there in 2008.

Together with his partner, legal academic Christine Parker, and his numerous musical collaborators, Simon has created a multimedia climate change show, ‘Music for a Warming World; Where Science, Art and Hope Converge. He is now focusing his professional and musical energy on climate activism because climate change is the biggest story in the world, and musicians have a clear role to play in this challenge.

Simon has already divested from fossil fuels. He tells us:

Disinvestment is probably the most powerful individual statement most of us can make to help shift the world’s energy economy from fossil fuels to renewables. It is citizens taking away the social licence to burn carbon-emitting fuels.

In 2014 I asked my bank (NAB) if they were planning to stop investing in fossil fuels. They could not confirm this, for client privacy reasons they said. So I said that was unfortunate, but I was not going to fund further investment in fossil fuels. So I withdrew all my money and put it into an institution that does not fund fossil fuels. And then I reminded NAB why I had done this.