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A quartet of high-school students that calls themselves "X10" made a splash on YouTube in April with a tongue-in-cheek hip-hop ode to their home state, titled "802," a nod to the state's sole area code. They even got props from the New York Times for busting out the word "fustigating" in their rhymes (translation: to fight). Though they're not yet old enough to vote, these rappers are using their influence to raise political awareness of global warming. Their new video promotes alternative energy, shows how the heat is hurting local businesses, and campaigns for some recent legislation in Vermont that they had hoped could make a difference. (While Gov. Jim Douglas (R) said he approved of the original "802" video, he didn't approve the proposed legislation, which would have increased taxes on a state power company and used the cash for alternative energy projects.)
They're bummed about the bill's defeat, but the proactive posse is undaunted. They compost, recycle, and do all they can to bolster their high school's reputation as a "hippie school." For them, green is off da hook. Here, they diss haters of the science behind global warming, represent for their fellow greenie Vermonters, and share what rhymes with "biomass gasification."
Who are the members of X10?
Pat: My name is Pat Leene, a.k.a. P-Nasty, I'm 17 years old and I'm a junior-going to be a senior.
Kevin: We're seniors now.
Pat: It's a very tender time for us. (They all laugh.)
Kevin: Kevin Hartmann, or Dr. K. I'm 16, now a senior.
Colin: I'm Colin Arisman, a.k.a. C$ (pronounced C-money), student, Vermont, age-17 Earth years.
Luke: I'm Luke Martin, a.k.a. Run Rhymes, and I'm a student.
Colin: Me and Pat write. Me, Pat, and Luke rap. Kevin produces the videos.
Pat: I wasn't on the first one because they recorded it without me.
Kevin: But he was responsible for a lot of the writing.
How did you end up collaborating on these raps?
Pat: I think Colin, he tends to yell a lot and somewhere he just started yelling "802" and a couple months later we decided, hey, let's make a...
Colin: (Yelling) 802! Yeeeeahhh!
You randomly started yelling 802?
Pat: We'd be riding in a car and at a stop sign he'd see someone walking by and would yell at 'em.
Colin: Pat is trying to make me sound like a stalker! The truth is I've had lyrical abilities from a young age.
Luke: We tried some other raps that really sucked.
Pat: They were really bad.
Which ones didn't work out?
Pat: We tried a Tax Day one about April 15th.
Colin: And about tapping maple syrup.
Luke: It was really bad, not very appropriate.
You were thinking of doing a maple syrup rap?
Luke: It was called "Tapping like Maple Syrup."
Colin: Well, it served as a metaphor for uh...I don't want to say it.
Luke: We didn't release that. It was gross.
I'm not going to go there. Your group is called X10. What does it mean?
Colin: I was trying to make a lot of gangs back in seventh grade because we don't have a dominant Montpelier gang. I came up with a lot of names. One was "Tree Unit." It was big for a while but it fizzled out. Luke: Do the Tree Unit call.
Colin: T-T-Tree Unit!
Pat: You put your hand on your head so you look like a tree.
Colin: So one day I crossed my arms and spread my fingers and created 10 fingers, digits, crossed arms-X10.
Have you ever Googled X10? It's a home security system.
Kevin: I noticed that, yeah!
Pat: We actually got a call from them. They want us to do a song.
Are you kidding?
Pat: Yeah, that was a joke.
OK, just checking. So, tell me about your new rap.
Colin: Well, I like to spend some of my free time doing community service or volunteer work. I picked Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) as a place where I could help our community. So every Tuesday I spend the majority of my day researching on computers or working at the State House in Montpelier. After my mentor there heard "802" he said it was effin' awesome and asked me to create a sequel about global warming.
Pat: We went off the "802" theme and made it "CO2."
What did you hope to accomplish with it?
Colin: Governor [Jim] Douglas did veto the global warming bill that was passed by the legislature so we were trying to raise awareness for support of the override of the veto.
Vermont seems like such a green place. Why did he veto it?
Kevin: Because it includes a tax on Vermont Yankee, which is the nuclear power plant in Vermont. There's a tax that was going to pay for some program, but he feels that the tax is unjustified.
Colin: The thing about the tax is, though, that all that Vermont is asking Vermont Yankee to pay in the future is the same that a wind farm would be taxed. However, the state's unwilling to ask Vermont Yankee to contribute the same amount as a wind farm would.
So you were hoping to turn things around with a rap about CO2.
Colin: Yes, that was our goal.
Pat: We have really bad fuel-efficient houses here-we have a lot of old places. [The bill was] to try and go out, renovate those places, and build better, more efficient places.
Colin: Which will save Vermonters money and lower their bills and stuff.
I heard that you debuted the rap at school for a "Global Warming Bash."
Luke: It was a global warming event and it was set up by some of the teachers at our school to raise money.
Colin: It would go to buying rainforest land-over $2,000 of rainforest land.
Pat: Yeah, to neutralize the amount of CO2 we put out. So the amount of rainforest we bought would put enough oxygen in the air.
Kevin: They're trying to make the school carbon neutral.
Colin: We were able to purchase about 40 acres.
Pat: We were the last act.
Colin: We left the crowd awed. Awed. Shock and awe! Shock and awe!
Pat: The band that went on before us, they were a really good band actually, and a lot of kids were chanting, "We want X10!" They were kind of getting restless. I felt bad because they were really good.
Luke: They were a lot better than us-we're not very good at what we do. (They all laugh.)
How did the crowd respond?
Luke: Basically everyone came right up near the stage and they helped us sing the song. They were pretty into it.
Colin: Chanting, uh, a lot of chanting. A lot of arm waving. People wanted us to keep going, but we didn't have any other material.
You ran out of songs?
Luke: Yeah, we did "CO2" first and then we went right from that into "802." The problem with doing that is it's only, like, five minutes long, and we haven't written any other songs really. And we weren't going to do "Tapping Like Maple Syrup."
Not for polite company.
Luke: There were some little kids there. So all we did were those two songs.
Hit me with some "CO2" lyrics.
Colin: Atmosphere fillin' up with heat-trappin' gas! / Livin' like this, we're never gonna' last! / Methane, hydrofluorocarbons and carbon dioxide-stuff's more dangerous than carbon monoxide!
Whoa.
Colin: Yeah, we're gonna add to your vocabulary. Sounds like we're getting more words along the lines of "fustigating." Did I even say that correctly?
Luke: Fustigating (rhymes with "must"). It means to fight. Colin: Why not biomass gasification? / Cuz we got oil lobbyists running our nation.
Pat: Yeah, that's a good one: biomass gasification.
What rhymes with carbon footprint?
Luke: We don't have that in our rap.
Can you freestyle it?
Colin: Get a breath mint! Our town needs to equalize their carbon footprint-If your breath stinks you'll get a breath mint. (They all crack up.)
Do you rhyme something with global warming?
Pat: Ready? Ready? Glaciers melting!
Luke: Waters rising!
Colin: Sky is storming!
Pat, Luke, and Colin: Global warming!
It sounds like your school, Montpelier High, is an eco-conscious place.
Pat: We're known as a hippie school around the state and I didn't want to accept it at first 'cause, I don't know, I didn't want to be known as the hippie school, but-
Colin: I want to be known as the hippie school! I love it! Wear Birkenstocks!
Pat: We're really into composting.
Kevin: We have a greenhouse where we grow all the greens for the cafeteria. The compost from the cafeteria goes on top of this hill.
Pat: We have an Earth Group, which is an afterschool club.
Colin: Some people make fun of me because I'm in it, but I like to do things to support my community. We've organized multiple events. We're trying to push a tire bill through the statehouse in Montpelier that would give a credit for returning your tire rather than having to pay to dispose of your tires. And we do annual cleanups and we organize CAD-Compost Awareness Day. We run the compost system.
Pat: And they did the Global Warming Bash.
Colin: We spread green cheer, too.
I read that Governor Douglas saw your "802" video and liked it. If you could choose any one person to see this new "CO2" rap, who would it be and why?
Colin: Al Gore!
Pat: Jon Stewart!
Colin: No, Colbert-I want to know what Colbert has to say. Any combination of Daily Show hosts. George W.!
Kevin: Pat is a Republican and the rest of us are Democrats. We make fun of Pat about Bush being an idiot all the time.
Pat: I'm an odd man out, but I do respect global warming.
You can all drive in Vermont, right? Do you drive most places?
Pat: Colin always drives because he commutes from Plainfield, which is like 15 to 20 minutes away.
Colin: It's changed me. I cry every time I start the car.
Pat: I don't have my own car-
Colin: (Coughing at the same time) Loser!
Pat: I either carpool or I ride my bike. And Kevin, he's really tall, so it takes him two steps and he's at the high school. Kevin's 6-foot-5.
Kevin: I'm, like, 6-foot-8.
Ten years from now you'll be in your late 20s. What do you think your lives will be like based on all the scary predictions about the planet?
Luke: Things aren't going to be much different. It's not something you notice overnight-it's something that our children will notice.
Have you noticed any changes?
Luke: In the winters actually.
Pat: We've had a couple of pretty weak winters. Usually you only have, like, three months of nice weather in Vermont.
Colin: We did not have a white Christmas. It's unusual. Very unusual.
Pat: It didn't snow until, like-it didn't snow until late January, early February, and usually it snows before Halloween, so it is really weird. I think we've started to notice it a little. If you had any magical power over the environment, what would power would you like to have?
Colin: I'd just eat the carbon up.
You'd have a power where you could eat carbon?
Colin: Yeah, right out of the air. Neutralize it. I'd burp out oxygen. I'd be like a huge tree.
Any other super powers?
Pat: I'd be able to fly.
...that would save the planet?
Pat: What I would do is, I would fly really fast-have you seen the first Superman? I'd go backwards. I'd fly and then I'd tell everyone about global warming.
Colin: They wouldn't believe you. They didn't believe Al Gore.
Pat: No, during Clinton's reign they believed. Before the cheating thing, they believed him.
Colin: Here's my power: I'd be able to look at trash and turn it into wildflowers.
That's kind of sweet.
Luke: Yeah. That was lame, Colin. Did you all see An Inconvenient Truth?
Pat: The school actually showed it at assembly. How did that go?
Colin: It was my second time seeing it. I saw it once before and loved it both times.
Pat: It was my first and I thought, Al Gore for a narrator? Not so much. But, great flick.
What was the reaction?
Pat: A lot of people really liked it but there were some kids who felt like if they were going to show that then we should be allowed to show the other side, too. I guess.
Colin: Which is just making up stuff and videotaping it. "Global warming's all made up. Ooo!"
Luke: Remember that NASA lady who came and showed us this graph? She was like, "There's nothing to worry about."
Colin: Yeah, we had a speaker who graduated from Montpelier High School try and tell us that global warming wasn't really an issue, but the bottom line is you can't trust government agencies. Also, the Bush Administration has been openly firing experts in fields that have not refuted the fact that global warming is occurring.
Everybody has something they feel like they can't live without. What's something you know you should give up to help the environment but haven't?
Colin: Lighting sticks on fire. Shooting a flaming arrow at a pile of grass.
Pat: What?!
What?!
Pat: I don't know where he comes up with this.
Colin: Honestly, I don't know if I'd be able to get around without driving because I live outside Montpelier and I wouldn't want to spend all my time at home.
Pat: We have a local co-op and they have a lot of organic, locally-grown stuff and I don't shop there. I suppose I feel bad about not buying locally-grown. So that's probably mine-getting things from really far-away places that take a lot of fuel to get to Vermont. That's just me.
Colin: That's something you'd give up?
Luke: Pat, that didn't even make sense.
Colin: Pat would have trouble giving up a big mainstream supermarket.
Pat: I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. I don't drive a lot so I can't say that.
Colin: I know Pat plays a lot of video games, which use a large amount of electricity.
Pat: I don't play a lot of video games, but you're right.
Colin: He's online a lot.
Pat: I'll give you that. So that's what I'm having trouble giving up.
Kevin: You could have solar panels installed on your house.
Pat: You could!
Is there one easy thing that you do for the environment that you wish everyone would do?
Colin: Composting!
Pat: Yeah, composting and recycling are huge in our school.
Colin: And in our homes.
Pat: And I think it was 80 percent...?
Kevin: Eighty-two percent of our school composted.
Pat: I think if everyone did that it would help out a lot.
Colin: Everyone here composts, but you go outside the state and they don't even know what composting is. I think nationwide composting needs to be instituted.
Pat: I think we're very cut off from the rest of the United States. I was born in Virginia. It seems like Vermont is different. Really, a lot of people think we're part of Canada. That could be part of it.
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