Like-Lightning-Best-Of.mp3
Like-Lightning-Best-Of.mp4
Like-Lightning.mp3
Like-Lightning.mp4
Like-Lightning-intro.mp3
[Verse 1]
Did you see the light
But not hear the (Boom!)
Then you just might
Have been struck too soon
[Bridge]
A direct strike
(Deathlike)
[Chorus]
It struck like lightning
(Shock of a lifetime)
Too late for frightening
(Need a lifeline)
[Verse 2]
I thought they said
(“It never strikes twice”)
They might be right…
If you’re already dead
[Bridge]
A direct strike
(Deathlike)
[Chorus]
It struck like lightning
(Shock of a lifetime)
Too late for frightening
(Need a lifeline)
[Bridge]
A direct strike
(Deathlike)
Set my world on fire
(Fanned flames higher)
Increased frequency
(And intensity)
[Chorus]
It struck like lightning
(Shock of a lifetime)
Too late for frightening
(Need a lifeline)
[Outro]
A direct strike
(Deathlike)
ABOUT THE SONG
The song “Like Lightning” captures the essence of how humanity is reacting to climate change with tragic slowness, much like waiting to hear thunder after seeing a lightning strike—by the time you hear the boom, it’s already too late.
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“Did you see the light / But not hear the (Boom!)”
represents the speed of light vs the speed of sound: we see climate signals (heatwaves, ice melt, sea level rise) instantly, yet society waits to “hear the boom” (economic impacts, mass displacements, food shortages) before reacting. By the time those consequences arrive, the lightning (climate tipping points) has already struck. -
“A direct strike (Deathlike)”
symbolizes the irreversible damage of crossed tipping points: AMOC slowdown, Arctic ice collapse, and wet-bulb heat thresholds are not future threats; they are direct strikes already occurring, leading to death and displacement. -
“It struck like lightning / (Shock of a lifetime)”
conveys the shock people feel when extreme events hit (floods, fires, crop failures), even though the science has warned about these for decades.
Feedback Loops Like Lightning Chains
The science note for the song fits seamlessly:
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Lightning increases wildfire ignition, releasing CO2 and brown carbon, which lowers albedo, causing more warming, more storms, and more lightning—a rapid, non-linear feedback loop akin to a chain reaction of lightning strikes.
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Each strike is not an isolated event but a trigger for the next, paralleling how permafrost melt releases methane, accelerating warming, which intensifies storms, which increase lightning, which ignite more fires, releasing more carbon.
“Too late for frightening (Need a lifeline)”
This lyric underlines that fear is useless once the system has tipped. Humanity now needs radical lifelines (systemic emissions cuts, carbon removal, regenerative adaptation), but these require acting before the next strike, not after hearing the thunder.
“Set my world on fire (Fanned flames higher)”
A direct reference to how human activities (fossil fuels, deforestation) amplify these feedback loops, much like fanning flames during a lightning-induced wildfire, accelerating our own destruction.
The Song’s Core Warning
“Like Lightning” is a stark climate allegory:
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You cannot wait for the sound of collapse; by the time it is loud enough to force action, the damage is irreversible.
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The speed of climate system responses is like lightning, but human, political, and economic responses have been at the speed of sound—too slow to matter.
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Each delay worsens the impacts, creating more fires, floods, and food crises, making the environment increasingly uninhabitable.
Conclusion
“Like Lightning” reminds us that climate change is not a distant storm; it is a lightning strike happening now. Humanity’s continued inaction, denial, and slow response ensure that we experience the shock of a lifetime repeatedly until systems collapse. The song calls for immediate, radical action before the next flash becomes the one that ends us.
ABOUT THE SCIENCE
Several feedback loops involve brown carbon, lightning, wildfires, arctic warming, ice melt, and permafrost collapse. Brown carbon, with a low albedo, absorbs more heat, releasing sequestered carbon and methane into the atmosphere, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
Studies have identified a feedback loop between lightning and forest fires. Global warming increases extreme weather events, conducive to lightning. More lightning ignites trees and soil, releasing warming CO2, creating more storms and lightning. The Forests at Risk Due to Lightning Fires study reveals the sensitivity of intact forests to potential increases in lightning fires, impacting terrestrial carbon storage and biodiversity.
“What many people may not be aware of is that lightning is the most common ignition source for fires in remote temperate and boreal forests,” says Thomas Janssen, research associate at VU Amsterdam. These forests store large amounts of carbon, which is released in the form of greenhouse gases during the fire. The research reveals that 77% of the burned area in intact forest regions outside the tropics is due to lightning fires, and the number of strikes is expected to increase by 11 to 3 % per degree warming with ongoing climate change.
“When a thunderstorm passes through this landscape, there are thousands of lightning strikes, and some hundreds of them start little fires,” said Prof Sander Veraverbeke from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, one of the authors on the research paper. “And these can grow together into mega-fire complexes that become the size of small countries. Once these fires are so big, it becomes very difficult to do anything about them.”
More wildfires create more CO2 and more brown carbon that result in more global warming that results in more lightning strikes creating more wildfires resulting in more global warming thawing more permafrost allowing more emissions of CO2 and methane resulting in more warming, creating many more feedback loops. The Canadian wildfires of 2023 are a clear example of a tipping point that has been crossed. These fires released more carbon into the atmosphere than the annual emissions of all but three countries. Permafrost, once considered a stable, frozen barrier, is now thawing and burning year-round, releasing even more carbon and methane into the atmosphere.