Pearl Jam has recruited teenage activist Greta Thunberg to issue a warning about climate change in the band's new video for "Retrograde." The song is the latest single from Pearl Jam's new album, Gigaton, which arrived in March.
In the clip, a man visits a fortune teller, played by Thunberg, who shows him various environmental disasters happening to the planet when he peers into her crystal ball, from rising seas flooding New York to bushfires consuming Australia.
The band members themselves appear in the video as marching tarot cards leading an army against the impending calamities. The theme of environmental doom also surfaces on the Gigaton song “Quick Escape” as well as the trio of “Dance Of The Clairvoyants” videos.
Pearl Jam was forced to postpone its 2020 U.S. tour in support of Gigaton due to the pandemic, but Vedder performed a solo rendition of the Gigaton track “River Cross” during Global Citizen’s Together at Home special. The band also offered up a special “birthday package” prize for fans to raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts.