Environmental awareness in/through arts, especially music

Abstract
Are the fine arts able to make aware of environmental issues? Are they powerful enough to change our behavior, to remind us of our responsibility? In this project, I will examine exactly these questions. The main focus is on music, including such songs as “Earth Songs” by Michael Jackson, “The earth is changing” by Depeche Mode and folk songs as well as events such as the “Live Earth”-concerts initiated by Al Gore to raise environmental awareness. Also, I will discuss the relations between music and the sounds of nature and how nature influences music, e.g. Beethoven's symphony No. 6, "Pastoral” or Smetana’s “Vlatva”, to name just two prominent examples. Depending on how far (or not) I can go with these topics, I will also include aspects of Environmental Art and/or Literature.
I expect that the arts will have a certain effect on our awareness but only on a relatively small group of people (compared to the worldwide population) and that the arts alone are not strong enough to create the mandatory change in our behavior to save the environment.


Comment
I am not 100% sure if this will be my final project – but it is the best I can think of at the moment. My problem with this topic is that I indeed want to do something in the field of the humanities (in its broadest sense) but do not intend writing a conventional research paper. However, I do not know how a practical aspect of such a work could look like. Especially since this is a project for Environmental Studies, I have the feeling that my project should be more than “only” a theoretical research paper.