Alternative Rock musicians and climate change scientists bring science to the Alternative Rock stage. Vocalist/Guitarist Matt Palmer and drummer Niall Robinson compose music exploring causality of sea-level rise, political propaganda, and human relationships. They are the Matt Palmer Band. 

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Your positive imprint.

What's your PI.

Glastonbury festival was held over in the United Kingdom.

Just over this past weekend.

There is a new laboratory stage that brought science to life.

Climate change was among the topics that festival goers learned about through

demonstrations, games and of course music, including music from the Matt Palmer band.

Today's guests are members of the Matt Palmer band in England.

Vocalist and guitarist Matt Palmer joins the show as well

as drummer Niall Robinson.

What's pretty awesome and very rad is that we're not going to

talk just about music, but we're also going to talk about science.

Matt is a climate scientist with a mega responsibility as lead author on the

planet's most recently Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change known as IPCC.

His role as a climate scientist is essential as the world moves

forward with policies and changes.

And Niall's background is in research and development where

I believe algorithms, data and mathematics are part of his background

as he works on innovative ways to turn data information, prototypes and models.

Well, both Niall and Matt have lots to share regarding their music,

work, their positive imprints.

And I'm thrilled to have them both and to learn more about what they're

doing, because I'm quite interested in their science and their research.

Matt, Niall, welcome to your positive imprint.

It's so good to have you here.

Thanks yourself.

Yeah, it's great to be here.

well awesome.

So I, found you actually through your music, so , and I'm always searching

for, for different bands around the world and you two just happen to pop

up because you're using music to help teach about science and what you do.

So yay.

We we've been playing together for like, we've been

playing together for like 10 years.

I think Matt haven't we.

Be something like that.

Yeah.

I was, I was thinking about it the other day and I was thinking,

wow, it has been quite a long time.

I was just gonna say we met, um, back when I worked in the

Hadley center, in the met office.

So the met office is a climate research Institute where Matt

works and I used to work.

And so Matt just walked over to my desk one day and said that you were looking for

a drummer and, uh, the rest is history..

Right.

Matt.

We just been jamming ever since in various bands.

Oh my gosh.

So how did you know he played the drums?

Did he sit there and beat on his desk

and him yeah, he was always tapping out rhythm.

I just thought, oh, this guy must be a drummer.

No, I think, um, I think I heard it there's, there's actually a remarkable

number of musicians I've found in, particularly the MET office.

There seems to be a lot, I dunno how come scientists in general,

but, There seems to be a few.

I think he was playing in a band with another group at the MET office at the

time, and I just kind of heard, heard about this and uh so I just, and I needed

a drummer at the time and it's always, I mean, it's really fun actually, if

you've got more than one shared interest, you know, so it is, um, you know, makes

for lots of interesting conversations, uh, in music and, and science.

Being in a, band's a really good way to get to know people really

well really quickly, you know, you got to develop a lot of, kind of

trust and, uh, that sort of thing.

Don't

you?

Oh, that's interesting.

And you, you have a third member who's not here with us

today, but your band was formed.

So what was your intent when you began forming the band?

Um, so I guess, from my point of view, I had been in

bands and played music for a long time, but I'd never really, uh,

taken that sort of leap of faith to do something kind of myself, where I

was more of a central person in it.

I'd always been a guitar player, an occasional singer.

But, I guess I just had a collection of songs and, um, I felt it was the right

time to try to record something myself.

So I needed to assemble some people.

And I was very lucky to find, Niall, I didn't realize what a

great kind of, uh, uh, songwriting drummer he would turn out to be.

Cuz you don't know until you try these things.

, Alex was another friend.

I mean, I, I know lots of musicians, but I couldn't have, hoped for a

better group of people to work on it.

It was really fun.

Thanks,

Matt.

I'm just lucky to have somebody write great songs with play

along with, you know, like, uh, always been the drummer in a band

I'm used to kind of sitting in the back, just going along with, with whatever.

So you never know whether you're gonna be playing with somebody

who writes good songs or not.

It's a pleasure to, to play on songs that are great and

kinda mean something as well.

Well, and they do mean something and your titles are

actually quite interesting and we'll, we'll get to the titles.

When you are writing music, you obviously have a message and it's

a pretty profound, powerful message within your, your title itself.

Who writes most of the music or is it a shared combination?

It's ultimately a shared combination in my view, but, I, I tend to

start with the initial idea if you like.

And, I write the lyrics, but I think, uh, Niall in particular has a

big role in shaping how it turns out.

I think the rhythm to everything is such an important bit.

It's probably the most fundamental part of any piece of music., yeah,

he made loads of great suggestions during the songwriting process.

We had a really fun, I think we had three sessions in the rehearsal studio,

, where we kind of shaped the songs.

Yeah, Matt's been very, yeah, Matt's been very modest just

for the avoidance of any doubt.

This is the Matt Palmer band, because these are Matt's songs, but yeah,

I've really enjoyed being in the studio with Matt and talking about

the production and the arrangement and, and that sort of thing.

But yeah, these are definitely Matt Palmer creations.

I'm sure.

I have.

A favorite just because, well, the title is, is pretty awesome.

Well, they're all awesome titles, but one of them, I love the music

and the words and it's, it kind of brings to me a very reflective mood

and that's "chasing butterflies".

I find that kind of a very reflective, song.

Correct me if I'm wrong Matt, but is "Chasing Butterflies", that's

that's a nod to something really nerdy as well since it's inspired

partly by butterfly effect and chaos theory and atmospheric physics.

Yeah, that's right.

So that's part of the reason it's called what it is.

There are connections to some of the, some of the science even, in that

There's a part in 'chasing butterflies' that is very futuristic.

What is life going to be like tomorrow?

It's an interesting time to reflect on things in general.

I think.

I was trying to guess when you were talking, which song that you were going

to talk about, cuz you were kind of giving us the, the backdrop and your

impressions and "chasing butterflies" is the one I thought you were gonna say.

I guess with a piece of music, what you hope is that the mood of the music, like

the reflective mood, uh, which I think is in that song, I would agree with you.

I think it does sound, it sounded to me reflective , and the lyrical content.

When it comes together, I think that's when a song really works.

"Chasing butterflies", is really inspired by the fact not, really

common knowledge, but, I have a disabled child, a disabled son

who's now 10 years old.

And he had a, he had a, an oxygen, deprivation, event a

few weeks after he was born.

And, um, oh dear.

He ended.

Yeah.

Sadly he ended up with widespread brain damage and, , oh, I'm so sorry.

So , it's a bit of a, it is a bit of a heavy thing to drop into a conversation,

but I think the thing is that, um, chasing butterflies is really about, you know,

causality and cause and effect and, and not knowing what's gonna happen next.

And actually the things are in, in, in his situation.

I mean, you, you kind of have to go through that adjustment

process of getting used to that.

That idea, but actually you, you're just on a different

journey to what you were on.

And there are many, many positive things about him and his life and

the life that we have together.

But that, that is a big part of that, of that song for, for me, why I wrote it.

Who produces your music?

So, Alex really, mixed all of the music that we did.

So it was just, it was a homemade thing.

We own the music.

That collection of songs was recorded a couple of years ago now.

COVID hit you know, the global pandemic and shut down we've

kind of been on pauses ever since.

Really.

Yeah.

In terms of the songs themselves, that they're they're a collection and, and,

and some of them are very old songs like the song at the end 'complications' I

wrote that in my teens, I think.

The thing for me, that's always fascinating is you never really know

how the song is gonna turn, turn out.

You start off on a journey with it and you don't know the destination.

And often they are like dark coarse songs like things that you don't expect

to turn out the way that they might.

So 'The Flood' , I think is an example of one where I was a bit ambivalent about it

as a, as a song initially, I was super happy with how it turned out in the end.

"Politic Blues" is about, I mean, I guess now that I'm talking about it,

lots of things will probably resonate in today's political climate, as we

were kind of discussing before the show.

There's a lot of things going on in the world that probably do tap into

some of the content of the songs.

"Politic Blues" was really just about politics in life in general,

and not meaning in the big P political sense necessarily with

political parties and stuff.

But just how that somehow when you're constantly worrying about what people

think or whether you might offend someone, you know, it does take some

of the, um, it takes some, some, some of the joy of life is sometimes lost,

you know, the reckless abandon of just saying what's on your mind without

having to worry about, it all the time.

Well, I should say that like with, with all my lyrics, I try and

keep them a little bit ambiguous in that I like people to be able

to read their own thing into it.

I don't like it too prescriptive.

It's not always obvious exactly what I'm talking about.

Mm-hmm but that leaves through, I think for people's interpretation and for

each person to kind of project their own story onto what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

And,

and I think that's important with songwriting, for me as

a listener, because for one thing, the mood for each of us changes

throughout different parts of our life.

And so you could go, I could go back maybe to listening, to 'chasing butterflies'.

In three years and my reflection is going to be different in three years.

Um, I guess I was just thinking about you talking about music and,

and linking it to your experience.

And I, I feel like I.

I have the kind of the opposite thing as well.

Music really takes me back to experiences.

That's indelibly linked to, I dunno if you guys get this at all, but certainly

I, I find like I tend to obsess about this is probably something to do

with my fiscal scientist background and my erotic drummer and stuff.

I tend to obsess about music and, uh, really takes me back to

whatever I was doing at the time.

I still, I was listening to physical graffiti by Led Zeppelin the, the other

day it took me right back to being 15 and playing one particular computer

game that I played at the same time.

I was listening to that back to back to back.

So yeah, there's something really sort of deep in your psyche about

emotional responses to music and, uh, what you associate with that as well.

Yeah, and that's true.

And it, and KISS, I used to listen to a lot of KISS so, um, because of the

drummer so, anyway, , so when I listen to KISS, it does bring me right back

to specific school dances or yeah.

When, when we were walking from the house over to the record store to pick up the

new album and then you open it up and the vinyl just smells so good and yeah.

Saw as a, as a new record.

I dunno if this is, I dunno if this seems like a tenuous, uh, linking

up, but I think it's really nice that people like Matt there communicating about

different things, including I dunno their relationship to climate change through,

through different media now, cuz I, I think there's been a sort of, observation

of the climate change community

I suppose that for a long time there was sort of a lot of

really objective communication.

And I think there's an increasing recognition that there are lots

of ways to communicate now and different people respond to different

types of communication and you know, there's nothing invalid about

communicating through something

I dunno that people might consider pejoratively to be

touchy, feely like music.

You know, there's nothing unscientific per se about music.

Music is a communication media.

Yeah.

Well this that's a perfect segway to get into your work as climate

scientists and as scientists in general.

Who wants to go first and talk about their work?

Niall?

How about you go first?

I think Matt, Matt is a good place to start and I can build on that.

Okay, then Matt,

okay.

Yeah, sure.

, so I guess, a bit of background, I suppose, would be that I, I started out,

uh, my career really as an oceanographer.

, and, uh, I, I did a, I did a PhD at the national oceanography center in

south Hampton, and that was a mixture of, , going out on a research vessel,

taking, measurements of sea water, temperature, and sea water salinity.

That was kind of a bit of field work I did as part of my PhD, but then

the other part of the PhD was about modeling of the ocean and it was

the Indian ocean in, in particular.

And so I, I, I kind of did a bit of studying of this, of, of ocean circulation

that was kind of the subject of my PhD.

And then I joined the MET office, which they're well known in the

United Kingdom for being, , the kind of public weather service.

, but they actually have a climate research department that's been there since 1990.

, actually it kind of came about , the very first, , IPCC report is kind

of connected to the birth of the Hadley center for climate research.

So that's the part of the Met office that I work in and I guess for

about the last 10 years or so, I've specialized in sea level research.

So that's both understanding, , contemporary sea level rise, but

also making future projections that's really been the focus of my work.

, and then I guess about four years ago, I was lucky enough to be

selected as a lead author on the I P C C sixth assessment report.

So that's the sixth time that that body has produced a big collective

scientific assessment of the state of knowledge of climate change.

I'm sure many of your listeners will have heard some of your other people have been

on your podcasts, such as Nathan Bindoff

who've been deeply connected to, to these IPCC assessment reports there.

So they're important because they form the basis of the political, negotiations

around, , greenhouse gas, , emissions, and to trying to reduce those over

time, such as the Cop26 meeting.

, so the conference of parties, these cop meetings are quite important

because they're the place that the, the, the international governments get

together and try to agree how they're gonna reduce greenhouse gas emissions

and , curb the worst effects of climate.

Yeah.

So, my involvement in the, in, in the report itself, , I did quite a

lot of bits and pieces, but, I was really a big part of it was the, in the

assessment of observed sea level rise.

And also a thing called the global energy budget, which is essentially, , it

quantifies the effect of greenhouse gases, trapping, , solar energy within

the system so that system starts to warm up and that's really what manifesses

surface, temperature rises, melting glaciers, these various other effects.

And then there's a neat connection to the sea- level rise that we see.

The warming of the oceans, , means that the seawater kind of expands and that's

one big component of sea- level rise.

And the other big component of sea level rise is the melting of land

based ice from glaciers and ice caps and, and the two ice sheets.

, so yeah, it was a very, uh, very kind of energetic and exciting, two

year period with a lot of hard work.

There were some real highlight moments.

I was lucky enough to get selected, to be part of the, author

team that had to defend these, the summary for policy makers.

So that's the final document that, that, that we end up with, which is, basically

a condensation of all of the 15 big kind of chapters of scientific assessment.

It ultimately gets channeled into this thing called the summary of policy makers.

And , it's that document that, , really goes forward and helps

inform the political negotiations.

So we had to defend the text that we'd written to, to

country delegations, over Zoom.

, it was just an amazing thing to be

Virtually, kind of stood up in front of all these different, people who,

represent these different countries around the world and having to defend

the, the text you'd written and try and agree, uh, you know, final text for that

document, was an amazing experience.

I'd not done anything like that previously.

So that was really interesting, exciting.

And a li you know, a little bit tense

I would guess, I would

guess.

Yeah.

So yeah, it was great.

It was great.

Uh, yeah, it's a great experience.

this last assessment report was very difficult in the presence of COVID

and a lot of people are exhausted.

Mm-hmm um, but then again, there probably won't be another major

report for another six or seven years.

But yeah, I think the demands on the scientists who participate

are getting bigger over time.

So that's something they need to think about with the process, uh, cuz they need,

it needs to be sustainable as much as everything else needs to be sustainable.

Well, I certainly thank you for doing that for bringing the research

into text so that it can be discussed at a table, so to speak, for policy

change, as our world , moves forward with climate change observations that have

been taking place some for long periods of time and some for not as long, but

there's still hard evidence as to, you know, things that that need to be done.

And, and so your responsibility, I appreciate it.

I can vouch for just the sheer amount of hard graft and hard work,

you know, that people like Matt have to put in, he mentioned it in passing,

but, uh, it's been a real marathon.

So, you know, good on you, Matt.

it's not, you know, I don't know if people appreciate sometimes just how

much effort goes into doing these things.

It's not something you do kind of in your spare time.

It's a really big deal.

Um, a lot of effort goes into it..

Definitely , but also the intimidation that scientists

must feel when they're receiving some of the questions, you

know, you're defending science.

Niall, thank you for saying that.

That was really.

Awesome,

thank you.

Uh, sorry.

Somebody's got to toot your horn.

We don't do that in the UK, Catherine.

You know, we need other people's to do it for us.

well, I do it on this podcast.

It's your positive imprint, so, yes.

Yay, yay for the positive imprints.

So anyway, so Matt, anything else that you wanted to share before we go into Niall?

Um, I guess I was just kind of thinking that, , the translation

of science in, into text in that final stage, it, it is probably the most

difficult part, but I think it's pretty illuminating actually to be part of that.

You realize how much scientists talk in in jargon so getting

that communication, right.

It kind of goes back to something that Niall was saying that, you know, I

think, and then again, I guess, links back to the music we were talking about.

There are different ways to communicate with people.

I think to get to understand the way that the country delegations, here and

understand the science, it's actually really illuminating as a scientist.,

I'm at one end of the problem, really focusing on, on the detail and , I

have the luxury of getting to spend most of my job thinking about the

science, but actually that's not the same thing as when, , trying to

summarize the salient points of that

and what's , the understanding and trying to get that across in a

way that people can understand is actually a, a skill in itself.

And, and, and, and you can learn a lot from just hearing, , how

the different country delegations also seek to find ways.

To make the text understandable and , acceptable to all, all parties there.

That's that's the English phone.

the butlers

just handed him the phone

yeah.

Yeah.

Cause it's all old school.

It should be one of those old ones you lift up them.

You mentioned Nathan Bindoff and his work on the IPCC.

I His work helped Al Gore put together 'The Inconvenient Truth' and everything

that came about during that era.

And I, I use that word era because I feel, and this is just how I feel.

And maybe Niall can, can address this.

But the way I feel about it is it seems like we fall into eras.

Well, well, I was just thinking about, um, about, you know, a part

of history of, of me and it, it took me back actually, I can tie

this into my music career as well.

It took me back to clarinet lesson when I was like 13, where I'd been

playing clarinet for a few years.

And I told my clarinet teacher that I decided I was gonna

start learning drums as well.

And he sort of sighed and sat there and said, listen, Niall, have you

ever heard the expression, 'Jack of all trades master of none'?

And I, and I said to him, something along the lines of, I'm gonna be Jack of

all trades and master of the universe.

. And since then, since then I've been a sort of restless, neurotic, you

know, true to the drummer stereotype.

Um, so I started off, uh, as a field scientist doing my PhD where I went,

I was lucky enough to do things like live in the rainforest for four months.

Um, oh, cool.

I measuring the gases that the trees produce there because they affect

the way clouds are, are created.

And that affects actually the radiation balance, which affects

the, uh, affects climate change.

So that's where I started off.

I, then I did some field work in, uh, in the states, actually in Colorado.

So in the Rocky mountains for a while, which was great, I went to the Met

office and I worked in the Hadley center where, where, where I met Matt, doing

climate modeling for a couple of years.

But really since then, my, my career's gone more down the path of how can we

take the outputs of the science and do new things to make them more useful.

So, you know, you were talking about the different eras and actually I think

a positive take on this is that we're really at this stage where there's

lots of people out there in the world who want to change what they're doing?

And I'm not just talking about individuals anymore.

Actually, this is no longer about individual action.

I'm talking about businesses, mm-hmm and you know, really influential

things like that who are genuinely now saying they want to understand the

problems much better so they can change their strategy and their policy and

investors want to invest differently

I'd really recommend, actually that people are interested there's a, I

dunno if people in the states know who Mark Carney is, but he was the

ex-governor of the bank of England.

He's actually Canadian, but he, he did these lectures on the BBC, the w

reef lectures a couple of years ago.

And he was talking about, one of the episodes was about climate

change and about how, uh, financial sector can deal with climate change.

And he, he was a real advocate.

This is a real sober, you know, uh, kind of market banker type guy.

It was really clear that people should not be investing in stuff , that's

not gonna thrive under climate change, you know, cuz it's immoral, but also

because it doesn't make any Prudential, it doesn't make financial sense.

And so, you know, it is really, uh, I really feel like the conversation

has moved on to being something much more, much less sort of positional

and much more kind of like what are we trying to achieve here?

So anyway, I that's sort of where I am now, the last seven or so years

I've been, um, I, I I guess sort of arch multi-disciplinarian, so I've

worked in data science, I've done a lot of research with technology and

technology companies and flitted between visualization and machine learning.

And uh, like I say, at the minute, I'm, I'm really trying to work with

a lot of partners in technology and business so that they can use not

just the climate change stuff the the Met Office does, but also the weather

forecasting that we do, which is, inherently part of the same problem.

How do you respond to the environment around the decisions you want to make?

Awesome.

I wanna go back to your PhD work over in Borneo.

Oh yeah.

Can you share a little bit about what it was that you researched?

So you were talking about the gases, so, yeah.

Yeah.

So, so, so basically, you know, PhDs is a truism that they always

seem extremely esoteric, you know, because they are, they're, they're

very, very deep researched into a very minor part of a bigger picture.

In fact, actually, I'm gonna call out to another bit of media here.

. There's actually a Teds talk about, um, the project that I was on in my PhD.

And it does a really good job of taking a headline from a newspaper and

saying, what's behind this headline.

And it looks at all the different research that's gone in to

build up, including the project

I was on to make one, you know, five word sentence at the top of a paper article.

But so yeah, what was I doing?

I, I was responsible for running, , some instruments in particular, mass

spectrometer, which is an instrument that can blow apart molecules and figure

out exactly, , what they're made of.

And so in particular, I was looking at any particles that were in the air.

And when we talk about particles here, we're talking

about extremely small things.

So, you know, less than a micro nanometers across.

These particles tend to be created from gases that are emitted by

the rain forest in that instance.

And then they get chemically sort of baked by the sunlight and they

start to condense and form these little sort of mists, I guess.

So these mists, uh, the question is, are they good at

being seeds for clouds or not?

So some people might know that cloud droplets tend to form around,

nuclei, condensation, nuclei.

And so what I was doing was I was going and measuring all these little, potential

cloud seeds that we could find and seeing what chemicals they were made of.

And then that was my niche.

You know, somebody else was then taking that information about the chemistry and

saying, well, how does that affect whether they're good at making clouds or not?

And then somebody else was taking that research and saying, well,

we know how good the chemicals are making clouds or not.

How does that affect the radiation balance and the, and the climate models?

You know, so it's really a huge team effort in that field project there was

maybe, I don't know, from memory 60 people camped out in the rainforest.

And to be honest, a lot of the challenge with work like that is

fixing the generator and the rats eat through the power cables or,

um, or, or, I mean, literally setting up electric fences to scare off

elephants and that sort of thing.

so yeah, there's, I, I guess , I'm gonna draw parallel, although there's less

sort of a prestigious draw, parallel to Matt's, I PCC work with science,

a lot of it's really about the kind of messy, hard graph that you need to

do to get to the kind of good stuff.

Mm-hmm uh, so yeah, a lot of it's about keeping your chin up and, um,

you know, keep going forwards and that

yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, so the work that you're describing then Niall was, was super,

super relevant to the chapter that I was on, for, IPCC which was all

about the radiation balance basically.

And clouds are the big are still the biggest kind, kind of uncertainty in our

understanding of future climate change.

And the interaction of scales.

So the interaction of these very tiny particles that we can, we, you know,

we can't even see really, and how they affect clouds and how that might change

in future and how that's shaped the climate of the past as well, which is

a big part of the problem is trying to understand what's happened to the past.

It's all.

Yeah.

So it's all super important stuff.

So, um, yeah, it's in fact, it's great to hear these stories, Niall,

I haven't, I haven't heard these stories before, so, uh, we'll probably

have to go to the pub at some point.

And, um,

I wanna go with you, so yeah, well, the, the science

is, tremendously important,

I really think this is one of the things that people sometimes don't

appreciate about science as a profession versus most people's experience

of science, which is in education.

And really until you get to at least postgrad, arguably later, a

lot of people's experience about science is being sort of force fed

information, which they have to understand and regurgitate on command.

And actually, as soon as you finish your undergraduate degree, the

whole thing gets inverted, which is by definition, everything you're

doing is stuff you don't understand.

And I, I actually know, I can think of a few people that I've known in my life

who've struggled with that transition.

Sometimes the people who are best at undergraduate and school science

actually make really horrible scientists because they, they're not

comfortable with not knowing stuff.

you know, , and it's the people that actually maybe feel their way through.

I mean, um, some of the undergraduate stuff can make exceptional scientists

because they really have the pragmatism to, to keep going and to,

to kind of chip away at stuff until they find out, and the curiosity

is a totally different skill set.

I think Uhhuh

that's interesting.

Well, I, there's still so much in the world from the micro, to the macro

that we don't understand and hasn't been studied, there's even animals that we

still haven't done enough observations on to learn how climate change is

affecting their diets or their habitat.

. There's just a lot out there.

And we are given these, these God given skills especially you, Matt

and Niall, to go out and do this work and learn about this world,

this planet and what is in store for the future and what might happen.

So when you were talking Niall about your experience, I'm sorry I had, when you

talked about, how music sometimes that comes into your head about something,

well, a movie popped into my head.

You'll laugh.

Sorry, everybody.

But, uh, mosquito coast popped into my head.

I see that.

Okay.

It's Harrison Ford, but not the, not the raunchy parts when he turns into a weirdo,

but the part when he was, scientist and really working with, with the

people and, and building his invention.

And I was just seeing that.

But anyway, moving forward, sorry, moving forward.

So, uh, we'll get back on track here, Catherine.

Yes, . So is there anything else that, you'd like to share?

I guess I was just gonna say that, it goes back to

the music a bit, again, and it gets us into the space of communication

of of, of science in, general.

But, , so there is a song that was on that EP called 'the flood',

which is about sea- level rise.

I think it's a topic that, in, in some places perhaps is becoming

better understood, but sea level rise is really, um,, maybe the creeping

challenge of, climate change.

We think is gonna keep rising for many centuries to come.

And it's a, it's a, a problem that's going to need dealing with.

We're gonna have to adapt to this.

, and I do tend to subscribe to Niall's view of climate change.

The science is really moving now.

It's no longer really a conversation about whether this is happening

and whether it's human caused.

It's human caused.

It's happening.

So the question now is what are the solutions?

How do we minimize our, , exposure to climate risk, which includes by

the way, trying to coordinate efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I mean, that's the best way to avoid, the future risks, but even, even with

those best efforts, such as the Paris agreement to limit surface warming

to two degrees and preferably even 1.5 degrees above pre mm-hmm , um,

we are still gonna have to deal with substantive sea level rise.

So, so the flood was really my attempt to highlight this.

I wanted to write a song about a problem that might help people engage with

something in a way, as, , as Niall said, I don't think kind of lecturing people

on things is actually a very effective way of communicating things in general.

I think if you can capture their kind of imagination or, or, or think about

ways to tap into them and I think music is one of the things where

people can be very passionate about.

I mean, obviously I'm massively passionate about music.

It's been a huge part of my life and will always be, and with that video in

particular, which I suggest, I think it's the one I tell people to go and have a

look at what we did, cuz we've really put quite a lot of time and effort into trying

to make something visually interesting, so yeah, so I'd go and check out the

flood and it's also the reason that, , the EP itself is called a rising tide.

So again, , it's not super subtle, but it's, it's just the fact

that this situation is happening.

And I think people need to be aware of it.

In fact, one of the recent, Pearl jam albums released, I think two or

three years ago was, called gigaton.

And it just has a massive picture of an ice terminating

glacier on the front of it.

I think there are quite a few musicians now getting on board, I guess, as there's

always been, you know, bands with trying to push political agendas, of course, it's

like almost the bedrock of folk music.

That, that was really, I think what I was hoping to do, do with that song and,

um, yeah, it's an interesting space.

Uh

The communication, just going back to what Niall said , the

communication of music, or other ways other means of communicating

science to people is important.

And I think this is a great way.

One of our scientists here in the United States and you know, him,

Josh Willis, he is climate Elvis

I don't know if you knew that,

So I think, I, I think I heard him on your podcast.

podcast I got to know Josh quite a long time ago when we were working

in similar area and I've kind of lost touch with him a bit, but I went and

saw his, YouTube video where they did a gr a great job with this climate song.

Yeah.

With him performing it as climate Elvis.

So it's definitely worth, it's definitely worth looking at it is,

it is great.

I enjoyed that.

And of course COVID hit.

So he obviously couldn't do his gigs, but hopefully you guys will be able to go

back out there and do your gigs and, and make this ginormous with the message that

you are trying to get out with regard to climate change and the rising sea levels.

I'm writing music, I'm still involved in collaborations and,

we go into the rehearsal studio so yeah, so there's stuff happening.

Yeah

here's a question from one of my guests who's a Marine biologist.

Who is liable for the cleanup caused by climate change?

A homeowner lost their home in Hawaii to the sea level rise.

Yeah.

Um, and I think that actual idea is now kind of starting to

appear within the, the political negotiations , at cop 26 and others.

There's an idea of kind of loss and damage and fundamentally it's about, ... so

different countries have emitted different amounts of greenhouse gases in the past.

And so it's about negotiating what the costs of those, which kind of links

to what you are saying basically.

So there is some discourse around that idea now.

And also some interesting science, right?

So I think phrase aloft at the Met Office is just published an

interesting paper about this.

Yeah.

How, what's the kind of, you know, if phrase as a scientist is not his job

to say what's the right way to do this, but what are the different possible

ways that we could start to actually calculate these kind of, um, yeah.

Contributions.

Matt and Niall, you have been so inspiring and so informative,

and I so much appreciate the music and your science and that you are combining

the two to, spread the message and not just message, but your research.

Thank you.

So we like to end with last inspiring words.

So Niall, I know you have to go, so Niall, why don't you, take off

with your last inspiring words?

I think my inspiring words are try and be interested in stuff, you know,

and, and don't be sort of pigeonholed into how you think you should do things.

I think in my experience, There's been so many different facets to tackling climate

change that I've been involved in and I've loved sort of being part of all of those.

So yeah, don't be pigeonholed and just go and follow stuff you find interesting.

Oh, awesome.

Niall Robinson drummer from Matt Palmer band and scientists out in England.

Thank you so much for joining your positive imprint.

I appreciate you.

Thanks guys.

Thanks.

Nice to meet

you, Catherine.

Bye.

Nice to meet you, Niall.

Bye.

Okay, Matt, your last inspiring words.

As I was saying to friends quite recently, I think many

of us do need these creative outlets.

I dunno how much for Niall, I should talk to him about this specifically,

but for me, I was kind of a crossroads when I was about 18 or 19, and I

kind of had to decide whether I was become a scientist or a musician.

And, uh, you're both, well, I've tried to do both, but see, yeah.

I mean, it's just one of those things.

I, I don't think I have a choice with music.

I have to do it.

basically, I'm just compelled.

I can't not do it;

Yeah, so I, I think from my point of view, um, It is about focusing on the

solution space with climate change.

Now that's where my head is at and, the need to work together.

I think all of the problems and the decisions, well, it's common problems.

Let's say the challenges and there are always, opportunities as well in, in any,

in any situation, but the opportunities and challenges, they're all in this

multidisciplinary space really; they're at the intersection between science and

society and, and the natural environment.

I think focusing on solutions and we heard Niall talk about this as well;

the buy- in from, from businesses.

And, and the way that I think we, we collectively need to think about this.

Yes.

Just focusing on those solutions and working together and, and the

time I'm most inspired and, and feel most energized is in, in my career.

It's been all, been all the way through, but particularly in things like I P C C,

where you really have the privilege to work with these people from all across the

globe, from different cultures and, they will have something to bring to the table.

So that collective working, I think, is really the future

of everything that we do.

So, um, For me, these days, it's all about, being a team player

and collectively trying to, address these problems and see what

decisions need to be made in future.

And, and that's really where my interest is now is moving away from

just the pure sea level rise stuff.

But working with people who are thinking about the coastal,

ecosystems and, , what those changes mean for, , coastal management.

So that's where I feel excited to, to be working.

And I think it is a, I think it is a great time if you can be working in

science to try and sit on the interface between these different disciplines.

I think that's where a lot of the exciting opportunities

and progress is gonna be made.

I agree.

I think collective organization is really a means to solutions.

We just can't do it individually.

Matt Palmer of Matt Palmer band.

Thank you so much for sharing your positive imprints here on the show.

And to learn more about Matt Palmer and Niall Robinson, go to MattPalmerband.com

and listen to their music.

They have awesome music with wonderful messages,

I appreciate it.

And I'm glad I, I found you guys, with your music.

Yeah, that's great.

I'm glad you found us too.

Thanks for doing the, podcast.

Thanks for coming up with this whole thing.

Thanks a lot for organizing it all and yeah, it's nice to meet you