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Music, Climate Change and the Environment
Episode 13813th October 2023 • CarbonSessions • The Carbon Almanac Podcast Network
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Episode Summary: In today's episode, Leekei and Olabanji explore the unexpected intersection between music and climate change.

They both agree that music has an essential role in shaping culture and influencing behaviours, making it a potentially powerful tool in the fight against climate change.

Topics discussed include:

  • the role of influencers, musicians and singers in shaping public opinion on climate change
  • the educational power of songs
  • music distribution, digital vs physical
  • the environmental impact of tours
  • what the future of concerts could be like (the ABBA Voyage Concerts)
  • the behavioural influence of arts

MIT discussions on Scientists and musicians tackle climate change together

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Breaking news!

At the time of posting this conversation, on October 10th, we learned that Icelandic singer Björk has teamed with Rosalía, another pop-singer from Spain, to campaign against industrial salmon fish-farming in Iceland.

The song’s title has not been announced, but a 75-second preview has been published online. Björk has announced that all the proceeds from this collaboration will be donated to help fishermen at Seyðisfjörður with their legal fees. In hopes that it can serve as an exemplary case for others.

on youtube help fight fish farming in iceland

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Don’t Take Our Word For It, Look It Up!

For more information on the project and to order your copy of the Carbon Almanac, visit thecarbonalmanac.org

Want to join in the conversation?

Visit thecarbonalmanac.org/podcasts and send us a voice message on this episode or any other climate-related ideas and perspectives.

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Featuring Carbon Almanac Contributors Leekei Tang and Olabanji Stephen.

Leekei is a fashion business founder, a business coach, an international development expert and podcaster from Paris, France.

Olabanji is from Lagos Nigeria. He’s a Creative Director and visual designer that helps brands gain clarity, deliver meaningful experiences and build tribes through Design & Strategy. He founded Jorney - a community designed to help people stay productive, accountable, and do their best work

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The CarbonSessions Podcast is produced and edited by Leekei Tang, Steve Heatherington and Rob Slater.

Transcripts

Speaker:

Hi, I'm Christina.

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I'm from Prague.

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Hi, I'm Jen, and I'm from Canada.

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Hi, I'm Oladunji, and I'm from Nigeria.

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Hello, I'm Liki, and I live in Paris.

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Hi, I'm Brian, and I'm from New York.

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Welcome to Carbon Sessions.

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A podcast with Carbon Conversations

for every day with everyone

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from everywhere in the world.

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In our conversations, we share ideas,

perspectives, questions, and things we

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can actually do to make a difference.

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So don't be shy and join our Carbon

Sessions because it's not too late.

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Hi, I'm Leakey.

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Hi, I'm Olabanji.

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Today we're talking about something

that is going to sound a bit unusual.

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We're talking about

music and climate change.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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What do you think, does music have

anything to do with climate change at all?

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I think, I would say nothing and

everything, you know, nothing

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because it's, music it's art, um,

so it's not something that you can

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touch, it's not something tangible.

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Maybe you can change the way we

play from distributed music, make

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it more environmental friendly.

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But first I would say nothing, but

then I would say no, it has a lot to

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do with climate change because music

is a way like all forms of art to

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influence people and change culture.

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So I think it has a lot

to do with climate change.

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It could be a powerful tool.

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Yeah, I absolutely agree with you on that.

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And I mean, at first, just like

you said, I was like, nah, there's

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probably no relationship between

music and climate change, but

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music is very big part of culture.

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Yes.

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And influences the way people behave

very, very much so that You know, for

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example, you could find people that

are very much influenced by a genre

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of music dressing in a type of way.

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They could dress some way,

for example, hip hop music.

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If you see someone dress a type

of way, you might predict with

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a great level of accuracy that

this person listens to hip hop.

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Because they the exact way

they see the hip hop artists

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dressing in the music videos.

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There was this dressing some,

some years back, I think they

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called it 50 cent or something.

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It was just some baggy jean,

tight t shirts and a scarf.

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And people wore that to identify

with that genre of music and

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sometimes even an artist.

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So looking at it in that light,

I think you're very correct.

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Like music.

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That ability of music can be

used to communicate, to convey

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messages and to influence behavior.

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Yeah.

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I think that, I mean, we're talking about

music and music is very broad, but if

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we talk about singers in groups, um,

pop singers or rap singers, all kinds

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of singers, they can become an icon.

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And an influencer, and they have a

very, very big role to play when they

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become an influencer on how people

behave, there is this big discussion.

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And I'm sure that you have heard about

it, that soccer players, they're not

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musicians, but they're soccer players.

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They could play a very big

role in influencing how the

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youth perceive climate change.

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Because they have such a strong

influence on people, on the youth.

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And, uh, so that's why there's

a lot of criticism on, you know,

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how some soccer players take a

private jet to, on the and all that.

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They could do it, but it's not because

they can do it that they should do

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it because they have a role to play

to, , uh, to show a good example

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on what is responsible or not.

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Yeah.

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That, that is very, that's very care.

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Remember on one episode

of, , this podcast, we talked

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about Leonardo DiCaprio.

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And a lot of the efforts that he

was making to convey messages to

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the public about climate change.

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I went to his page and I even learned a

couple of things about whales and things.

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And you know, if Leo is posting

it, then millions of people are

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accessing it and they're reading it

and they're learning more about it

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and they're becoming more conscious.

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And so he's using this platform and the

access that he has to, you know, propagate

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the idea And that's also true in music.

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I think I read an article, I think

it was by MIT, and they said that

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music has been shown to encourage

altruism, some sort of selflessness.

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You would even go to YouTube

sometimes, and the videos there are

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fundraisers for specific causes.

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So.

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I remember John Legend in one

of his videos during COVID gave

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out all the revenue from that

particular video on YouTube.

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You'd actually see it right there.

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It's a fundraiser.

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There's a tag on the video that shows

fundraiser that all the funds coming

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from that video is going to specific

causes, usually nonprofit, and that

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could also be way of empowering

or advocating for climate causes.

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One thing I find particularly

interesting is that in addition to

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The artist being an icon and being

someone with influence, they could

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even do that through the music as well.

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In the lyrics of the songs.

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Yeah, in the lyrics of the songs, and

that'll be directly communicating.

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You know, when, when I was

younger, I would learn rap

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songs from beginning to the end.

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I would just know those songs,

would listen to them over and

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over and over and over again.

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We enjoyed them.

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And you know, it's, it's such a

great opportunity to sleep in some

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of these things because music is

known to affect behavior in somewhat

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an unprecedented way, right?

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Music makes you feel things.

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You would feel certain types of way

from listening to certain type of songs.

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So sleeping in lyrics about maybe

statistics or something about climate

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change could be very, very helpful.

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Especially to people that do not

consider it as something at all,

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and even people that consider

it as something would spot it.

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Funny enough, I think this was at a

stadium, they were doing a survey,

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and they found out that 90 percent of

the people present there knew about

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climate change and were at a level

knowledgeable about climate change.

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And at this rate, it's not just about

knowing because it's like, well,

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the message is actually starting

to get across a lot, probably more

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ways to trigger people and make them

feel responsible for the ecosystem.

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And so yeah, lyrics in there, like

you said, can be very helpful.

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I can just imagine how Jay Z

would put a line about climate

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change because he's so poetic.

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If he slips in that line, it's going to

be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is great.

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And there's a whole audience

waiting for that kind of stuff.

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But maybe he doesn't care.

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Yeah.

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Maybe he doesn't.

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Yeah.

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But talking about, you know, the

lyrics, I just remember, when you

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want to teach a kid to do something.

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There's a lot of songs to teach.

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Kids do things, you know, how to

brush teeth or how to, you know, how

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to, I don't know how to, to play.

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everything is like a single

long song to teach kids.

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Yeah.

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I think, songs and, and, um,

and music is very powerful.

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And actually when you suggested

this, uh, this topic, I, of course I

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Googled and um, and I googled, okay,

music and climate change in French.

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And then I realized that I was listening

to a lot of singers, French singers, who

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have released songs about climate change

in the 90s, because in the 90s, I used

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to listen to rap music, \ , and those

are French rappers, and I don't listen,

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I don't listen so much to rap music

anymore, so I don't know what rap music

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is about today, but when I was When I was

younger in the 90s, actually, when I was

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young in the 90s, um, and I was listening

to rap music, I realized that there

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are a lot of singers that are rapping

about environment and climate change.

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And, um, and I didn't realize that,

I mean, I know all the songs and,

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uh, but I didn't know that it was, I

mean, I know that they were talking

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about the environment, , but, um,

it was more about the ozone layer

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and biodiversity and all that.

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But, um, you know, it was just normal.

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Yeah.

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I don't know how it is today.

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Well, I certainly hope that more musicians

would actually consider doing that as

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well because it'll be very helpful.

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That is one way that we can get

the system to Well, I wouldn't

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say change, but that is one way we

can greatly influence the system.

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You were talking about kids and how they

learn to do a lot of things by singing.

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\ and one of the reasons that kids learn

things, you know, by learning the

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songs and sort of practicing what's

in the song is because it's easy.

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They remember those things

faster, it's more fun.

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And so it's like, A, B, C, D, E, F, G,

and, and then they keep going and going.

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And, you know, they learn to tidy their

shoelaces, they learn to dress up, they

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learn to do all sorts of things and

knowledge at that age hardly goes away.

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So it's one of the great ways that, that

kids, that we can indoctrinate kids.

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Well, I wouldn't say indoctrinate,

but, you Plant a sense of awareness.

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Yeah, we can teach kids to be

conscious of the environment.

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Don't do this here.

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Don't do that here.

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If you are here, do this.

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Like there's a ton of beautiful songs that

can be written and taught in schools to,

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to get these kids to be more conscious.

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Yeah.

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And so I, I think that whilst it looks

like there's absolutely no connection

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between music and climate change.

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There's a whole lot.

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Here's a funny thing.

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About 90 percent of, and I read this

name in an MIT article, about 90 percent

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of MIT students are also musicians.

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Oh, really?

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That's a lot.

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\ , that's a huge proportion.

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That's virtually everybody at MIT.

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Wow.

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Well, I would assume that what

they mean is that everyone can

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either play a musical instrument or

sing, but this article is by MIT.

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And they say 90 percent of their

students are also musicians.

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That's very interesting.

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Yeah.

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And what about playing music

and distributing music?

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Well, okay, we can start with the elephant

in the room, which would be the tours.

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Yes.

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Right.

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So.

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The artist releases an album and he's on

tour for another year, like a whole year.

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Yes.

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And traveling with the crew and,

and equipment and everything.

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And everything and, and gathering

crowds in different places.

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So well, that's, that's

one guy right there.

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I wouldn't say that that's a

huge contributing factor to

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the global climate crisis, but.

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Right.

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But it's definitely something

the other part, like you said,

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I don't know if there's much as

far as distribution is concerned.

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Oh, distribution, it used to be physical

thing, you know, CDs and, uh, and LPs.

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And today, even though we're going back to

LPs, but today it's, um, I think I don't

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know a lot of people buy CDs anymore.

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Yeah.

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People don't buy CDs generally anymore.

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Yeah.

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So that's less physical stuff.

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Yeah, and I, is that

better for the climate?

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Um, I would assume so, but I don't

know what, the carbon emission

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from the streaming services.

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Yeah.

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Like the servers and the rest of them,

because I know once we talked about, about

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cryptocurrency and how much that is such a

huge thing with emissions, but I wouldn't.

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I don't know about servers and how the

streaming part is done, but I would

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also assume that it's actually better

than, than traveling to the store to

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buy a CD or, or any of all that stuff.

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I think a good rule of thumb would be to

download the song or the piece of music

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on your device and then listen to it.

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That way it doesn't have

to go through the network.

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I just assume this, this

could be a rule of thumb.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And I guess that that should pretty much

just work for all your favorite songs.

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So download them, the ones you

listen to the most so that you don't

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have to keep going back for them.

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And that way you don't place a

demand on the server to provide

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the music for you all the time.

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Yeah.

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But I would like just to go back to

the tour and, um, and I know, I mean,

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You say that, , it might not be a huge

contributor to climate change, but

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yeah, in that realm, everything counts.

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And so there are some bands that have

been doing some very interesting stuff.

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Like I don't know if you

are familiar with Coldplay.

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Yeah, I know Coldplay.

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I don't know if they're still on the

world tour, but um, last year they

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were touring the world and on the

website you can see a lot of funny

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initiatives to ensure sustainability.

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Of the tour, like there was like

the dance floor where you can dance

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and then the energy from the dance

floor is reused to power part of the,

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of the stage or the entire show of

the stage or something like that.

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Yeah.

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Wow.

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So I find it quite funny.

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You know, to make people dance and.

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Then it generates energy , and

then use that to power the stage

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or the song or the performance.

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If you go to on the website, there's a

lot of initiatives about sustainability

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and how they are trying to improve things

, and try to reduce the carbon footprint.

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Wow, that's definitely commendable.

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That's beautiful.

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That's worthy of emulation.

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If they're doing that,

I think that's great.

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So people dance and then the stage

is powered or some lights are

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powered or something is powered and

reduces reliance on, on fossil fuel.

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Yeah.

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, and also another initiative that I find

quite interesting and I don't know how it

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will evolve in the future, but last year,

and actually I think it's still going on.

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I went to, um, an ABBA concert in London.

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I mean, I live in Paris, so I

just have to take the train to

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go to London and, and see ABBA.

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And I don't know if you, you know ABBA.

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It's a, it's a Swedish group that was

really popular in, uh, 40 years ago.

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They split about 40 years ago,

my parents used to listen to

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ABBA, so I'm a big fan of ABBA.

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And when I found out about

the concert in London, I.

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Bought my tickets, but the way they're

doing it is that you're doing it

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like with some sort of um They, they

call it ABBAtars, like ABBAtars.

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And basically, it's a

concert of holograms.

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Wow.

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But it was really,

really, really well made.

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They have planned , to hold this

concert for half a year, but the

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thing is, it's still going on

because it's so, so well made.

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You really feel that you are

seeing the real ABBA, ABBA members

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performing in front of you.

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But they're not there.

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They're not there.

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It's like they're

holograms playing on stage.

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That is so super cool.

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Yeah, it was really cool.

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And it's really cool that

you are singing on stage.

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And I was thinking, wow,

this could be the future.

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The future could be you don't

have to go to a concert.

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If you have this kind of equipment,

you just like in your living room

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and have this device or you can

even have a headset so you don't

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even have to bother your neighbors.

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Yes.

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You have the headset and you have

the, um, the, uh, what do you call it?

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The, um, the Google mask, the,

the, the, the thing for the vision.

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, I think this is the future.

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I don't know.

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Definitely sounds like it.

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Definitely sounds like it.

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It's super cool.

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That way people don't have to move and

travel miles to, to get to contact.

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Yeah, I don't know if the idea of

this ABBA concert is to replicate

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this concept in other cities.

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So far, it's only in London,

but you can just imagine, you

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know, they can be everywhere.

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Even if we're not talking about that

advanced technology in your living

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room, but it could be, oh, they

could be performing in London and

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at the same time in, um, in Lagos.

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Or, and, um, and somewhere in,

um, in Tokyo, in other cities.

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And so the crew doesn't have to travel.

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To travel.

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Yeah.

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Makes total sense.

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And people don't have to travel as well.

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You can be where you

are and enjoy concerts.

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And have fun.

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Yes.

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I mean, the trade off would be

the human to human interaction

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and dancing with people.

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I guess that's part of

the fun of the concert.

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Oh, yes.

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Dancing with people.

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, that's a big part.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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But, well, we can do it 50 50

if, if this takes away half of.

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The emissions, it's okay to do that.

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If I were to go to a concert,

to two concerts, probably

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do one virtual and one live.

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And if everyone just did that,

it'll have some impact, I guess.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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And real life events are good as well.

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Yeah.

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It's been super cool talking

about music and climate change.

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Music and environment.

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And the environment.

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Yeah.

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Music and the environment.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And I hope this brings a

level of consciousness , to

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what's actually possible.

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And before we say that, is there

anything I can do about it?

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There's definitely stuff you can do,

especially if you are into some form of

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art that is able to influence behavior.

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We're probably not even

thinking of many of them.

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There's music, there's probably

many, many other ways that.

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Behavior can be influenced or

we can help make it easier for

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the message to be passed or for

people to remember or take action.

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Yeah.

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So, I know what I'm going to do now.

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The first thing I'm going to do is to

create playlists of, um, songs that

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talk about climate and environment.

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That's something I can do right away.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And and enjoy listening to them.

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Yes.

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Share it and spread the message.

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Yeah.

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And I think another beautiful way is

there's the communicating it, which is

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explicitly talking about the environment

in the music, there's also conveying it.

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So communicating is

talking about it directly.

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Conveying it is implying it, even though

you're not necessarily saying that.

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This is a statistic or that's another

things like you can talk about an

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experience where you cared and infuse that

into the music and people feel like, Oh.

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I can care too, you know, yeah,

yeah, it's just, you know, the song

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that just come to mind is the, you

know, this Louis Armstrong song.

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What a beautiful world.

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And I do, I'm not going to sing because

I'm a poor, very, very poor singer,

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I'm sure that you know this song.

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What a beautiful world.

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What a wonderful world.

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Um, when you I see skies

of blue or something.

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What do you mean?

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Try to sing it in English.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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It's a celebration of the

world that we need to protect.

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So, see?

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This song is definitely a celebration

of the world that we need to protect.

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Yeah.

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:

Are you going to play that?

380

:

Absolutely.

381

:

Absolutely.

382

:

Absolutely.

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:

Absolutely.

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:

Okay, maybe we can sing along together.

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:

No, I'm, I'm, I'm a horrible singer.

386

:

I'm a horrible singer

as well, but I'll try.

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:

Icy skies of blue and clouds of white.

388

:

Oh no, no.

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:

Abort, abort mission.

390

:

Okay.

391

:

I think we should end this then.

392

:

Yeah, we should, we

should probably end it.

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:

And maybe before we go, another song

that also might is we are the world

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:

by Michael Jackson and the rest.

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:

Oh yeah.

396

:

The other guys there.

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:

Yeah.

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:

You see you're not such a bad song.

399

:

Okay.

400

:

That's a great song, but we're pausing it.

401

:

talk to you next week.

402

:

So I'll see you next

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:

hate, this is leaky.

404

:

Just some last minute news.

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:

As I'm posting this conversation.

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:

And today it's October 10th.

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:

2023.

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:

I've just read that Bjork.

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:

York, you know, the singer from Iceland.

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:

She has teamed up was.

411

:

Yeah.

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:

Another pop singer from Spain.

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:

And they are collaborating on the

song to campaign against industrial

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:

salmon farming in Iceland.

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:

Yes, you heard it.

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:

industrial fish farming in Iceland.

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:

This is quite alarming and very

sad because Iceland is a place

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:

with some of the most breathtaking

wanders you can imagine.

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:

The title of this song has not been

announced yet, but you can see a preview

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:

on Bjork, social media platforms.

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:

So we'll link that in the show notes.

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:

Yolk has announced that all the proceeds

from this song will be donated to

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:

help fishermen We have the legal fees.

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:

at.

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:

Does this.

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:

The name of the field.

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:

And Iceland.

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:

And I just wanted to share that with you

to complete this conversation with all.

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:

The banshee.

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:

And as we discussed.

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:

Music can be a powerful

vehicle to create change.

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:

week.

433

:

You've been listening to Carbon

Sessions, a podcast with carbon

434

:

conversations for every day with

everyone from everywhere in the world.

435

:

We'd love you to join the Carbon

Sessions so you too can share your

436

:

perspectives from wherever you are.

437

:

This is a great way for our community

to learn from your ideas and

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:

experiences, connect and take action.

439

:

If you want to add your voice to the

conversation, go to the Carbon Almanac.

440

:

Org slash podcast and sign up

to be part of a future episode.

441

:

This podcast is also part of

the Carbon Almanac Network.

442

:

For more information to sign up for

the emails, to join the movement,

443

:

and to order your copy of the Carbon

Almanac, go to the carbon almanac.org.

444

:

Be sure to subscribe and join

us here again, as together

445

:

we can change the world.

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