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104: Big Hits to Big Oil & Adam Gardner on a Music Climate Revolution

This week, we talk about the absolute shake up of a week Big Oil had, and a Music Climate Revolution that starts TODAY.

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About this episode

This week, we talk about the absolute shake up of a week Big Oil had, and a Music Climate Revolution that starts TODAY.

First up, a shareholder vote to add three new members to the Exxon board succeeded as part of a strategy by activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 to address the twin concerns of climate change and Exxon’s poor financial performance. One of the new board members is our good friend, Andy Karsner! He joins us at the top of the episode for a quick update on what these seats at the table mean for the Oil and Gas industry moving forward, but especially for humanity and the climate.

Second, the unprecedented ruling by a Dutch Court which ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its carbon emissions by 45 percent from 2019 levels by 2030 happened. To give us an incredibly exciting executive summary is Lead Campaigner of the case against Shell, Friend of The Earth’s Nine de Pater.

And finally for our main interview, we are joined by Co-Founder and Co-Director of Reverb, Adam Gardner, who is also the vocalist and guitarist of the band, Guster.. From intention to action, he expresses the work that Reverb has been doing over the last 18 years to disrupt industry norms and increase the climate positive impact of the music touring industry. Acknowledging the unprecedented influence and reach that musicians have at their disposal, Adam, the newest stubborn optimist recruit, explains how environmentalism can be united with fans’ passion to drive positive change and achieve meaningful environmental, social justice and community gains.

And this week for music, we have the privilege of spinning the famous “Satellite” by Guster. Join us, won’t you?

Watch

Full Transcript

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:00:12] Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett-Carnac,

Christiana Figueres: [00:00:15] I'm Christiana Figueres,

Paul Dickinson: [00:00:17] And I'm Paul Dickinson.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:00:18] This week, we talk about why a bad week for big oil is a good week for the climate. We speak to Adam Gardner, co-founder and co-director of Reverb, and we have music from Adam's band, Guster. Thanks for being here.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:00:38] So we talk a lot in this podcast about geopolitics, some big changes in the world and how different powers are fighting each other for what the future's going to look like. But this week has just been so inspiring because it's been about the triumph of small actions and how they can snowball into enormous transformations, real David and Goliath stories from shareholder activism to what can be achieved through the courts by a dedicated group of individuals who really want to see change. I think it's, we're going to get into this, but this, basically the last week has been characterized by major victories over big oil. That would have been basically unthinkable even a few years ago when the stranglehold of big oil on the world in terms of politics and economics just seemed so profound. But now it seems that we're breaking through. Cristiana, why don't you kick us off and let us know what's going on?

Christiana Figueres: [00:01:24] Well, thanks, Tom. I really do think it's a David and Goliath story, or several David and Goliath stories. And the fact that they all come one right after the other within the space of a week is quite, quite extraordinary. We start off with ExxonMobil, where a shareholder with, frankly, close to negligible number of shares was able to get seats on the board and be able to oust several board members who continue to be climate deniers or at least obstreperous to any responsibility on climate, on the part of Exxon, and put their own climate-conscious and climate responsible directors there. So all of this is incredibly exciting. And even more exciting is the fact that we were able to reach Andy Karsner, a long-time friend of ours, just minutes before the shareholder vote counting was confirmed, through which he is now confirmed as the third new director on the ExxonMobil board of directors. How exciting to have someone like Andy sitting on the board of ExxonMobil. We asked him to please share with us the genesis of this incredible shakeup in the governance of ExxonMobil. Here's what he said. It is so exciting.

Andy Karsner: [00:03:00] It is so exciting. Thanks, Christiana. It's the brainchild of a hedge fund investor named Chris James, C.J, who is self-effacing and self-actualized enough to know that he wasn't the right person to be a director. So he's not sort of a Carl Icahn figure of how do I get in there and get on the news and all of these other things? And he had, I think, in his own road to Damascus, which, you know, I began in the oil and gas in the 80s myself. And although my road to Damascus began in nineteen ninety-eight, you know, everybody's welcome, everybody's welcome to realize that this is on and Chris realized this a few years ago. And, you know I've always been obsessed with this thesis of natural capitalism and how you account for nature on the balance sheets of our corporations and of our economies. And that if we would sort of break the tyranny of accounting and account for the things we measure the treasure in and account for the things we all should be valuing: oxygen, water production, carbon sequestration, we'd already have a different way that we manage ourselves economically. And Chris had come to this as well. And so he sought me out. And of course, we had a great brain meld. And he said he was putting together a team to take on ExxonMobil. And of course, I thought, good luck with that. You know, it's never been done. It's never been done. Nobody has ever.

Paul Dickinson: [00:04:30] It's been tried many, many, many, many, many, many times. But it's never been done.

Andy Karsner: [00:04:35] There's been many attempts at the wall, but there's never been a successful hostile proxy contest to get to major oil and gas company in the history of the industry. And so when I'm in Texas and I'm with my father caregiving through a very long, challenging year. Now you know, Christiana shared with me a lot of her challenging year and give me a lot of fortitude and resources and books to read about these things. And I started thinking, what is the most important, you know, audacious kind of thing I could do? Well, certainly be to help Chris and help galvanize this team. And so from covid Zoomland, we began a series of calls with investors and mounting and mounting and got to CalSTRS, one of the biggest pension funds in the world, to back us very early, which very grateful, gave immediate legitimacy. And then CalPERS joined, a larger pension fund in New York Common and then Legal & General, the UK's biggest. So now all these folks are out saying this is a very serious case and everybody ought to listen. And of course, Larry has written the letter for BlackRock these past years. And it became sort of a measure. I mean, we really correlated the business case against the ESG case, but with precision, not sort of qualitative aspiration, but with absolute business correlation and precision to say you ignore these contingent liabilities and these inexorable energy transition strategies and the inevitable necessity of addressing climate change with clarity and a plan. You ignore that and it erodes your balance sheet, your risk, your market position, your competitive posture, your returns. And Exxon is notably gone from first to worst because of its stubbornness to maintain an orthodoxy that let it down very poor capital allocation of drill at any cost.

Andy Karsner: [00:06:29] And so we made that case and then when the independent shareholder groups, ISS and Glass Lewis, very important, sort of endorsed us, it was like a shock across the industry because these are very conservative groups. And they wrote up a 30-page report saying how compelling the case was. And so then all of a sudden we thought, oh my God, this is actually a 50-50 proposition going into this election. And then, as you know, it was a bad day for Shell. It was a bad day for Chevron. It was a very bad day for Exxon. And I should emphasize, I'm from Texas. I'm sitting in Texas. I went to a school that is a major feeder to these platforms, to these corporations. They're good people. These are engineers, they're technologists, they're scientists. There's some of the greatest aggregation of intellectual capital we have that need to be directed to Problem-Solving. How technology needs nature in a way that is sustainable for us all and profitable for enterprise. And you can't address what you don't acknowledge. And so I think that's the big breakthrough, is that I think people get to see this model of a small little engine that could. I think I can. I think I can. And if your case is solid and if you have the people who are credentialed in good governance and know that they want to strengthen the enterprise and turn it to the future we need to have, then the shareholders backed it. And so we feel really great.

Paul Dickinson: [00:08:08] And Andy, if I may say so, I think if, I don't mean to try and correct you, but I think it's a really good day for Exxon. It was a really good thing for Exxon. And just to express this respect for this, you talk about getting CalSTRS in and then CalPERS and then Legal & General and they've started to tell each other and all the different shareholders started to watch each other. And then you mentioned ISS and Glass Lewis. People, probably most of all listeners have never heard of these unbelievably influential proxy voting guideline people, listeners, please pay attention to ISS and Glass Lewis and the ability for us to begin to build coalitions of investors. Honestly, you've written the book that I hope a thousand people will follow.

Andy Karsner: [00:08:51] I thank you so much. For me, associated with Stanford and MIT and Bryce now. And that's what I'm thinking, is that we are changing the playbook that we are helping create a model of change that is not sort of perpetual dissatisfaction and a degree of pessimism. I hear young people saying I want to have babies in the climate and everything. And so what you all do is so important because we have to believe in ourselves that we have designed this problem. We can redesign our paradigm with the solutions and but we've got to first believe in what we can do to achieve it. And so this just felt like an outsized achievement and not on me, it's the village and it's you all that we walk on the shoulders of giants. And the biggest question people had was, is this going to disrupt things unduly and just havoc and you're going in to throw bombs and everything and nothing could be further from the truth. I am a believer that market-based solutions and scaling the profitability of doing the.

Andy Karsner: [00:10:00] Right things at a faster rate than doing the corrosive bad things is how we win that until we have capital formation commensurate with the amount of capital that is doing harm or greater. We can't win and there's no amount of tiving that is going to take us out or make us feel good about a project here and a project that we have to change whole pillars. And so starting with the natural resource industries in the extractives, Exxon's the fifth biggest emitter in the world by itself. Starting with sort of the basics of the intentionality of fulfilling what the shareholders have asked for, that we have a plan and strategy for net-zero by 2050 compliant with Paris. That's significant. The company has not yet been able to bring itself to say those things out loud. And I'm eager to engage with the fellow board members if I'm confirmed, elected, certified, whatever is next. And if not, I'm quite confident the rest of our slate will, because that's exactly what the shareholders have asked for.

Christiana Figueres: [00:11:01] Wow, Andy, this is just so exciting. I can't help but feel that we have turned such, we have bent such an important curve with this. Right? I know for many people it still feels like we're pushing the ball up the hill. But for me, this is like, wow, we got to the top of the hill. We still have to keep on pushing because it has to roll down faster. But there is now an inertia in the system that is completely unstoppable. What is next for you or for Engine 1?

Andy Karsner: [00:11:36] Well, you know, I suppose exhalation and a vacation would be great. You know, the number one thing and it's not just about Exxon, but it's about an industry that I started with and grew up in Texas. If you didn't go to NASA, you went to the energy industry. And I was talking with a very good oil and gas CEO last night, a person who called me when shale first popped and said, I'm going to have a water problem, the shale things, because how can you help me with that? So so there are good leaders with peripheral vision that are struggling to say, how do we supply the world, engage in a transition, be more sensitive about the environment, innovate faster. But it takes to have that learning at the speed we need. But the world moving fast and the targets we have. You must have humility. We must have the humility of peripheral vision. Speed bends naturally towards tunnel vision and people begin reinforcing what they do is a matter of their identity. I need to do what I've always done because that's what I've always done. And I was right before. It's the humility to stand back and allow yourself to be augmented with diverse views of the best people you can find. And so that's what. It's not me coming into Exxon and doing something wildly different, other than hopefully reminding everybody to pause for peripheral vision, get the inputs, get the right knowledge and do what our sort of humanity demands that our corporations can definitely help service. So I'm super excited. This isn't our last conversation. I'm excited that it's my first, you know, dialogue. But listen, I'm truly inspired by you guys and Christiana, who I love so much. So thanks for bringing me.

Christiana Figueres: [00:13:17] And the pause for peripheral vision because this is urgent. I totally love that. Totally love that way of expressing it. Thank you so much. Thank you for just all of a sudden taking our call. We are very excited for you. We are very excited for Exxon. Whether you're sitting there or not, you'll still have your finger in that pie. And we're very excited for the revolution coming on onto the entire oil and gas industry. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Andy Karsner: [00:13:51] Thank you. Guys, I look forward to seeing you guys.

Christiana Figueres: [00:13:56] I just love it. I just love it.

Paul Dickinson: [00:13:59] Teamwork. It's all about the team.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:14:00] And I mean on that one. What's interesting was, I mean, there's been small shareholders who've tried to precipitate sort of mini revolutions at board meetings of oil and gas companies for a long time. But this time that small revolution was supported by some major shareholders. Right? I mean, that's what made the difference. Paul, you've been a student of this for a long time. What did you think?

Paul Dickinson: [00:14:19] Well, indeed I have. Indeed I have. I mean, it's funny, like, you know, you talk about this David and Goliath battle, but actually, it's David and Goliath together fighting another Goliath. Big companies, big corporations have elections. Yeah, how about that? It's not just governments, right? So we need to recognize that if you're clever and, obviously Engine No. 1 were extremely smart, and you put together a very strong case that a company needs to change the way it's operating. Then you can go to the annual general meeting, which is like a parliament for a corporation. You can bring forward your resolution. And if the majority of shareholders back it, which they did, you get to kind of run the company. And I'm also delighted just to say in passing that one of the directors elected is Kaisa Hietala, who used to head renewable products at Neste. Who sponsored this podcast. So just to say. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's a good to know if you want to get on the board of Exxon, basically sponsor Outrage and Optimism.

Christiana Figueres: [00:15:20] Yea, it's a direct link. Directly. But Paul, I think you jumped over one important step there. Yes, you can be a very small shareholder. If you have the guts and the vision and the determination to change policy, then if there are enough shareholders to support you. But that's A to B and in between those two, you have to form alliances. You can't go being a completely minority shareholder and expect without all of the preparation to get a vote in your favor, I cannot imagine how much work Engine No. 1 put in with those shareholders who do make a difference, because CalSTRS has been a shareholder for a long time. But this is the first time that they actually stepped up. And it takes a lot of backroom work to get an alliance, a coalition of shareholders who will make a difference at the board vote.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:23] Yeah, Yeah. 

Paul Dickinson: [00:16:24] Just on that one. Sorry Tom, just to say that actually there's just so much history there. And I was looking up this evening, Bob Monks, who is a wonderful kind of grandparent of the corporate governance movement. A genius, first put forward to Exxon that they should split the role of chair and chief executive and have a committee looking at shareholder issues in 1992. And actually there have been shareholder groups, climate activists, religious groups, the nuns with guns, as they were called, Sister Pat. All these people over three decades. And then finally, my friends, we won.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:04] So do we think because, of course, this is an end of all of that that you just described, but it's also a beginning because potentially, I mean if you were another oil and gas major. All of them have got small activist investors in their portfolio who hold stock in the company. So, I mean, honestly, if I was a major oil and gas company now looking at this, I would kind of think, wow, the times come. You know, a small investor with a well-thought-out plan and a clear outcome that they're driving towards can now be successful in changing the governance, you know, changing the board of these companies. I mean, this is the beginning of a total revolution and amongst these companies, isn't it?

Paul Dickinson: [00:17:40] Ok, let me offer a last thought. I'm going to invent a little catchphrase, but we should all remember it and the corporate world should definitely remember it. Climate change activists always win one particular battle, the last one.

Christiana Figueres: [00:17:53] But, you know, we didn't mention what other amazing wins were won by the climate movement this week.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:18:00] The little engine that could was a big one.

Christiana Figueres: [00:18:03] Yeah. Yeah. The little engine that could was amazing. Also, we shouldn't forget that in the Netherlands, the court ruled against Shell. Shell, not just in the Netherlands, but Shell with all its international operations, forcing them to cut their carbon emissions by forty-five percent from 2019 levels by 2030. That is basically the day after tomorrow for a company that makes very long-term decisions. Now, of course, they're going to fight that, et cetera, et cetera. But, very interesting that the court now for the first time, any court, is actually having a resolution against an oil and gas company. And then, what happened at Chevron? Tom? Paul? What happened at Chevron?

Paul Dickinson: [00:18:54] I'm broadly speaking of the opinion that Chevron were obliged to report on their scope through emissions and

Christiana Figueres: [00:19:01] Yes, also through shareholder resolution. That's the point.

Paul Dickinson: [00:19:04] And for those of you out there who don't know what is going through me, I've done it before. I can replay the tape.

Clay Carnill: [00:19:10] Yes, roll tape. Here we go.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:19:19] Paul, would you like to explain what scopes one, two and three means?

Paul Dickinson: [00:19:22] I would love to. Clay. Could we have some tiny little explanatory music. 

Paul Dickinson: [00:19:28] Listeners. Scope one, two and three is the center part of greenhouse gas accounting. Scope one is the fossil fuel your organization purchases and scope two is the electricity your organization purchases and those are both in your audited accounts. Easy to calculate. Scope three is everything else, and particularly for an oil company, it is the oil and gas that is combusted. That product from the company. Scope three is the product. Thank you.

Paul Dickinson: [00:19:55] Thank you Clay for taking this in such good humor. So for Chevron, that is all the oil and gas they sell all around the world and having to calculate those greenhouse gas emissions is a major step forward in the accountability of that company to our world.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:20:10] And I mean, that's amazing. And to just go back to the Shell thing previously, if we've entered a period of history in which governments are passing laws that require oil and gas companies to actually reduce emissions in line with the science, that is going to herald a complete transformation. Now, we should get into this, but I actually understand that our executive producer, Sharon, had a conversation with the person who brought the case. So maybe we should invite the listeners to listen to this fantastic mini-interview that Sharon Johnson, our executive producer, had with Nine de Pater, who is the lead campaigner in Friends of the Earth, Netherlands, on the Shell case.

Sharon Johnson: [00:20:47] So how long have you been working on this? What was the sort of timeline from inception to actually get this remarkable result you've just achieved?

Nine De Pater: [00:20:59] So about five years ago, our director Donald Pols got the idea to sue Shell because Shell is the biggest CO2 emitter, the biggest polluter in the Netherlands. Of course, we already had the court case against the Dutch government by agenda. And from that, we got the idea that we could also take big corporations that are accountable for the climate crisis to court. So this is about five years ago. Five, six years ago. And then, of course, the research started about the company, about climate change, about the specific responsibility of a company. And then back in 2018, we announced a case. So before that, it was all very secret. We were not allowed to talk about it at all. And then we were finally able to talk about it. So we warned Shell and then it took us another year to prepare all the legal documents and really, officially start court case in 2019 and in 2020, December 2020 we got our hearings, four days of hearings and now the win. 

Sharon Johnson: [00:22:16] Unbelievable. Well, that's great. Yeah, a lot of hard work and a lot of people and a lot of deep thought before, you know, the moment of celebration that's kind of reverberated around the world. So what is the win really mean? How does the campaign and the legal strategy connect? And what does it really mean for the Netherlands and also for a company like Shell, which has operations all over the world, you know, huge operations in Nigeria and elsewhere, well beyond the shores of what is a relatively small country?

Nine De Pater: [00:22:51] Yeah. So this court case, we asked Shell to stop causing dangerous climate change. Virtually we asked the judge to force Shell to stop causing dangerous climate change. And we said Shell is a globally operating company. And that means that they have to at least follow the global average CO2 reduction. It needs to be done to be able to still achieve 1.5-degree global warming. And the judge agreed with us. So it basically means that Shell has to reduce its CO2 emissions in 2030 by forty-five percent and not just from its operations, but also from its consumers. So it's in technical terms, scope one, two and three all the emissions that Shell is responsible for have to be reduced by 40 percent globally. So this will have a massive impact on the company itself. It will mean that they really have to change their entire business model. It means that they will probably not be able to invest much more in new sources of oil and gas and definitely not being able to do what they planned. So the investments that they planned in the coming years and where they will execute change, that's up to Shell as long as they reach this average forty-five percent globally. But not just for Shell, this will be a huge impact. It also means, of course, that other companies will look at this and see that, now, companies can be held responsible for the damage that they cost to the climate. It's not just countries anymore. So this has an impact on Shell itself but we definitely see that this is precedent that is going all over the world. And maybe a third impact that I already see happening is that it caused us so much optimism within the climate movement. We get messages from all over the world and people are so happy about this because we don't see a lot of wins within the climate movement, within our fight against climate change. And when we see one and especially one like this, it gives us so much energy to continue and and hope that we can still reach this goals that we all set together in Paris.

Sharon Johnson: [00:25:19] Thank you. That's brilliant. Thank you for for using optimism because always think that we all exist somewhere on a spectrum between outrage and optimism and we need both.

Nine De Pater: [00:25:33] Yeah. Yeah. You cannot always be angry because you need some optimism sometimes. Yeah.

Sharon Johnson: [00:25:39] We need both, it's the combination that makes us effective. So thank you for being a brilliant example of that. And so how will you fight back? When Shell contest the ruling, as they've said that they will?. 

Nine De Pater: [00:25:54] Yeah, we expect that Shell will appeal. And of course, we will. We will prepare for that. We will continue this fight as long as Shell is causing dangerous climate change. In court, but also through public pressure. And also, we already see that a lot of shareholders and investors are putting pressure on Shell. So all this pressure together is really the way to change Shell and change the fossil fuel industry and the energy sector. So we will, of course, continue in court, but we will also continue to mobilise people to put pressure on Shell. And I didn't mention before, but we have 17,000 individual co-plaintiffs, so Dutch citizens that joined our court case and it's a win for all of them. And of course, it's a win for the whole world, but especially for them. I think when the covid crisis is all done, then we will have a big party.

Sharon Johnson: [00:26:55] Well, we are dancing in our respective homes along with you. And, you know, keep us posted. And we really appreciate you making time in your busy schedule.

Nine De Peter: [00:27:08] Yeah. Thank you. All righty.

Paul Dickinson: [00:27:11] I mean, how fascinating to hear from Nine and I love the fact that the the case said that Shell were endangering human rights and lives by threatening the goals laid out in the Paris agreement. And it just goes to show Cristiana how when the world came together in 2015, it set the scene for all kinds of people to pursue all kinds of agendas in so many different places. It's very, very exciting,

Christiana Figueres: [00:27:34] Otherwise known as the Paris effect.

Paul Dickinson: [00:27:37] The Paris effect. I like that.

Christiana Figueres: [00:27:41] So every week we read a couple of little messages that we get from you, wonderful listeners. And this week we got one from someone who calls himself a 14 year old kid trying his best to understand the complex issue of climate change and help combat it. So thank you very much, Iron Man 11. Really appreciate your encouragement here. And then we have something else

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:28:09] We should say. Iron Man 11 actually makes a specific point, which I think is very nice, one day I hope to be like you, Christiana, which I think is a lovely comment. A lovely compliment for you. Yeah, very noble goal.

Christiana Figueres: [00:28:20] Especially coming from a boy, I must say. That is so cool.

Paul Dickinson: [00:28:26] Yeah. Yeah. Are there iron women like, it's a question. Is it a gendered thing?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:28:32] Of course there are iron women. OK. Sharon is messaging us to say all women are made of steel.

Paul Dickinson: [00:28:36] Quite correct. OK, onto the next one. We invited actually people to be a little bit more like Georgina to make a review. And this is Jetset Jilly from Great Britain. And she says this game-changer podcast has the highest caliber contributors and discourse that I have ever had the privilege to listen to. Bertrand Piccard, Andrew Steer, Jens Stoltenberg. Wow. Just wow. Thank you. And please keep doing this excellent work. Christiana is an inspioneer who is lifting me out of the darkness and propelling me to change my career and stand up to be counted. Can't wait to watch breaking boundaries with my nine-year-old son. This podcast is complete spiritual and intellectual nourishment. Eat it up.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:29:20] That is so nice, isn't it? That's wonderful. That's so lovely. Thank you so much for this review.

Paul Dickinson: [00:29:24] Please send your reviews in. Please do

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:29:27] It's actually a good moment to point out that tomorrow, Breaking Boundaries is coming on.

Paul Dickinson: [00:29:32] So thank you. Thank you for waiting so long. Christiana, one last plug for Breaking Boundaries, which is on Netflix tomorrow.

Christiana Figueres: [00:29:39] Ok, this is going to be the most important film you have ever watched. I already said so, but let me say it again. Watch it with someone who is younger than you, because that is the person to whom we owe our responsibility.

Paul Dickinson: [00:29:53] Nice.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:29:55] So breaking boundaries tomorrow. Don't miss it. It's going to be amazing. And also, we have an amazing interview for you today. So today we have Adam Gardner. Now, Adam grew up in New Jersey in the wooded hills with more horse trails than roads, he says. And after meeting Lauren Sullivan, an environmentalist and campaigner for Rainforest Action Network and now his wife, the two co-founded Reverb in 2004 to activate fans, musicians and the industry towards issues associated with environmental pressures brought about by the touring industry in the music business. The spirit of environmentalism made so much sense in the context of Adam's experiences of touring with his band, Guster, and their campaigns have raged since then from ending illegal logging to bring your own bottles to concerts, to tackling Single-Use plastics, etc.. This is a great conversation. They've done so much, you'll hear so much more. Sadly, I couldn't join this conversation for some reason, I had something else I had to do. But you too did an amazing job, as you always do. So here is the discussion with Adam.

Christiana Figueres: [00:30:57] Well, thank you, Tom.

Paul Dickinson: [00:30:58] Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:31:00] Here is an amazing conversation with Adam and we will be back as ever afterwards. See you in a few minutes.

Christiana Figueres: [00:31:13] Adam, thank you so much for joining us today on Outrage and Optimism. You, as we have already introduced you, as vocalist and guitarist for Guster. But if you will allow us today, we actually want to focus on the other part of your life and you have many parts of your life. But we wanted to focus our conversation on the NGO that you and Lauren and your wife founded 18 years ago.

Paul Dickinson: [00:31:45] 18 Years ago.

Christiana Figueres: [00:31:46] 18 one eight. Is that correct?

Adam Gardner: [00:31:48] It is, yeah. It makes me feel old, but yes, it's true.

Paul Dickinson: [00:31:54] You should get a long service award in climate change.

Christiana Figueres: [00:31:55] Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's also true that it was actually Lauren who brought greenness to your soul and to your daily activities, is that correct?

Adam Gardner: [00:32:06] Yeah, we were just you know, we were teenagers when we met. We met in college, so I was 19 and she was 18, she came in always the environmentalist and I came in always the musician. I've been touring in my band for nearly 30 years, which also makes me feel old. And she's been working in the environmental space ever since I've known her. She worked for Rainforest Action Network in California. She advocated for green space in New York City when we lived there. And I think through her experiences, through our two worlds, really, we came up with Reverb. From my end, I was a musician and living and loving an environmentalist. So I became one myself just because I wanted to make sure she still loved me.

Christiana Figueres: [00:32:53] That's a good policy to buy. Very good policies.

Paul Dickinson: [00:32:56] It's me and the planet, you know, are you in?

Adam Gardner: [00:33:00] So far. It's worked very well.

Christiana Figueres: [00:33:01] Good strategy.

Adam Gardner: [00:33:03] So but, you know, in all sincerity, through living and learning from her, living with her and learning from her and living as an environmentalist and with an environmentalist and then going out on tour and seeing the exact opposite of everything I was doing at home happening out there where everything is disposable. Anybody who's been to a concert, all they have to do at the end of the night is look down at their feet to know that there's a real impact here negatively with all the plastic on the ground alone. Never mind that 20000 people driving to and from the show and all the energy that goes into it. So it's, you know, it's a significant footprint that at the time I was on tour with bands like Maroon 5 and John Mayer and Dave Matthews Band, and we were all having similar feelings of regret and lamenting the fact that, you know, what we loved was damaging the earth. You know, even the guys in my band, Guster, we would kind of joke about our tour bus and nicknamed it the Earth Eater because we felt that.

Christiana Figueres: [00:34:02] We read that. That's great.

Paul Dickinson: [00:34:05] That's kind of like a little bit scary. But that's great, call a thing by its name. 

Adam Gardner: [00:34:09] It's just acknowledging but, you know, using humor for us to feel better about it. But we weren't feeling better about it. I think I came off the road one too many times and home to my then-girlfriend, now wife and co-director of Reverb, Lauren. God, it's just such a mess out there and all these other artists that we're touring with feel similarly. And she said, well, what are you going to do about it? Then we all just shrugged our shoulders? She said well, that's not enough. What can you do? And so on.

Christiana Figueres: [00:34:35] Good on her. Good on her.

Adam Gardner: [00:34:36] So Reverb was really born out of, you know, two desires. My desire being how do we cross the chasm between artists' and musicians' intentions and their actions? And from my wife's perspective, how do we use the immense cultural power and reach that music has to truly amplify and expand the environmental movement? Now, remember, we started in 2004. Green was still just a color then, like the consciousness of environmentalism, at least here in the States, was for a very small subset of people, the hippie crunchy types, and that was it. It was not a mainstream issue or concern. So at the beginning, our main focus was how do we bring this out to the mainstream? And we were very lucky to work with artists like Maroon 5 and Jack Johnson and John Mayer from the very beginning of our start as Reverb. And so that's been huge.

Christiana Figueres: [00:35:32] So I have one comment and one question, Adam. My comment is a comment of full, deep, and sincere regret that we did not plan this conversation with you in advance so that we could have had Lauren speaking right next to you because honestly, we owe her a deep debt of gratitude to her that she was the one who put this before you and I guess challenged all of you to continue doing what you love and what your passion is, but doing it more responsibly. So could you please and I know that she's very busy at the Reverb office today, but please give her from us our gratitude for having sparked this interest in you. So that's our comment. And my question is, do tell us then explain to us, because it's quite unusual what you call the niche that you carved out for yourself as an environmental NGO. Can you tell us, first of all, what does Reverb mean and what do you do?

Adam Gardner: [00:36:42] Again, the credit goes to my wife, Lauren Sullivan, with the name for Reverb.

Christiana Figueres: [00:36:46] Yay Lauren. Here's to Lauren.

Adam Gardner: [00:36:50] So from my perspective, Reverb is a knob on a guitar amplifier that allows this echoic effect on your instrument. From her perspective and why it has a nice double entendre is that it's also reverberations and the fact that it starts with an artist who has this audience and has a microphone and has a platform, online and in-person, face to face, with this very unique relationship that musicians have with their fans, really unlike any other celebrity. Like, I'm not a big fan of the term celebrity influencer, but musicians do have a very deep and meaningful relationship with their fans. Even a band at my level, which is not known over in your neck of the woods, you know, we have fans that are, you know, we write these lyrics and they tattoo them on their skin. What we say and what we are and what we feel.

Paul Dickinson: [00:37:43] Better be good lyrics. People are going to have them forever.

Christiana Figueres: [00:37:48] You know, Clay, who was a musician, a touring musician, a couple of lives ago. He calls it an insane amount of power or influence over your audience. That's the way he describes it.

Adam Gardner: [00:38:00] It is. And what's unique to the environment is that you can be a working example of what can be done. And so that's the approach we've taken with musicians and their fans, well, let's get them walking the talk on tour and having the tour itself be a display of what can be done to, you know, to protect people in the planet. And so it's very powerful for an artist to say, hey, tonight's show is Carbon Neutral or Climate Positive. We're supporting all these organizations locally, nationally and globally to fight the fight. And we want them here. We set up an ecovillage of these organizations so fans can plug right in and take action on the spot at the shows and we give them incentives to do so. Right. They can win a signed guitar from the band or you can win ticket upgrades or whatever it is to get them to pay attention. But honestly, the fans, when given the opportunity and are right there at a peak emotional moment being at a concert of their favorite band, they want to get involved, especially if the band is saying, here's what we're doing and we want you to join us. We're not using single-use plastic water bottles backstage. We'd like to encourage you to use reusable at the show and we've set that up here. So, you know, I didn't answer your question in full. That's what Reverb means is the idea is that it reverberates out from these artists because that unique relationship.

Christiana Figueres: [00:39:18] Love that. Love that.

Adam Gardner: [00:39:19] A lot of what we've done, especially in the beginning, is on tour because that band-to-fan face-to-face interaction is so important and special. And then also it's just, you know, it's the largest platform artists have to engage their fans and also show it's the largest impact they have negatively on the environment, too. So that's where we focus to minimize that footprint.

Paul Dickinson: [00:39:46] If I can ask you about the ecovillage creation. I'm an ecovillage person. I'm involved in an ecovillage in Scotland called the Findhorn Foundation. I love ecovillages. I've been to others. And my question for you really is like, well, my experience of ecovillages is that they're wonderful places, but they really come alive when there's music, when there's art, when people's hearts are being touched and we're being kind of connected by the magic of music. You know, you are the music, whilst the music lasts and me becomes we at that exact moment. So looking at it the other way around, how do you turn a concert into an ecovillage? What does that involve?

Adam Gardner: [00:40:20] So we actually fold Reverb staff onto an artist's tour. So for example, Billie Eilish's world tour, we put two staff on the team folded in just like a crew member.

Christiana Figueres: [00:40:33] So you imbed them into the touring group? Wow. For how long Adam? For how long?

Adam Gardner: [00:40:41] The entire run of the tour they're part of the team, part of the family to make systemic changes happen on the tour and getting all the different things in place. Because we found that we can, you know, we can do contractual riders and we can make suggestions and consult. But everyone out there has a job to do and their plates are full. And it's clear that there's so much work to be done that it necessitates, if we're going to make significant changes happen, it really necessitated it to be someone's job out there. And that's what we do. So we have a number of folks that are no stranger to being on tour, which is a skill in and of itself, because if you live on a tour bus with everybody.

Christiana Figueres: [00:41:22] It's a survival skill.

Paul Dickinson: [00:41:24] It's fine. Let's say I'd pitch for that job. So say if I'm trying to get a job at Reverb, I'm going to be on Billie Eilish's world tour for however long. And what am I doing on that bus? What's my job?

Adam Gardner: [00:41:36] You're up first thing before everyone else to get to the venue and make sure that catering for breakfast is as we've advanced it and making sure that all the waste collection and waste management is in place. You're going through with the general manager of that venue where we already advanced it. But still, the day of, we've learned, you still need to do it again and do a walk through. Here's where we're going to set up the ecovillage in the concourse. Here's how many square feet we need here. We need a water hookup for our free water refill stations. We will be receiving donations for bottles out there and all these different things. Because it's a comprehensive program, so making sure that even simple things like the catering is in order that we don't have a bunch of Styrofoam and disposables out for the band and crew.

Paul Dickinson: [00:42:23] And what about food itself? I mean, do you pay attention to the kind of food thats served and what does that look like?

Adam Gardner: [00:42:28] 100 percent. So we have two different programs backstage. Again, so the whole approach, to back up one second, the whole approach we take on tour is dual-pronged. Behind the scenes, backstage, how do we make the tour itself as eco friendly as possible and minimize its negative impacts? And on the front of house, out to the fans, how do we maximize the positive impacts with the 20000 people that are there that evening and influencing them and making actions happen there on the spot? So I mentioned, the single-use water bottles, limiting those, and having fans refill at our free water stations. You know, the cheapest merchandise item they can buy that night is the band custom water bottle. We have a custom water bottle that they can take home. Obviously, we want them to reuse it and ditch disposables altogether. But through that program alone, that's called Rock and Refill, we've eliminated over three million single-use plastic water bottles at concerts. Not just you know, we're not factoring in the fact that hopefully they then take that home and continue to reuse, which we have plenty of stories on, but it's hard to really put data against it. Where at the shows we have real hard data to know that we've eliminated over three million bottles that way. So, Paul, for your job interview. Yes, you have to be able to get up early and work all day.

Christiana Figueres: [00:43:42] Getting ready Paul, get ready.

Paul Dickinson: [00:43:43] Get up early, that's not good. Well, let's see how we go. So I'm on the tour. I get to the venue first. I mean, in terms of food, are you focusing on, for example, reducing or removing meat from diets, or is it more really about the packaging, or is it both?

Adam Gardner: [00:43:59] It's all of it. So, sorry, I went off on a tangent here. So our food programs, we have two farm to stage and farm to family. So farm to stage is the backstage part, where we source local farm food from family farmers within, we try as close a radius to each venue as possible. So supporting farm systems along the tour and making sure that connect those to food caterers and getting those in there/

Christiana Figueres: [00:44:24] That needs a lot of prep work before you get there. A lot.

Adam Gardner: [00:44:28] Yeah. So, you know, the structure of Reverb is we have it's not that different than, in a lot of ways we consider it like NASA where we have mission control.

Paul Dickinson: [00:44:38] We're talking rocket science here. We're talking like space. All those people in the control room, I got a picture of it. So go for it, NASA.

Adam Gardner: [00:44:43] So if mission control, and that's in Portland, Maine, here, where we have everyone who's in charge of all the logistics. Because that can be fueling biodiesel for, you know, X number of buses and trucks wet hosing them at the venue that morning. So they go in, OK, how many gallons does everybody need? All that getting the farm food to the caterers and the resources there ahead of time, coordinating all the local volunteers that we have to come in and engage fans. It's fans engaging their peers at the ecovillage, as well as bringing in on all the local and national nonprofit groups. Every step of the way, it's a lot of logistics. So that's the mission control and then the embedded staff that we have on the tour are our Major Tom, so to speak.

Paul Dickinson: [00:45:27] And how is it funded? Because, I mean, that's you know, I'm an NGO person, so I'm always like, wondering, OK, what's the, you know, because I use the word business model, that's not really the right term, is it? Because we're not-for-profit organizations. But I mean, you've always got to have that income to be able to fund the staff and the work, and so how does that work?

Adam Gardner: [00:45:42] We've done it every which way. I mean, our goal is to make this is accessible as possible to various artists and where they're at. So some artists, they consider it part of their production. They just want it's a cost of doing it right and we give them a budget and we talk about a program and they do it that way. They see us as part of the production team. Others have sponsors that they want to bring in or want us to help bring in and obviously, they need to be in line with our ethos and mission. But we've been able to do that and that's been helpful too. Nalgene is a big partner of ours with our Rock and Refill program. They make reusable water bottles and that's been super successful. Again, we've raised over two million dollars for environmental causes and, when needed, our own work on those tours. And some people attach it to the tickets. So some artists will just do a dollar or euro or pound a ticket.

Paul Dickinson: [00:46:38] That makes sense. I can see that you're going for multiple sources. And, sorry I'm like firing all these questions at you, but, the big one that we've come up with, we've talked to, you know, all kinds of people, Jane Fonda, we talked to Massive Attack. Who made a record with Christiana speaking about climate change. The kind of dream, I guess, for the climate change movement, is that we can build upon the success of the artists, really. Or being in some kind of relationship with them to raise the profile, and yet I've also heard it said that there can be issues of polarization, that you can divide the band up and there can be issues around how your followers are. I just wondered if you could give some insight to our listeners about what kind of works and what's the right relationship between artists in this movement to grow and build and just get the message out.

Adam Gardner: [00:47:42] You bring up an important point and it's all about knowing your audience and nobody knows their audience better than the artists themselves. So we work very closely with them and their management to make sure that our approach and our messaging and what our focus is within the environmental movement hits home with their fans and makes sense. So obviously, if we're talking to Jack Johnson fans that are already very much environmentally minded. That's a certain level of conversation that we're going to have that's different than a new country artist like Kacey Musgraves coming in. And even, honestly we've even changed messaging depending on where we are geographically, especially in the States. I mean a 40-day tour takes you through very different parts of this continent. So that's also really important. And, again, a lot of that also gets cooked into us. We always like to involve not just, we do work with large NGOs like World Wildlife Fund and Sierra Club, and NRDC, and we actually are a partner of the United Nations environmental program as well. But we also find it very important to bring in local community organizations too. Also, it means a lot to them to have 20000 people all of a sudden aware of who they are in their own communities and also ties in those community concerns and issues that will be relevant to those audiences. So it all kind of is cooked in and works well.

Christiana Figueres: [00:49:06] Adam, and in your diversity of approach, that I very much understand and appreciate, I'm curious how you approach an artist or a band that you haven't worked with before. Those that are already, let's call them, in our space, in our tent, are probably very easy to approach because you just bring a certain methodological approach to what they already stand for and the messages that they've all been giving and they are, I'm sure, entirely delighted and grateful for that rigor of your methodology and the completeness of your engagement. However, do you limit yourselves to those that are already inside the green tent, or do you actually try to approach those who haven't even thought about it before and those who are much, much farther away from our tent? How do you approach them? Because before you can even touch the fans, you have to enroll the artists, the band itself. How do you do that?

Adam Gardner: [00:50:16] It's a challenge. And I mean, to be honest, there's so much work and there are a lot of artists that are wanting to do something but aren't sure how. So, to be honest, a lot of our work is still educating those artists about what they can do, again, crossing that chasm between intention and action. Yeah, that said, absolutely. We are trying, especially with climate change and climate justice, we are trying to reach out to more diverse artists, especially artists of color, and that those are the conversations we're having right now. We've been lucky that we have worked with artists like Drake and J Cole and Wiz Khalifa. But the challenge is how do we make sure, and these are exactly the conversations we're having now, how do we make it clear to the artists and their fans, especially for talking about BIPOC communities and artists that climate justice in these communities of color bear the brunt of the worst that the climate crisis brings. So we found that the way that we've been connected to them, and a lot of them have their own stories of, you know, even in their own right, or there's an artist we are just working with that in in the contractural writer, they had a lot of stipulations about air quality because they're suffering from asthma, because of where they grew up. And that is a direct correlation to environmental justice and the "not my backyard" ends up in their backyards. And so connecting those dots is a big part of what we're working on currently and making sure that we are reaching out and people are understanding the complete and 100 percent overlap between racial justice and environmental justice.

Paul Dickinson: [00:51:54] Yeah, I know that it's absolutely beautifully put. I mean as climate change people, we know that, for example, some of the communities who suffer most seriously in the world would be, for example, in Bangladesh, where it's a very low-income country but then actually, within advanced economies like the United States, you've got these same issues of racial justice is linked to environmental justice. We have a large and growing group of listeners. Very exciting. How can they help? How can they be part of this movement? How can we really support the work of Reverb and artists around the world who are trying to make a difference to these problems?

Adam Gardner: [00:52:32] Yeah, I mean, for sure. If I was just speaking to listeners now, it would be: look at your own spheres of influence and your own impacts. So there's two things, right. What can you do to change in your own world to have less of an impact? So start at home, then go to your workplaces and look around and what's happening there? What does waste look like? What does energy look like? What does the water use look like? What are your impacts? Because once you start, I'm speaking from experience because this is what happened, we said in the very beginning of this conversation, that Lauren opened my eyes and once I started looking through that lens, it's hard to stop. And I saw it happen with my bandmates and I've seen it with our peers now as I engage other artists and then we have been engaging other artists now for almost 20 years. That once you start looking through that lens, the questions start escalating and you go: Wait what's happening in my church or my temple or what's happening in my school, what's happening in our community, what's the idling policy here or, you know, in town or this business, what all of us think, why is the ambulance idling at the hospital and is supposed to be making people healthier and all these sorts of things? So that, for sure. And then plugging in to, you know, use your voice, plugging into, again, start locally, like what are the environmental issues and organizations in your community that are fighting the good fight and how can you help them. For Reverb, specifically, we have a new campaign that we're launching called Music Climate Revolution.

Paul Dickinson: [00:54:01] Music Climate Revolution. I'm famous for singing, but not when there are professionals on the podcast but it definitely deserves a song.

Christiana Figueres: [00:54:09] Can I say now on record what I said before we started recording when Adam said that Music Climate Revolution, I said, OK, I totally love all those three words individually and what they stand for, but putting them together is like the maximum. I am so excited. So what is it, Adam?

Adam Gardner: [00:54:27] So this is a natural extension of what Reverb been doing for 18 years, where we've been working with artists and their fans and using that collective power. But then we also want to be very focused on climate. And because I think the biggest hurdle that we're up against culturally is that people feel helpless and hopeless. And I know this and here's the name of your podcast. The optimism part and I think that's really important. And what we found is that we need, especially in the music community, people need to understand that, hey, that's billions of people that care about music, that love music and make music and are involved in an industry that, unlike any other industry, music has the potential to do far more good and positive impact for the climate than its own footprint. So because of its cultural power, because of its reach to literally billions of music fans that are passionate about these artists, we have the potential to really take a good bite out of the climate crisis and really start reversing its negative effects and impacts. So, you know, where we started as let's try to reduce our negative impacts and let's try to be carbon neutral we're now shifting to let's be climate positive, let's do more than just being neutral, this is too urgent of an emergency for us to be neutral on. We need to actually fight against this. So right before the pandemic shut us down, on tour, we were able to squeak out the world's first climate-positive tour with The Lumineers, and we were able to calculate their footprint, neutralize one hundred and fifty percent of that footprint while also doing all the things we've been talking about, supporting local and national non-profit groups along their tour route, supporting local farm food and farm systems, reducing plastic waste, all the things we can to shrink the footprint itself while also, they're from Colorado, with vetted and high-quality carbon fighting projects, support the building and funding and creation, the additionality piece, of these projects that directly eliminate greenhouse gases and measurably so. So that's a big part of what this campaign is, there are three basic tenets of the campaign, its funding and building the infrastructure necessary that directly eliminates, reduces greenhouse gases that also support diverse communities. So we're looking at both some larger projects, but also smaller community-based projects that can support BIPOC communities and BIPOC-led organizations. We want to, of course, reduce our carbon footprints in the first place. Understand what they are and do what we can to minimize them and systemically change the way the music industry functions. So this isn't just musicians and their fans. We're talking about labels, we're talking about agencies worried about management companies, we're talking about studios, festivals. So it's all of music. We're even talking to Broadway right now. And then, again, harnessing music's collective voice, the power that we have collectively to make change, to demand the change of businesses and governments around the world. We've done some of this already and we've had success when we bring artists together. But up until now, Reverb's been very successful working individually with their artist and their fan bases, but now it's time to bring everyone together again. Going back to hope, holding the mirror up and saying: look what we've accomplished as the music community. We've done this with fans so we can say: hey, Dave Matthews Band fans, we've eliminated X number of, I can actually look up some of these stats if you want, so let's see over the band's career.

Christiana Figueres: [00:58:14] Oh how cool, you have them right there.

Paul Dickinson: [00:58:16] Well, as NASA, remember, mission control, he's the data at his fingertips.

Adam Gardner: [00:58:19] I've got seventeen screens in front of me right now. So we've looked at this and that's a big important part of all of our work and has been for a while. But again, collectively now hold that mirror up at the end of a tour, at the end of a campaign and say: look where we're at, look what we've accomplished together. We have to do this together. So, for example, the Dave Matthews Band tours of the band and the fans have eliminated over one hundred and twenty-one million pounds of carbon dioxide from the air. They've raised over two million dollars for environmental causes, taking almost a million individual actions for the environment, eliminated half a million single-use plastic water bottles, it shows. Supported over a thousand nonprofits and a thousand local family farms and 140000 pounds of food waste were composted. So these are just showing like there is an impact. We can do this. You don't have to lose hope. I think it's so easy as an individual person to go: what am I going to do about something as huge as climate change and global warming. Global warming. It sounds so unattainable. But the fact is, is together we can and we have been and there is real impact and we have to. We have no choice. It's imperative.

Christiana Figueres: [00:59:36] You are so much a part of our family, Adam. You have no idea how much you're part of our family. We have a growing family that we call ourselves stubborn optimists because we have exactly the attitude that you have just described. A, that, yes, this is complex and challenging, but we can do it, and they're going to be barriers and challenges around along the way, but we're not going to stop just because it's complex and difficult, we're is going to go at it no matter what. So here is a formal invitation for Adam and Lauren and Reverb and all of your colleague bands and artists that you touch to join the growing family of stubborn optimists because you have just described it actually much better than we can.

Paul Dickinson: [01:00:28] And this is Christiana's day job. So look, Adam, honestly, the kind of energy and the enthusiasm that you have and the can-do attitude is absolutely infectious. We can. We must. We will. That's very deeply held and heartfelt. So we have to unfortunately finish. But we always finish all of our interviews asking our guests one absolutely critical question. And here it is. You know, this podcast is called Outrage and Optimism, because we believe both are absolutely necessary to have an effective response to the challenges that we face. But on that continuum between outrage at one end and optimism at the other, where would you position yourself? 

Adam Gardner: [01:01:13] I. Wow, that's a very tricky question.

Paul Dickinson: [01:01:17] You're our first guest to actually think about it, so congratulations on that, it could be the future.

Adam Gardner: [01:01:22] I'm trying to figure out how to even quantify the scale. So I guess if I'm I would say I'm definitely more towards optimism. I would say the outrage drives the action, but my emotion is optimistic. How's that?

Christiana Figueres: [01:01:41] Nicely put.

Adam Gardner: [01:01:43] I didn't give you a number scale on that, but I would say it's that. They operate in two different parts of my being.

Paul Dickinson: [01:01:52] The outrage drives the action, but the emotion is optimistic. It's kind of somewhere between the head and the heart and the kind of brain in the body. It's a very interesting distinction. So, yeah, I'm going to hold that particular formula, maybe understand myself a little bit better through it. And certainly thank you for for for a very fascinating picture.

Adam Gardner: [01:02:15] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And you know, you're talking about the head and the heart and I come back to why music. Why am I doing this music, besides the obvious, which I'm a musician. But I think the reason why I'm so passionate and so excited is I see that potential again for music to have such heads and tails above and beyond its own footprint, positive impact to actually fight the climate change.

Christiana Figueres: [01:02:44] A transformational effect. 

Adam Gardner: [01:02:44] And music moves people. When you talk about the heart, its music's design to open your heart and if you're at your favorite band's concert and they have all of this the first thing you see when you walk in there is the band and Reverbs ecovillage and they've already been messaged ahead of time on social media to plug in and do this and all the great things that band's doing to make positive impact happen on their tour. That's the optimism that music can provide. And I think that's and, again, the action, too. And sometimes it is to say, look at what's happening here, this is not just and we have to be upset about this and we have to do something. So it is, it's touching both the head and the heart at the same time. And that's what music always has done.

Christiana Figueres: [01:03:27] In very complementary ways. Fantastic. Adam, thank you so much. The only regret that we have is that Lauren is not here with us.

Adam Gardner: [01:03:37] I know, I will send her your best.

Christiana Figueres: [01:03:39] Please do. Please do. It's been a fantastic conversation, very inspiring. As I say, you're totally a member of our family. So thank you. Thank you very much for what you're doing. And can you give us the date of when you're going to launch Music Climate Revolution?

Adam Gardner: [01:03:59] Music Climate Revolution will be launching June 3rd. The artists will be putting out social media with a number of wonderful artists and industry leaders that are part of this. And you can go, if you're listening right now, to musicclimaterevolution.org or reverb.org and find us there. We have an action in resource hub there for fans and for bands and for industry, various industry leaders, where they can start plugging in and taking action right away.

Paul Dickinson: [01:04:28] Wow, that's brilliant. OK, reverb.org. All listeners, please go directly to that website. Let's do this together. Thank you so much Adam for your time today. I greatly appreciate it.

Adam Gardner: [01:04:37] Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Christiana.

Christiana Figueres: [01:04:39] Thank you.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:04:47] So I was so sad to miss that conversation. What a great person. What an amazing story and what a great discussion. What did you two leave that discussion with?

Christiana Figueres: [01:04:56] So, you know, I'm hosting a little concert here at home next Saturday, and it's a little one because the Ministry of Health has restricted attendance at these events to thirty people.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:05:12] I don't think it's a little one now that you've announced it on Outrage and Optimism, do you want to give us your address so that everyone knows it?

Christiana Figueres: [01:05:19] Well, you'll have to make a reservation and only the first thirty people will get in, in order to be within the law. But I hope to have it much more popular later. But here's my point. Ever since the conversation with Adam, it has really changed the way in which I'm thinking about what I hope to be the first of many concerts here on the beach, in my garden, ocean view, because we're still looking at obviously no plastic bottles. Everybody's bringing their own metal water bottle with them. People are getting together and carpooling if they're coming from far away. Otherwise, they're just walking here. So it's really, I mean, this is a tiny weensy little concert. But what I love about the conversation with Adam is that it sparked this awareness that even at music concerts, we have to be aware of our emissions

Paul Dickinson: [01:06:19] Yeah, I cannot compliment Adam enough for being really just a holistic thinker. Well, the two of them. And art touches us. Music touches us. These fans come together. The famous phrase, you are the music was the music lasts. We're all kind of like these islands. Right. But the music is the bedrock, in a sense, that kind of connects us. Music brings us together, to quote Madonna. But when everyone's together, then Adam creates an ecovillage. I mean an ecovillage. Now, what a fantastic place that is. An ecovillage is a space where people can kind of explore community and sustainability together. And it's fun. Or some of the amazing causes that they support, like farm to stage, like local food coming into the concert. So people are eating food from farms nearby. Like you said, Rock and Refill, bring your own reusable bottle and so much more. And I think it's really just a way to sort of proliferate a new way of thinking, a new way of being, a new way of living and I so support artists in kind of using the platforms, as we've said many, many times on this show, to kind of connect the dots and help change people together.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:07:28] It was a great conversation. I loved lots of things about it. I love the fact that it was born out of, you know, his desire to cross the chasm between music's music and artists and their intentions and actions and then also his wife's perspective around how do we use the cultural power and reach that music has to amplify and expand the environmental movement. I thought it is a very beautiful, sort of origin story, those two things coming together to create that outcome. And I also thought I loved that he talked about the fact that bringing an individual awareness to your own and then your own communities climate footprint is actually a tool to empower us not to feel helpless in the face of climate change. That's something, Christiana, you and I have written about in our book a great deal. Actually, there's an enormous amount of anxiety out there that many people are feeling deeply worried about climate change. But all the evidence is that when you start taking responsibility for it in whatever format makes sense for you, then you begin to feel like you're part of a great generational endeavor rather than subjects and it's beyond your control. I thought that was very insightful and how great the work he's doing. It is so inspiring.

Christiana Figueres: [01:08:35] I was really taken by the fact that this was born out of the perceived distance between him and his wife, Lauren. She an environmentalist, activist, and campaigner, and he a musician. And so in order to close that perceived gap, they both together founded this NGO to go straight into the middle of where does art meet climate change? I thought it was so beautiful that out of something that was deeply personal to them, their relationship as a couple, now they have grown that, right? It's almost like putting so much organic fertilizer on a tiny little tree that is just coming out. And then you see this huge tree that comes out. Now, you have this movement in the music industry that has come out of their personal commitment to each other. And the other thing that I thought was quite fascinating is the process that they use to educate the other bands or the other music groups. They actually take one of their people who has been very well educated and trained in how to get to zero-emission concerts, and they embed them in the other music group or in the other band. Tom, I don't know if you remember that when we were at the secretariat, we always ask the COP Presidency to embed someone from their team into the secretariat to work with us. Why? Because we wanted to have that full knowledge so that we could work best with it. And that embedding of one person from one team into another team is such a transformational way of working with each other, as opposed to just saying, OK, let's have, weekly calls of two teams that are physically separate from each other. But the embedding of one into the other is just so effective. And I was delighted to hear that. That's the way that they are going about it.

Paul Dickinson: [01:10:39] Totally. Let me just leave listeners with one little thought. We talked about music changing things. And for lovers of slightly obscure music, there's a brilliant composer called Moondog who actually some people believe is the father of much of minimalist music, but he wrote a beautiful song. You can find it on Spotify or anywhere. I'm not going to sing it. I'm tempted, but I'm not going to.

Christiana Figueres: [01:11:03] Oh, no, you're not going to sing it?

Paul Dickinson: [01:11:07] I might you just a verse, I might just give you a verse.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:11:10] That didn't take a lot of encouragement, to be honest.

Christiana Figueres: How quickly we went to that.

Paul Dickinson: [01:11[01:11:15] :16] No, no you don't need to tell me I'm beautiful. Absolutely not. OK, so the song, look it up, everybody, it's called "Enough About Human Rights" and it's by Moondog. "Enough About Human Rights". And the song goes enough about human rights. And then you can guess the rest. What about whale rights? What about snail rights? What about seal rights? What about eel rights? And it goes on and it's mesmerizing and it's beautiful. And you will cry if you have a heart. Moondog, "Enough About Human Rights" and we can make music about the cause that we work with and it will change us and that's a good thing.

Christiana Figueres: [01:11:55] So, Paul, I have it. I've just looked it up on my screen. Thank you very much. Should I listen to what came up on my screen or should I wait for your recording of this?

Paul Dickinson: [01:12:07] Actually, Clay has just said he's going to put a link to the song in the show notes, which tragically means that I'm not going to be able to sing it. But it is a beautiful piece. It is, to be honest, the most kind of biodiversity-aware piece of music ever written and it will make you cry if you have a heart.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:12:26] But speaking of music, as ever, we are going to leave you, the listener, with some wonderful music. And this week, even better, we're actually playing a piece of music from Guster, which is the band of our guest this week. And Adam has allowed us to play what is basically their biggest number. So this song is called "Satellite".

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:12:46] Their most popular song. Thank you so much, Adam. Great to have you on this week.

Paul Dickinson: [01:12:51] Thank you, Adam.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:12:52] And I'm sure you're going to enjoy this. So here you go. Thanks for joining us this week. Bye

Paul Dickinson: [01:12:56] Bye

Christiana Figueres: [01:12:57] Bye

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