- [Susto] Welcome to Ear to the Common Ground.

Here we celebrate the power of music and food to bring Americans together.

Filmed from a historic barn on Cash lane in Music City.

Each episode of Ear to the Common Ground features one musical artist in a diverse gathering of eight of their fans.

Everyone brings a dish to the table, and they talk about one of the issues of the day, face-to-face with compassion replacing contempt as they keep their hearts, ears, and minds attuned to the common ground.

I'm Susto, and these are eight of my fans, Luisa, Brian, Brandy, Donnie, Anika, Peter, Mary Kate, and Temple.

Tonight we are focusing on the environment.

Let's celebrate America's greatest diversity, diversity of thought, and shine a light on some common ground.

♪ They caught me spinnin' in a crowd ♪ ♪ They said a a new day ♪ ♪ Is coming ♪ - I'm a little bit confused on the climate change thing to be honest with you, so I'm here to here to hear more about that.

But I also want to, you know, the borrowing from the future to fix a solution now is something that I really do ponder.

We're talking windmills that you have to the bury them to dispose of them.

Then you have, batteries and vehicles and what have you, So I think there's a common solution for that.

But where's that happy medium?

- Yeah, I think the majority of the issues, we're talking about the environment tonight, everybody has come to the mentality that you have to agree with every one of my boxes in my list.

- Mmm hmmm.

- Exactly.

- And if you don't agree with all my boxes, then I'm not listening to you, or you're wrong.

Well, we know in the truth that every single one of us here has to admit we don't know everything.

And the truth is usually always in the middle, right?

That was what made America great, is there were so many people from so many different countries, so many different cultures that you melted them together, and we quit melting at some point in our country.

And so with climate: can we control the climate?

You get people that want to say climate change, or when I grew up, I'm 51 years old, I went through seeing Time magazine with the Ice Age cometh to the heat cometh.

And you know, in the reality, we've got records for 200 years.

What do you think the age of the world is can be different, but is there things that we do to affect climate?

Yes, there's things that we can do in terms of pollution and the rest of it, and people tend to tune out when somebody says, - You need to do this.

You, you, you.

You'll turn a conversation off like that (snaps) if you say, "You need to."

- I think you brought up a good point, and that is that we are so divided and we can't even agree on the science.

And if you can't agree on the science, I don't think you'll ever get to a solution.

I came here to listen.

The good Lord gave me two ears and one mouth, so I'm gonna try to do that.

But you talked about California and the wildfires and they have been around for a long time, but I think that things have also changed to intensify those fires.

Drought being one of them.

The lack of water's huge in California and forest management.

There was a great logging industry in the Central Valley in the Sequoias and the Sierras and that's gone away.

And it's kind of forced me, in the line of work that I do now, to kind of think of both things.

The environment and how precious it is, and how we want to sustain it for our children, but also the jobs that some of the things that are in conflict with.

I think that's where all of the tables have to come together and talk about solutions that somewhat compromising.

I mean, if we all give a little, I think we all gain a lot.

- Nobody takes better of care of a fishery in the Bering Sea than those men that you see on Discovery or whatever.

That's their livelihood.

They don't want them over fished.

They don't want them-- They turn in, I watch guys down in Apalachicola turn in other oyster guys because there on closed Beaches.

- [Donnie] They're cheating the system.

- They're cheating the system trying to get the easy instead of just working the system.

Like you say, that's today, this season.

- Yeah.

- What about season, five seasons from now?

A lot of people have the, including yourself, myself at times, you find that doesn't affect me.

Not that I'm abusing it, but that's their, that's their problem.

That doesn't affect me.

So I'm not gonna take either side of the fence.

Y'all do your thing, but really everything is absolutely linked together In some way, it's gonna come back and get you.

- I think something that I struggle with is the world being so big and all of these problems and feeling so small and like I can't make a difference.

I don't think anyone has come up with a magic solution for any of this.

It's kind of impossible to, but I see it more as my personal responsibility to do what I can and then hope that people follow suit as well.

- I heard something very interesting that kind of is right along that line and that was that if we all kind of take it on ourselves to do it perfect, we wanna do it a hundred percent of the time, that's not as impactful as if we all just do a little.

If we all just do a little, we can accomplish a great deal - I think what's interesting right now for me is the framing of climate change.

We actually have somehow managed to allow our politicians to frame it for us.

And they are always being lobbied to protect companies and enterprise, and all of that.

I I have never, unless it's NPR or PBS or something, directly talking to the farmers.

We never get this feedback from the people who work the land.

And that's where you're gonna find out where that climate change is happening.

I read one article in 2019 that the Mississippi River had been over its banks.

It was still over its banks in June, I think it was, in 2019.

No one's talking about that.

And farmers and people were affected by this, and somehow the message has been squashed.

I mean, it's like a natural disaster, but it's actually, and it's not unusual for the Mississippi to stay, to go off as banks, but imagine that it's stays out of its banks year round for most of the year.

Like the West is having these fires.

You know what I mean?

Those things kind of keep becoming more and more devastating to the communities that we live in.

I know that pollution exists because poverty exists.

People have to get rid of their stuff.

You know what I mean?

And no one talks about that, but that is polluting one of our most needed resources.

And I don't think it's the poor people's fault necessarily.

I think it's a community thing.

And if the city can afford to help the poor people manage that thing, then that's what we ought to do.

And that's just because that pollution is coming downstream.

You know what I mean?

Everyone's affected.

we have to get closer to nature to understand what is happening in nature.

Even if you have to ask your grandmother if this, is this normal, you know what I mean?

And having those kinds of conversations, which requires us to have an interaction with one another.

I think that's the only way that we can find out what is going on with nature right now.

- Yeah.

I think, also I love what you just said, that's amazing.

I think the media, politicians, our leaders, they want to kind of instill fear and panic-- - [Donnie] Politicization, hundred percent.

- Or act like nothing's happening at all.

- I think that brings up a good point about the difference between the individual responsibility and even possibilities and kind of the large-scale corporate interests, political interests and things like that.

Because in certain cases people aren't going to be able to do much to make environmental changes, whether it be dietary changes or buying an electric car or things like that because they don't have the money or the means or the resources or it's not available.

Living in a rural area that's frequently the case.

Like electric car chargers don't really exist where I live, or not until the last six months.

But then also kind of relying on politicians and corporations and things to do their part.. - It's just so hard to see the waste and the landfills overflowing, and then it's just all going there.

- And even the stuff that you do recycle, if it's contaminated in any way, it's rejected.

So it's like, are you really making an impact-- - Or it doesn't even take it.

- Right!

- Like we, I work, the construction that I do is industrial construction and I work from the Rockies east and Canada down.

So I see a broad spectrum of the country.

We work in coal industry, we work in wood pellets, which a lot of those are being shipped to Europe for the green energy.

We work in wind farms, we do all these different, and it's amazing to see, I think we're missing, the honesty of the conversation is: when energy work, yes, it works at times.

Is it an environmental impact?

Well, yeah.

If you saw how much copper was inside one of those and what it takes to mine copper.

But there's a balance, right?

Because you can't just keep digging coal out of the ground and pumping oil and thinking it's gonna be there forever.

If you really want to be honest and said, I want the most renewable, sustainable, not renewable, but sustainable energy.

We would have nuclear power plants.

But everybody's like, whoa, not nuclear, but it's got a stigma on it, right?

Like the technology that is advanced, that has allowed electric cars you mentioned and all they do, the safety and the stuff that they can do without generating the nuclear waste that we saw as me growing up.

You see these big piles of, they don't generate, they're very efficient.

And you look at wind energy that costs.

- What's wind energy doing?

I mean, what's it doing?

- Well the problem with wind energy-- - It generates power, but how much power is it generating?

It depends on if it's windy.

- [Mary Kate] Versus how much waste.

- Okay, well hold on.

I've done a little bit of homework.

Those wind, those big huge, in Sweetwater, Texas, I know they're all over California.

They cost anywhere from $400,000 to $ 500,000 to-- - Well, I think that's your point is that some of that stuff costs so much, right?

- It costs about $80 a megawatt.

- [Donnie] So what's the ROI on that is a good question.

- It's not.

- And here's your borrowing from the future.

When they break down or they run out-- - [Temple] They lock them down.

- But you have to bury them.

- Well, they lock them down because they-- - How is that good for my environmental beauty that I like to see.

Go to California and, and you take away from the most beautiful part of the country, in my opinion.

- Similar to what you've talked about, as in the wind is even solar, right?

I mean, cobalt is an essential part of solar panels and it's not in great abundance.

So to your point, you're really taking a resource that's not necessarily available.

But I'd be curious to hear what all the years of school-- - [Temple] Those are common solutions you're learning about.

- I love what you've been saying about balance.

Like nothing is going to be totally renewable or hopefully, totally not renewable energy sources.

But we're also not going to switch our energy sources overnight.

So we have to learn how to make our energy sources and where we're getting our energy from the most efficient they can be while protecting the environment and minimizing the pollution that we put onto our planet.

Because at some point, we're not gonna be able to take it anymore.

We have a growing population, as well, so we need to find ways that are able to generate more energy with less of an impact.

And even though a lot of systems right now, wind and solar aren't perfect, it's the process of learning about that and how that translates to actually reliable, consistent energy.

Someone was talking about if you're getting operated on in a hospital, you need reliable energy.

- Sustainability.

Sustainability is so important, right?

Because we're not decreasing in population, we all want things, we all want to have families, and communities are growing, but essentials like clean water.

Essentials, like not having a blackout or not having a fire are the things that are challenging.

And that's where we all believe, myself included, has to look at how do I conserve?

What little role do I play in this?

I can't do it all because I want a green grass.

I mean I've got a beautiful lawn, I got to water, so now I got to dial it back and think about my own usage.

- Currently, I turned into my father a little.

One of my kids, I was like, you go into the rooms, you're flipping the lights off, like hey, turn these off.

But like all that, it's not just your power bill, but you're freeing up that that gas turbine doesn't have to run at full of throttle because we're not, the demands not there.

And you look at what batteries have come.

Electric cars are great, but they aren't a less impact if we're completely honest.

They're not a less impact.

It's a choice.

And you should have that choice.

And in some places it is less of an impact to the pollution with, you have a congregation, but if you saw a battery plant and you saw what had to be behind-- - Lithium mines, yeah.

- For the things, and we as Americans sometimes go: it's not so bad because the mining's not occurring-- - [Donnie] We're not seeing it in our country.

- The mining's occurring in India, there's a lot of metal-- - [Donnie] China.

- South America.

and they are raping, because there is not even the care because they just want their money.

And when I say they, the company that owns the mine is only concerned with profits.

You can see the way they treat workers, the way they treat the thing.

For us to say this is better than this car.

One of the things that I always ask, 'cause we do work in Texas and have talked to the guys in the oil industry and less than half a barrel of oil goes to diesel fuel or gasoline.

The rest of it goes into stuff y'all are wearing right now.

- Makeup - That we make.

So that price goes up or the guy says it's not even worth pulling outta the ground.

Where's that trade off?

And I really liked what you said is: we've become a throwaway society.

Yeah.

You said something about the throwing away and just the excesses.

We went from wanting to sell something that lasted a lifetime.

The the original Sears and Roebuck, let's say, or Craftsmen to I just gotta get it long enough that you don't think I owe you your money back.

I was interested, in what y'all thought is one of the things, I think with everybody being pushed into high density areas, the pollution is greater.

The ability to provide for yourself in the, I thought about it when you were talking about gardening, to have enough area that I can sustainably raise my own vegetables or I'm at the keys and I can have my own little stone crab bed or whatever out there.

Do you think as a society that we're becoming so dense in areas that we're creating an unsolvable solution in terms of one little hiccup, which we've seen in the past two years in the supply chain and the grocery stores-- - But it's so easy to just go to the grocery store or go to the farmer's market or to just buy it.

I mean nobody, my parents and grandparents had a garden.

They canned all their food and soup and stuff for the wintertime and nobody does that anymore.

- But don't you value that-- - Absolutely.

- That organic, that fresh, you farm stone crab or you might have a sustainable garden.

I mean we all kind of go, wow, I really want that.

- That's the model.

That really is the model that will never change as far as I'm concerned.

Like I think about glass, I was just looking at this mason jar today and I was like, the thing about glass is that it's sand.

You know what I mean?

Eventually this stuff is just gonna go back to the earth, you know what I mean?

And it's going to, you can crush it into a gazillion pieces and you're nearly there.

You're nearly back to sand.

- All bars should have a glass crusher that creates it, like crush a bottle for their place.

And I say that 'cause there's a bar in Houston that does that.

I want to be educated from what y'all think, especially the West Coast folks, 'cause I love that.

That attaches to a guy like me who's in my early fifties, the environment's important to me.

But I listen to what you're saying, some other folks, especially what you're studying at school, it's incredible.

I love that.

There's no reason why every other person on the planet wouldn't like that.

- It's too good.

- Well California it's very unique and it's not, this isn't all about California.

It's everything.

And I was going ask all of you, what's what's the most precious resource that is in peril or that is being discussed?

I mean, in Florida, what's the most precious resource?

- We have a real problem with sargassum seaweed.

It's mainly because the waters are warmer, but it's also because of runoff from other countries and from Florida where the produce comes from, from fertilizer and from Roundup weed killers and stuff.

So it grows this algae bloom and as it decays, it releases sulfur, which is a noxious gas, which causes respiratory problems.

We do live on a canal right near the ocean and it is corrosive to everything, to our furniture.

- So that's affecting the Everglades or just Florida in general?

- Well, everywhere.

It's in the Caribbean, it's in Mexico, it's everywhere.

Like the resorts in the Caribbean, in Mexico, people are mad because they go and all this stinky seaweed is washing up and ruining their vacation.

- Yeah.

- [Peter] Don't want that.

How about you in Indiana?

What's the?

- Indiana's not a whole-- - Basketball.

- Really big on environmental.

(group laughs) I did wanna talk about the recycling a little bit because I always think about the recycling logo with the three arrows that fold around the logo that was always under that, like on the recycling cans and things, is reduce, reuse, recycle.

And I always think that recycle is the last one in there because the point is to reduce and reuse first and the last option, the last resort is recycling because like you said, a lot of things they aren't recycled or it gets contaminated or something, or it just doesn't work.

- It's true.

- Really it's just about using less.

- That's really good.

I feel like that's a quick thing that we can just do every single day.

Or like clothes.

I love clothes and I love shopping and just buying from sustainable brands or doing closet swaps with your friends or something like that is so important and easy to do, because, surprisingly, clothing and fast fashion, how big, how trendy, how convenient it is is the second leading polluter to oil.

And you usually wouldn't think, when you think the environment, you think global warming and all of these big buzz names that go around, and fast fashion is a huge contributor to that, which is really concerning.

- I read an article not long ago that said, and this is not just fast fashion but fashion, the fashion industry is the largest polluting industry.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- From the whole textile, from the...

If you asked me what was the largest pollution, you wouldn't think that, but there it is.

The connection is the clothes we wear, can we give up swapping a shirt.

And my wife says you wear the same shirt all the time until she pulls it away.

We're not willing to give up... - Fashion.

- Being fashion or, or, - Just clothes - [Temple] Our clothes.

- There's so much temptation out there.

You go walk down the street and you go, I want that.

We're consumers.

And that's the balance that you have to have, I think.

The solutions are really intriguing to me.

There's solutions for everything.

We're smart people.

You talk about construction and I see a lot of builders in California who are looking at building, for instance, high rises but capturing rainwater so that it's collected and then can be used to run the laboratories or to do irrigation.

Whatever plants you have.

As well as, you know, putting green spaces in some of these buildings to reduce some of the heat that is emitted from some of these big buildings.

I couldn't help but notice, and they're beautiful, but all these glass buildings, these mirrored buildings, they have to be increasing the heat, which makes us all a little bit more uncomfortable.

And I don't know how good that is for us, but I like solutions.

I like figuring out, well how do we have what we want, but do it responsibly?

- It's fun to listen to you guys chat a bit about everything.

Thanks for being down to come do this.

I got two desserts here.

I didn't know, that's kind of like a frosting rainbow cake, Susto, rainbow things, so you know.

And then we got some chocolate cupcakes right here too, - [Temple] He did good.

- I tried.

I flew in.

- Are they they homemade?

- I did my AirBn--the place I'm staying doesn't have full kitchen so I did kind of phone it in, but yeah, I'm gonna sit over here I think.

- [Mary Kate] Awesome.

- Well thank you for having us.

- I'll hold out for the chocolate.

- Thanks you guys for responding to the call and being down to have conversations with each other.

- So what do you think about all this environmental talk?

- When my daughter was born, kind of thinking about the earth and where, what it's going to look like when she's my age or when she's my grandma's age became something that was important to me.

And I kind of started digging in and self auditing a little bit and realizing that all this romantic traveling, all this stuff is, I'm actually one of the, like as far as carbon footprints go in terms of transportation, I have a much higher one than most people because of how much I'm on a plane, how much I'm in a large vehicle and stuff.

I started diving into, to looking at myself and realizing that, it might potentially down the road, I might have to have a hard conversation with my daughter when she's like, dad what did you do to help curve some of these things.

♪ When I was young I was told, ♪ ♪ Noah dropped down in his boat on top of a mountain ♪ ♪ God gave him a rainbow to signal that he would not ♪ ♪ Destroy the earth by floodin' it again ♪ ♪ But ever since I was young I been watchin' the world ♪ ♪ And it feels like the whole thing's burnin' ♪ ♪ All I need is a little reaffirmation ♪ ♪ He ain't tryin' to destroy us all again ♪ ♪ By fire this time!

♪ ♪ So send me ♪ ♪ Won't you send me down a double rainbow ♪ ♪ So I know that you are you and you are listenin' ♪ ♪ So I know that you are you and there at all ♪ ♪ Rich men say you gotta pick up ♪ ♪ And get your body back into workin' ♪ ♪ Don't mess around with psychedelic drugs ♪ ♪ If we catch you with that stuff ♪ ♪ We'll put you in prison ♪ ♪ Well I told 'em, ♪ ♪ I said "You, you ain't never been a poor boy's child ♪ ♪ But me, I'm in the streets and I'm runnin' wild ♪ ♪ I had an AK-47 but I traded it in for a smile ♪ ♪ I went wild ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm a psychedelic priest on my best days ♪ ♪ And I'm a real world beast on the rest days ♪ ♪ I'm a downtown bitch in the best way ♪ ♪ And I been workin' like a dog" ♪ ♪ I said "Hell naw!"

♪ ♪ Me and the children of the two rainbows ♪ ♪ Can you feel it if it's not your bottom line?

♪ ♪ 'Cause fate is speakin' and she don't speak softly ♪ ♪ Yeah, I hope that you've enjoyed your time in the sun ♪ (guitar strumming continues) (applause) - Thanks so much.

(Get Down by Susto plays) ♪ Sometimes ♪ ♪ I give up.

♪ ♪ Yeah.

And other times.

♪ ♪ I can't get enough.

♪ ♪ And I'm on the ground in the streets ♪ ♪ With my hands in my face.

♪ (bright instrumental music plays)