Speaker 1: In Raffie learned something that shocked him. He'd gotten to
Speaker 1: hear talk about beluga whales at the Science Center in Toronto.
Speaker 1: Raphie had loved these whales since he first saw one
Speaker 1: named Kavana at an aquarium a decade earlier. Kavna inspired
Speaker 1: him to write his most famous song, Baby Beluga, Baby
Speaker 1: Deep Bluega in the deep Blue Sea swims so wild,
Speaker 1: then you swim so keavn. Rafie wrote it at a
Speaker 1: time when they Save the Whales movement was just starting.
Speaker 1: Baby Luga, Baby Luga is the water. People don't want
Speaker 1: to hear anger or sadness or frustration at how things
Speaker 1: may have got to They want to hear and they
Speaker 1: are inspired by the love in our hearts, especially the
Speaker 1: love for our young. And I thought, instead of writing
Speaker 1: a lament, I would write a beauty of a love
Speaker 1: song for a magnificent creature, the bluga whale. You know
Speaker 1: what you love, you care about, and you want to protect.
Speaker 1: But at the Science Center, Ralfie learned that beluga whales
Speaker 1: were dying at an alarming rate. Their legion covered bodies
Speaker 1: were washing up on the shores of the St. Lawrence River,
Speaker 1: just two hundred miles from Toronto. Industrial pollution had turned
Speaker 1: the whales into hazardous waste sites and left them with cancer.
Speaker 1: Ralfie was devastated. If this was happening to the Beluga whales,
Speaker 1: the very animal he made famous in his song, what
Speaker 1: were all these toxins doing to the children living near
Speaker 1: the river. He wasn't sure if he could ever sing
Speaker 1: Baby Beluga again. You know, it was one thing to
Speaker 1: think about children with love and to sing loving songs
Speaker 1: with them and for them. But if the world that
Speaker 1: we all live in, if our children's future is compromised
Speaker 1: unless we change our ways, well what's the point of
Speaker 1: just singing? I said to myself. I mean, songs and
Speaker 1: music are great, but they only go so far. You
Speaker 1: need to take care of the theater in which we
Speaker 1: are singing. If you will right the home theater, Raffie
Speaker 1: began to question everything, his identity, his relationships, the world.
Speaker 1: I'm Chris Garcia and this is Finding Raffie, a ten
Speaker 1: part series from My Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership
Speaker 1: with Rococo Punch, about the life, the philosophy, and the
Speaker 1: work of Raffie, the man behind the music. By the
Speaker 1: late eighties, Raffie was tired and burnt out. He'd been
Speaker 1: touring NonStop. His creativity felt limited, and he was angry
Speaker 1: and despairing. He needed a break from playing to young children,
Speaker 1: so he made a pretty big decision that stunned everyone
Speaker 1: around him. He decided to take a year off, no concerts,
Speaker 1: no touring. Instead, Ralphie spent a lot of time learning
Speaker 1: about the world, and he found himself reading about one
Speaker 1: environmental disaster after another. Acid rain are growing hole in
Speaker 1: the ozone layer, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. This
Speaker 1: was also when he discovered the radio series It's a
Speaker 1: Matter of Survival, which might sound familiar. It was made
Speaker 1: by his good friend David Suzuki, and it had a
Speaker 1: huge impact on Raffie. It said that unless we as
Speaker 1: a species collectively acted in a timely manner to reduce
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emissions, we risked they're reaching a point where
Speaker 1: the warming is irreversible, and that would be catastrophic. So
Speaker 1: when I heard the word irreversible, I had a major
Speaker 1: meltdown within myself because that's the appropriate response. Actually, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's major fear. Oh my god, it would get so
Speaker 1: bad that we couldn't do anything about it. That ought
Speaker 1: to scare you to the core, and it did me. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Raffie and his wife deb split up. He moved out
Speaker 1: of the house they shared and found a bachelor pad,
Speaker 1: and he returned to an earlier hobby of his painting.
Speaker 1: In his autobiography, Raffi wrote that he filled the walls
Speaker 1: with his own art, oil pastels of abstract images and
Speaker 1: female nudes. He was kind of spreading his wings. Well.
Speaker 1: There was a year of introspection and a year of
Speaker 1: a year that lead to new songs. I wrote, Our
Speaker 1: dear dear Mother, I get teary when I hear our
Speaker 1: dear dear mother, Daily provider, Earth be your name. The
Speaker 1: time has come to honor you, to know you, and
Speaker 1: to show our love. Our dear dear mother, Daily provide
Speaker 1: be your name. The time has come to an to
Speaker 1: know you and to show our love. Raffie emerged from
Speaker 1: his sabbatical with a focused mission to protect the planet,
Speaker 1: and he had a new album, Evergreen, Ever Blue. It
Speaker 1: was his wake up call to the destruction of the Earth.
Speaker 1: It was a big shift for Raffy. His earlier children's
Speaker 1: songs had hinted at environmentalism, songs like all I Really
Speaker 1: Need and thanks a lot. But now Ralf he had
Speaker 1: an entire album devoted to the planet and the song
Speaker 1: is called Voices from the Jungle Say Never. As it
Speaker 1: was beginning, You've got this time, Ralph he wanted to
Speaker 1: connect with adults and teens, the people he felt could
Speaker 1: stop climate change, not his typical fans toddlers who struggled
Speaker 1: to sit quietly through his performances. So Ralph, he said,
Speaker 1: his sights on MTV music videos were all the rage.
Speaker 1: They still are in some ways, but that's what you
Speaker 1: required and in order to for people to get to,
Speaker 1: you know, see your your song. The reason I tried
Speaker 1: it was I felt so passionate about this planet that
Speaker 1: needed all of us too. You know it's it's up
Speaker 1: to you, It's up to me, so called. At the
Speaker 1: same time, I felt it wasn't five year old's job
Speaker 1: to help the Amazon stay intact. You know, it's up
Speaker 1: to me. It's up RAPHI filmed the music video for Evergreen,
Speaker 1: Ever Blue and an old growth forest on Vancouver Island.
Speaker 1: In it, he sings and plays guitar beneath the giant
Speaker 1: canopies of Douglas furs and Sita spruce. He has a
Speaker 1: group of people singing with him, young environmentalists, tribal members,
Speaker 1: and the Raging Granny's, a group of grandmother activists. It
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a nature documentary, kind of like
Speaker 1: a music video made for PBS. There are shots of
Speaker 1: waterfalls and sunlit dappled leaves. At one point, Raffie hugs
Speaker 1: a moss covered tree and passes around a crystal ball.
Speaker 1: He says it was a metaphor for the future of
Speaker 1: the planet being in human hands. And then the video
Speaker 1: takes a turn and cuts to Raffie standing in a
Speaker 1: barren field in front of a pile of tree stumps.
Speaker 1: When we made the Evergreen, Ever Blue video, I was
Speaker 1: taken to some cleer cutting sites just to experience what
Speaker 1: a clear cut forest is like. It feels like you're
Speaker 1: standing in death. Clear Cuts are horrible and a really
Speaker 1: stupid idea of a bottom line money worshiping culture. That's
Speaker 1: why I was so passionate in making the Evergreen, Ever
Speaker 1: Blue album, trying something new for you know, slightly older
Speaker 1: kids audience. You know, I was basically jumping through hoops
Speaker 1: to try and make a difference. In true Raffie style,
Speaker 1: he thought about every detail on his new album Whenever Green,
Speaker 1: Ever Blue is released in nine record stores are transitioning
Speaker 1: from selling vinyl to selling CDs, and the easiest way
Speaker 1: to do that was to put CDs in long boxes,
Speaker 1: those tall, skinny boxes that are about twice the size
Speaker 1: of a CD. That's so they could be displayed in
Speaker 1: the existing record bins. The problem was that meant CDs
Speaker 1: came with a ton of unnecessary packaging. Ralphie put his
Speaker 1: foot down. He was one of the first artists to
Speaker 1: refuse to sell his music in wasteful packaging, but it
Speaker 1: cost him. Some record stores wouldn't carry his album, and
Speaker 1: that didn't go according to the plan. In the end, Evergreen,
Speaker 1: Ever Blue was far from a smash hit. MTV never
Speaker 1: aired his music videos, and radio stations didn't give the
Speaker 1: album much play. Ralphie said he heard from angry parents
Speaker 1: who were upset that the music wasn't appropriate for children.
Speaker 1: I was too well known as a children's artists to
Speaker 1: be played on adult music video stations. It wasn't possible
Speaker 1: for that children's icon, as people considered me at the time,
Speaker 1: two then change his audience. It just wasn't possible. This
Speaker 1: was all a crazy irony to Raffie. In his autobiography,
Speaker 1: he questioned how kids who grew up on his music
Speaker 1: could watch quote, junk sex footage and macho rap, but
Speaker 1: not his ecology music video. Rafy was frustrated and demoralized.
Speaker 1: He was reading the news and listening to dire warnings
Speaker 1: by scientists about the damaged humans were doing to the planet.
Speaker 1: He felt there was no time to wait. Evergreen, Ever
Speaker 1: Blue was his immediate response to climate change. Why didn't
Speaker 1: his fans understand, like, how much clearer doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a warning to humanity. It's like it's like some
Speaker 1: sci fi movie where you had some alien ship lands
Speaker 1: and there's this warning to humanity, like Hello. Every year,
Speaker 1: this Union of Concerned Science would come out with another
Speaker 1: version of this warning. Well, what warning will we need
Speaker 1: next to convince us? What will it take? Do we
Speaker 1: love enough? That's my question. I'm still trying to picture
Speaker 1: a Raffi music video on MTV in the early nineties. Evergreen,
Speaker 1: Ever Blue on rotation with Nirvana smells like teen Spirit
Speaker 1: or Can't Touch This by mc hammer. Look, I give
Speaker 1: him credit for trying, but I'm thinking maybe he underestimated
Speaker 1: how hard it would be to transform his image and
Speaker 1: get his message out, and Evergreen ever Blue misses everything
Speaker 1: I love about Raffie. In his earlier stuff, he was
Speaker 1: playful and genuine. It was infectious because he was having fun.
Speaker 1: If Baby Bluego was candy, this was vegetables. Here's what
Speaker 1: I mean. Listen to the ending of Willoughby Wallaby Wou
Speaker 1: from single Songs for the Very Young Willoughby Wallaby, when
Speaker 1: an elephant set on Ken and Willoughby Wallaby Whaffy set
Speaker 1: on RAFFI now compare that to we Are Not Alone
Speaker 1: from Evergreen Ever Blue. We're crying shut the spread out amicas.
Speaker 1: We're crying shut clear haze. We're saying no more? Can
Speaker 1: we be that it's safe to hide our heads in
Speaker 1: the sand to understand the Oh It just doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like Raffie. He's trying so hard, but his words and
Speaker 1: his whole vibe feel forced, like he's playing a character.
Speaker 1: It cool it who this planet down? We can't give
Speaker 1: it up. WI rap with Christophe more we get to
Speaker 1: get done. Overall, the album feels a little lost. There's
Speaker 1: pop music mixed with folk and reggae, but unlike his
Speaker 1: earlier music, this doesn't sound cohesive. It sort of feels
Speaker 1: like he's searching for something, maybe even for himself. Now,
Speaker 1: I am not a music critic, and I respect what
Speaker 1: raf He was trying to do. He was calling out
Speaker 1: the harsh realities of climate change. He was done singing
Speaker 1: about happy blooga whales because that didn't get people to
Speaker 1: protect them. We are literally breathing, drinking, and eating the
Speaker 1: nourishment that our mother provides. So do we really not
Speaker 1: understand connection between Mother Earth and us her children? Do
Speaker 1: we really not understand are very dependents on the air, water,
Speaker 1: soil quality of this beautiful planet that we call home.
Speaker 1: Raphe's fans weren't the only ones confused by Evergreen Ever Blue.
Speaker 1: The press didn't understand his new direction either, and I'll
Speaker 1: admit the newspaper articles were rough. In The Washington Post
Speaker 1: ran a piece called Rafe's Growing Pains. The reporter wrote,
Speaker 1: the new Raffie writes angry music for adults now. Time
Speaker 1: magazine questioned why the most popular children singer abandoned his audience.
Speaker 1: Evergreen ever Blue, the magazine said, was not merely inappropriate
Speaker 1: for toddlers. It is a warning screech of apocalypse that
Speaker 1: had to hurt Rafie devoted a big chunk of his
Speaker 1: autobiography to these articles. How he felt the media dismissed
Speaker 1: his environmental awakening. He says he was chopped up to
Speaker 1: being a madman or having a midlife crisis. Adopting an
Speaker 1: environmental message and appealing to an older audience was a
Speaker 1: big gamble. Dorian Lynskey is the author of thirty three
Speaker 1: Revolutions per Minute, a history of protest songs. Dorian reminded
Speaker 1: me about the Dixie Chicks, or the Chicks as they're
Speaker 1: now known, and what can happen when an audience doesn't
Speaker 1: go along with an artist transformation. So a really extreme
Speaker 1: example which which interests me, is in two thousands three
Speaker 1: when Natalie Maines in the Dixie Chicks criticize the Iraq
Speaker 1: War and George Bush on stage in London instead, I'm
Speaker 1: ashamed President the United States and Texas got a huge
Speaker 1: cheer in the room, and that line was quoted in
Speaker 1: a review which got picked up by talk radio and
Speaker 1: Fox News and so on, and they became demonized by
Speaker 1: conservatives but also by the country scene, and they were
Speaker 1: pulled off the radio, and that these kind of ceremonial
Speaker 1: you know, smashing of their c d s. They were
Speaker 1: viciously attacked, and I think that's an example of what
Speaker 1: happens where the audience and your scene violently reacts to
Speaker 1: your politics. I don't think people are reacting to Raphae's politics.
Speaker 1: I think they just didn't like his new vibe. He
Speaker 1: literally changed everything that people loved about him. Still, it's
Speaker 1: risky for an artist to release protest music. Dorian says
Speaker 1: it's successful when audiences are also feeling upset or uneasy,
Speaker 1: like when the economy is tanking or the world's on
Speaker 1: the brink of a nuclear war. The problem is Raphie
Speaker 1: released Evergreen, ever Blue in the economy is fairly stable.
Speaker 1: They were not worried that democracy itself is under threats,
Speaker 1: and you know, the planet is burning. It's a very
Speaker 1: optimistic time, and so to the end of apartheid, and
Speaker 1: it's the end of the Cold War. It's not really
Speaker 1: a time of crisis when people are looking for crisis art.
Speaker 1: Even with the critical reviews and the angry feedback from fans,
Speaker 1: Raphi was undaunted. He felt the world was heading in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction. In he traveled to the United Nations
Speaker 1: Earth Summit in Rio de jann Arrow with environmentalists. David's
Speaker 1: is Juki and his daughter seven. Seven was twelve years
Speaker 1: old at the time, and gave a speech to a
Speaker 1: packed audience, and by the time her five or seven
Speaker 1: minute talk was done, she got a standing ovation, and
Speaker 1: al Gore walked all the way over to where seven
Speaker 1: was sitting, reached out his hand, he said, seven, that's
Speaker 1: the best speech I've heard all week. Wow. What was
Speaker 1: it about this speech that had caused such a stare
Speaker 1: and had such an impact on these adults? She said,
Speaker 1: I came five thousand miles to tell you, adults, you
Speaker 1: must change your ways. She said. You say you love us,
Speaker 1: and I challenge you, please show us, please reflect that love.
Speaker 1: She said, in your choices. Pretty powerful, I challenge you,
Speaker 1: she said, reminiscent of Greta Turnberg today, Ye who's challenging
Speaker 1: adults to not get in the way of the healthy
Speaker 1: future that she and all the world's children, all of
Speaker 1: us deserve. Pretty potent. That is exactly what Severn called it.
Speaker 1: Suzuki said at the age of twelve, realizing the hypocrisy
Speaker 1: of adults was something Raffie could relate to. From his
Speaker 1: own childhood, he felt like his parents would tell him
Speaker 1: one thing, but then do the opposite. He grew up
Speaker 1: feeling like he couldn't trust them to tell him the truth.
Speaker 1: And there was something else. Severn was just twelve years old,
Speaker 1: and there she was speaking to the United Nations. She
Speaker 1: was supported and empowered by her parents. She had everything
Speaker 1: Raffi wanted as a kid to be seen and heard
Speaker 1: for who she was. Maybe finally, as an adult he
Speaker 1: could be too. You know, not a lot of people
Speaker 1: were talking about climate at that time that had such
Speaker 1: a platform as him. The Two Earth Summit and Rio
Speaker 1: had a big impact on Raffie. He soaked up as
Speaker 1: much as he could. He rubbed elbows with then Senator
Speaker 1: Al Gore, and he was blown away by conservationist Jacques
Speaker 1: Cousteau's warnings about the degradation of the oceans. But it
Speaker 1: was severn callis Suzuki speech that really resonated with Raffie.
Speaker 1: He was awed by the power of a child's voice.
Speaker 1: Maybe kids could be the change makers. After all, Rafie
Speaker 1: left Rio vowing to support these young activists. His legacy
Speaker 1: is one that I certainly relate to. Again, this idea
Speaker 1: that we're all in this together and we all need
Speaker 1: to protect the world. Philippe Cousto is Jacques Cousteau's grandson,
Speaker 1: and he's following in his family's footsteps as a filmmaker, author,
Speaker 1: and environmental activist. You probably know this, but Philippe's grandfather,
Speaker 1: Jacques was a badass. He helped invent scuba diving. His
Speaker 1: films about marine life sparked an understanding of what's deep
Speaker 1: in the oceans and why we have to protect them.
Speaker 1: He was a huge inspiration to Raffie too, And my
Speaker 1: grandfather always said, you know, before we can talk about conservation,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about education. We have to talk
Speaker 1: about how we reach beyond the converted and start to
Speaker 1: provide opportunities for young people to engage in Any social
Speaker 1: movement in history, if it's successful, it's successful because it's
Speaker 1: driven by a younger generation working with young people and
Speaker 1: supporting and nurturing their ambitions. That's something both Philippe and
Speaker 1: Raphy share. In two thousand five, Philip co founded Earth
Speaker 1: Echo International. It's an organization that works with kids to
Speaker 1: inspire environmental activism. What I see in young people all
Speaker 1: the time is they don't know the meaning of the
Speaker 1: word no. Young people have this and this wondrous ability
Speaker 1: to cut through the bs and get to the root
Speaker 1: of the problem and question the very nature of why
Speaker 1: things are the way they are and how they work.
Speaker 1: And that's such just a wondrous, inspiring attribute that young
Speaker 1: people have, that that we as adults could learn a
Speaker 1: lot from. Instead of getting caught up in what isn't possible,
Speaker 1: we should spend a lot more time being caught up
Speaker 1: in what is possible. Philip says that sometimes as adults,
Speaker 1: we just have to get out of the way. We
Speaker 1: have worked with young people who helped to draft legislation
Speaker 1: in South Florida to require solar panels to be built
Speaker 1: on new buildings, and it passed. People forget that it
Speaker 1: was a young girl, probably not much old and twelve
Speaker 1: and thirteen years old, that petitioned Maine, the state of Maine,
Speaker 1: to ban styrofoam in fast food, particularly McDonald's take out.
Speaker 1: It passed the legislature because of her fearsome advocacy for this,
Speaker 1: and then McDonald's was like, well, we're not just going
Speaker 1: to create a separate container for one state, and they
Speaker 1: eliminated star foam from their entire takeout chain. One light,
Speaker 1: one sun one sun lighting everyone. How do we help
Speaker 1: them recognize that they can be powerful. I think that
Speaker 1: the despondency, the sadness, and the despair that happens for
Speaker 1: so many people is when you've one feels like one
Speaker 1: doesn't have an impact, one has no power, one has
Speaker 1: no agency in the world. And that's not true. I
Speaker 1: think all of us can feel sad and despairing at times,
Speaker 1: But dispairreer is not an energy to give ourselves over too.
Speaker 1: We feel it, we noted, and we've set it aside
Speaker 1: because we've got work to do. Our children need us
Speaker 1: to do the work. And if we can show people
Speaker 1: around the world why nature is valuable to their lives,
Speaker 1: then they're going to protect it in their own enlightened
Speaker 1: self interest, which is the best thing we can do.
Speaker 1: This is sang. He runs an organization called Conservation International.
Speaker 1: They do a lot to protect the earth, like working
Speaker 1: with communities on sustainable farming practices and planting trees to
Speaker 1: counter deforestation. For Jin, it all starts with placing a
Speaker 1: value on nature, something he learned early on growing up
Speaker 1: in Sri Lanka. When I was born, my grandmother took
Speaker 1: me to see an astrologer and the astrologer told me that, um,
Speaker 1: I told my grandmother that I would die by drowning,
Speaker 1: so they kept me out of the water. They didn't
Speaker 1: want me to swim in the ocean. In fact, I
Speaker 1: wasn't even allowed to take a bath. They would literally
Speaker 1: pour you know, cups of water over my head. Wow. Right,
Speaker 1: And it made some sense, some logical sense. My grandmother
Speaker 1: loved me, and she was very aware of how little
Speaker 1: time I had, and so what she wanted to do.
Speaker 1: She wanted to protect me. But when Sangin was nine,
Speaker 1: his mother secretly taught him how to swim. My mother
Speaker 1: isn't any great swimming, but she taught me how to swimming.
Speaker 1: Had changed my life. And since then, I've literally gone
Speaker 1: diving in almost every ocean on the planet, from the
Speaker 1: Arctic to you know, raja Ampat, Indonesia to the Solomon
Speaker 1: Islands the coast of California. Right. And I wondered often
Speaker 1: like why my mom broke with tradition and took that
Speaker 1: risk and taught me how to swim in it? And
Speaker 1: what I can think about that is that my my
Speaker 1: grandmother loved me, and so I wanted to protect me.
Speaker 1: My mother loved me, but she also valued my life.
Speaker 1: She started investing in me, and that's the guiding kind
Speaker 1: of star that has always guided my work and my career.
Speaker 1: So I know, I hate to say it this way,
Speaker 1: but I don't think love alone is enough to actually
Speaker 1: make anything stick. You also have to value it if
Speaker 1: it's going to be sticky over the long period of time.
Speaker 1: Working to protect the planet isn't Sandon's only job. He's
Speaker 1: a new dad like me, with a little daughter at home.
Speaker 1: How do you plan to talk to her about climate
Speaker 1: change when you have a child. I think that you
Speaker 1: want to protect this kid. We do owe it to
Speaker 1: that next generation not to completely be so engulfed in
Speaker 1: our own doom and gloom they we forget the beauty
Speaker 1: and wonder and the resilience that this planet has, And
Speaker 1: don't forget reinforcements on the way. You know, when I
Speaker 1: look at my daughter, when I look at kids in school,
Speaker 1: I am blown away by the level of intelligence, sophistication, tech,
Speaker 1: savvinus care that they have. So I do have some
Speaker 1: faith that this next generation is going to be the
Speaker 1: rescue generation. I just don't want to spoil it so
Speaker 1: much that she can't get to also enjoy it. There's
Speaker 1: a fine balance between being a savior and savoring something,
Speaker 1: and you've got to do a bit of both. Him, Raffie,
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm good? How are you? Can you
Speaker 1: see me? Awesome? I called Raffie one morning last fall.
Speaker 1: I'd read about the historic rains that we're forcing people
Speaker 1: from their homes not far from him in Canada. How's
Speaker 1: everything with the floods up there? Are Are you safe? Um?
Speaker 1: I've been Um, I've reading about it and following along.
Speaker 1: Is everything okay up there? Thank you? It's fine for me.
Speaker 1: I'm one of the lucky ones. Mother Nature's fury um
Speaker 1: has been devastating for communities in my province of British Columbia.
Speaker 1: There's no question that the climate emergency were in is
Speaker 1: exacerbating and bringing about these extreme weather conditions and will
Speaker 1: continue to do so. I mean, you don't have to
Speaker 1: be a rocket scientist to get how perilous the situation
Speaker 1: is and that bold climate action is the only way
Speaker 1: forward to address it. Rafie was tired. The floods arrived
Speaker 1: just a few months after extreme heat and wildfires had
Speaker 1: ravaged the region. It's been over thirty years since he
Speaker 1: released Evergreen, Ever Blue, and not much has changed. Raphe's
Speaker 1: worries haven't changed either. What does your daughter Sonny need
Speaker 1: in this world? She needs, uh, intact, ancient forests for many,
Speaker 1: many reasons, including their beauty. I mean, it's astonishing to
Speaker 1: me that we have to fight for the protection of
Speaker 1: beauty and these trees that soak up carbon. That's what
Speaker 1: we want, We need these people doing carbon offsets plant trees.
Speaker 1: How about keeping the ones we already have, like the
Speaker 1: giant ones. You know, Sorry, I just went on a
Speaker 1: bit of a runt there. No, I completely understand, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate the passion. Sometimes I will um think about
Speaker 1: the future and the present moment and sunny and what
Speaker 1: kind of world she's going to live in. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I just feel like I lose hope, or I'll stay
Speaker 1: up an extra hour at night tossing and turning. Do
Speaker 1: you ever feel like that we have seen tragic escalation
Speaker 1: of summer wildfires, of enormous intensity, of precedented wake up people,
Speaker 1: wake up to this climate threat. It's our children, the
Speaker 1: world we love, all of this, all of this. Raffie
Speaker 1: has always been open to reinvention, so maybe it's not
Speaker 1: a surprise that he'd circle back to his young fans
Speaker 1: and to the idea of respect, that core value that
Speaker 1: launched his career in the first place, because Ralphie was
Speaker 1: discovering that maybe there was a link between protecting the
Speaker 1: planet and how we raise our kids. Next time on
Speaker 1: Finding Raffie, this philosophy which essentially woke me up from
Speaker 1: a sound sleep with those two words sort of suspended
Speaker 1: in the air, child honoring. I knew in that luminous
Speaker 1: moment that I was being given something that would be
Speaker 1: the work of the rest of my life. Finding Raffie
Speaker 1: is a production of My Heart Radio and Fatherly in
Speaker 1: partnership with Rococo Punch. It's produced by Catherine Fenalosa, Meredith Hannig,
Speaker 1: and James Trout. Production assistance from Charlotte Livingston. Alex French
Speaker 1: is our story consultant. Our senior producer is Andrea Swahe
Speaker 1: Emily Foreman is our editor. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado.
Speaker 1: Raphae's music is courtesy of Troubadour Music Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Kim Layton at Troubadour. Our executive producers are Jessica Albert
Speaker 1: and John Parotti at Rococo Punch, Ty Trimble, Mike Rothman
Speaker 1: and Jeff Eisenman at Fatherly and Me Chris Garcia, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. We're just living and grooving with one another.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just this is real life, folks. This
Speaker 1: ain't just like just somethings I'm concerned about. This is
Speaker 1: real life.