Zoya Teirstein is a climate reporter for Grist, an environment and climate change media platform based in Seattle. She walks us through several of the presidential candidates’ climate plans, covering Biden’s shifting approach, Inslee’s comprehensive policy, and Warren’s initiative to green the military.
Full Transcript
Alexsandra Guerra: You’re listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast by the team at NORI, the carbon removal marketplace. This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions to climate change. Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. My name is Alexsandra Guerra.
Ross Kenyon: And I’m Ross Kenyon. Hello. Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. If you like the show, please rate it in iTunes or Apple Podcasts. Give us a great rating and review. It helps a lot. We would be very grateful. If you like the show, please help us get their word out about carbon removal and Reversing Climate Change. Today we have with us Zoya Teirstein, who is a news writer or politics reporter, depending on who you ask at Grist here in Seattle. Thanks for being convenient and living near us, Zoya.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.
Ross Kenyon: It was always nice when we have someone in our backyard. We found your writing. We were looking through it and said, we have to have Zoya on to come. Explain to us all of the different climate policies of all the primary contenders. I can’t keep track of them. I’m sure it’s even hard for you as a professional there.
Zoya Teirstein: I have a cheat sheet here. It’s going to help me out.
Ross Kenyon: That’s good. So when we start with your story, tell us how you came to be doing what you’re doing.
Zoya Teirstein: Sure. Yeah. Well, I was in college and I read a story about the drought in Syria and how There were climate factors at play there and how the Civil War was actually birthed by this huge drought and farmers were crowding cities. And I was like, this is crazy. And the article that I was reading about it was written so well and interestingly that I wanted to keep reading it to the very end, which is rare for a college student. I was busy with doing other stuff, but I wanted to read that article.
And I looked at who wrote it, and it was an article from Grist. And that’s when I decided that I wanted to work at Grist.
Ross Kenyon: Oh my God. I think Paula sent me that same one. And that was one of the early ones that got me interested in climate change as well.
Zoya Teirstein: Okay. Well, that article, we should put it in the Grist Hall of Fame. And I got an internship after graduating from NYU where I went to the Gallatin School and I studied. I made my own major, which is reporting on climate change. Very nice. So I found a job in exactly what I wanted to do, which is lucky. And now I live in Seattle and I write for Grist. I’m their news writer, started as an intern, then I was an editorial assistant. And now, yep, here I am.
Ross Kenyon: That’s great. And why is this all happening right now, Zoe? Why is climate change all over the presidential debates? How did this all, did it feel, Alexsandra, like it just dropped out of nowhere? Like climate change just started being the thing that everyone’s talking about all the time?
Alexsandra Guerra: I don’t know. I don’t feel like I can say that because I’ve been thinking about climate change since I was 15 and it was called global warming at the time. But it’s to me kind of like, oh, yeah, we’ve been talking about the same thing over and over and it was always a big issue. And then all of a sudden now everybody cares. I’m like, OK, it’s kind of stupid because I feel like that kid who discovered that artist really early and you’re like, I loved Evanescence since before they were cool.
Zoya Teirstein: That’s how grist the entire organization feels like right now. Yeah, it’s like, yeah, okay, welcome to my world, everybody. Now let me tell you a little bit. Yeah, it’s funny. I was at a bar the other night and this guy next to me was telling me that climate change is just not in the cultural zeitgeist right now. And I was like, what it is. For the first time, it is in the cultural zeitgeist. And, you know, very pretentious to use that complicated word to describe what’s going on. But yeah, it’s happening now.
There’s no other moment. And there’s a variety of factors that are at play with that. I’ll start with just a few. The first is that Trump took office and Has been rolling back a bunch of regulations, has wanted to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and has basically declared war on the environment. A lot of people are galvanized by that and also by a slew of other things that he’s done. It’s not just climate change, immigration and abortion, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that people are ready to fight in a new sort of they’re burning to do something in a new way that might not have even happened if Clinton had clinched the presidency.
Ross Kenyon: We’ve often seen that as a silver lining though that companies realize that maybe the federal government isn’t going to do it and that they’re going to need to step up and they can claim some legitimacy for their brand by doing that. So in some ways pulling out of Paris has been good to encourage companies to not just wait for the government to solve everything.
Alexsandra Guerra: And individuals too.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, and individuals too. But maybe you don’t see it that way. Maybe this is just that isn’t a silver lining as far as you’re concerned.
Zoya Teirstein: I would be hesitant to call withdrawing from that agreement good in any way. But first of all, we haven’t even withdrawn yet. So if someone else takes the White House in 2020, we need to recommit is what they say. Because it’s complicated to withdraw from agreements. There’s legal issues at play. So, yeah, I mean, I agree that there is something to be said for the feeling right now people are feeling. And I’m more inspired by, like you said, the people who are getting galvanized by this, less by companies per se.
But I’m also on the journalist side. I’m not working in the private sector. There are a lot of companies who have stepped up, which has been cool to watch. And some companies also who have pretended to step up and have continued their widely raised.
Ross Kenyon: A noble tradition. Yes, VP, I’m talking to you.
Zoya Teirstein: So, yeah. Okay, so let me talk a little bit more about the other issues at play and what’s happening. There’s been this widespread youth movement, also, I think, galvanized in part by the election in 2016. And these folks, they’re a lot younger than people who have traditionally championed Public lands and the environment and nature and conservation in the past. And they’re framing the issue in sort of more moral terms and made it a little more urgent. So instead of saying save the polar bears, they’re saying save us. And that’s been having more of an effect on the public, I think.
There’s also a Latina from the Bronx who was elected recently.
Alexsandra Guerra: Who is that? You may have heard of her.
Zoya Teirstein: Her name is known as AOC, Alexsandra Ocasio-Cortez. And she sort of one-upped this incumbent, Mr. Crowley. And she’s championing something called the Green New Deal. I think that’s also played a role, maybe less big than other things. Like, for example, scientists getting a little more urgent about what exactly is going to happen. There’s a couple of reports that came out recently that have added to this sense of urgency around climate change. The IPCC has come out with a report that says we have a certain window of time to address the crisis or else that window closes and we’re sort of locked into some pretty severe effects.
Alexsandra Guerra: And that window of time being about 12 years.
Zoya Teirstein: You know, the 12 year piece, it’s a little tricky. There is no concrete deadline. Really, the deadline I’m looking at is the next couple of years to actually take severe action to curtail what’s happening. Emissions, maybe you guys can talk about. I mean, that’s your specialty, carbon removal. I don’t know as much about that as maybe I should. We’ll get into that later. But yeah, so I think the timeline, it depends who you talk to. And scientists have said, you know, 12 years could, at this point, it’s 11 years now, could be a good way to think about it.
But also, you know, we just, the point is, we have around a decade to figure things out. And the sooner we move now, the better in the long term.
Alexsandra Guerra: And then also, a couple months after the IPCC report came out in September of last year, there was the report that came out on Black Friday, From the Trump administration talking and acknowledging climate change and the impacts. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, thank you for asking me that question. That is my pride and joy at Grist. So when that report came out, the administration tried to bury it, and it did not work at grist.org. We did this region by region study. I headed that up, sort of like a report on the report. We broke down. The report basically showed how each region of the United States is going to be affected by climate change. So it’s not universal. There’s no like. Effect that touches the whole country in the same way. Different regions have flooding, different regions have more rainfall, different regions have severe drought, severe heat.
So we broke that down and readers really responded to that. I mean, people are curious, like, what’s really going to happen? We’re hearing these extreme phrases, climate breakdown, etc. But what does that mean for me in that report? Made it pretty clear. Now, I want to add one more thing that the Trump administration is now trying to curtail the next report and stop it at the year 2040. So clearly, that’s going to be an issue because 2040 is when the really severe consequences of warming really kick in. So we need to know what’s going to happen past that point too.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. Well, you clearly know your stuff, Zoya. So we want to have you walk us through exactly what’s happening with all the candidates, which there are so many.
Zoya Teirstein: So many. Thanks.
Ross Kenyon: I keep seeing articles. I’m like, who is this again? I don’t know. But there’s a couple of front runners, at least so far. And then there’s a bunch of people who are near the bottom of the polls, but still have interesting things to say and to contribute to the conversation. And I don’t know how you want to do this, Soya, but why don’t we start right at the top of this list that I penned hazardously, not knowing how to rank or order these people. Joe Biden.
Zoya Teirstein: Joe Biden.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, Diamond Joe. What’s he doing?
Zoya Teirstein: The lover of ice cream. Have you guys seen that? He loves ice cream so much. That’s like his thing. You have to look up Joe Biden ice cream. It’s just him just holding cone after cone. Cone after cone? Okay. I get it. Ice cream is pretty dope. It’s pretty hilarious.
Ross Kenyon: Check the show notes, people.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, Joe Biden. So Joe Biden was the front runner long before he entered the race. And so as Obama’s vice president, he kind of tagged along for a lot of Obama’s climate policy, which was in many ways an all of the above climate policy. So that kind of gives us an idea of where Joe Biden was. So that meant like renewables, natural gas, Some nuclear and just a real mix. So they weren’t super discerning about about which energies they were going to use. Renewable energy grew under Obama, but also so did fracking and natural gas.
So there were some activists who were wary of Joe Biden’s Before he entered the race and what his climate plan would be. Now, there’s a whole drama that unfolded with this situation with Joe Biden. I love the way that you tell this, by the way.
Alexsandra Guerra: I just want to watch you and listen to you. Can I just have you on the news every day?
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, it would be my pleasure, but I have to also write it.
Alexsandra Guerra: Which is the harder part.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, there was drama. So here’s what happened. So Joe Biden, basically this report, these two officials working for the Biden campaign released this information that said that he was going to take a middle of the road approach to climate change. That was a Reuters report. So I don’t know. The sources on that were a little shaky, but it’s clear that for a minute there, it seemed as though Joe Biden was going to continue the Obama era energy mix, sort of maybe possibly all of the above situation. And activists were not happy.
So there’s this activist movement called the Sunrise Movement. I don’t know if you guys have heard of them. No? Oh, my God.
Alexsandra Guerra: I’m not plugged into the political space, which I will explain later. Plug into the renewable energy.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, just a little bit of background. The Sunrise Movement has been working with AOC on the Green New Deal, and they are pushing people really hard on climate change. They’re part of the reason why a lot of the candidates have... Committed to climate plans this early.
Ross Kenyon: They got in the fight with Nancy Pelosi. Oh, yeah. Extra drama.
Zoya Teirstein: And Dianne Feinstein and Mitch McConnell and a whole bunch of other politicians. They show up. They don’t give up. They’re youth led. It’s hard to say no to youth. Dianne Feinstein can attest to that. She said no and then suffered the political consequences. I don’t know if she will in the next election, but people are pretty pissed. I’m not going to get into that now. I’m going to stay on topic. So the Sunrise Movement kind of came out and was like, Joe Biden, do better. Middle of the road is not enough.
AOC said middle of the road is not enough. Bernie Sanders came out too. There was like kind of widespread condemnation. And so Joe Biden last week, I believe, yes, last week, well, these weeks seem very long, came out with a pretty ambitious climate plan. And I have the details here. So he goes, like most of the other candidates who have released plans, there’s about five or six of them. He aims to go net zero emissions by 2050. And he really aims to go sort of beyond what the Green New Deal laid out, the resolution that AOC and Ed Markey laid out in February, except for he’s not including the more like kind of out there aspects of the plan.
So he’s not including like a federal jobs guarantee or universal health care. That’s not going to be part of his plan, but he does have a pretty, pretty fleshed out plan. So the idea is to galvanize $1. 7 trillion in public spending for the climate and then also mobilize $3. 3 trillion from the private sector, which equals out to like, you know, he’s going to, the goal is a $5 trillion climate plan from him, which is very similar to what Beto O’Rourke, by the way, released earlier.
Ross Kenyon: Can I just ask a clarifying question really quickly?
Zoya Teirstein: Sure.
Ross Kenyon: What does it mean for all of the above and why is that so controversial?
Zoya Teirstein: It’s controversial because all of the above includes natural gas and possibly occasionally coal. It’s clear that most candidates are going to phase out coal. It’s already being phased out. It’s kind of a dying industry. And there’s opportunity there to transition workers to the green economy, to green energy. That in and of itself is a controversial statement. So there’s a lot at play. But all of the above... So have you guys heard about these reports that the natural gas, the fracking industry has been sort of like downplaying the amount of methane that they’ve been releasing to the atmosphere?
There’s all this flaring going on and venting. And so it’s sort of an issue.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I’ve seen some of this.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, the industry is not doing a good job of self-regulating and not doing a good job at clamping down on emissions. And methane, as you probably know, is... Much more potent than CO2 in the short term in 100 year timescale. So the fact that there’s tonnes of methane being released by the fracking industry is not great, especially because we’re kind of on this fast track towards imminent destruction, not to be pessimistic about it.
Ross Kenyon: You’re bringing the drama now. Making climate change sounds so scary.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, not to scare anyone, but you should be a little scared at this point, I think. But yeah, anyway, so that’s why all of the above. I mean, you know, clearly you can’t just phase off of fossil fuels immediately. It requires time. But there is to some extent, you know, people are upset that fracking needs to be better curtailed and people want it to be eventually phased out.
Ross Kenyon: I derailed you pretty good, though. You were on something. You got me. You were finishing up Joe Biden.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, Joe Biden’s drama. OK, so Joe Biden, yeah, so he came out with this kind of like ambitious climate report. And then just today, when we’re recording this podcast, he came out in support of a climate debate. Now, if you’re not following the climate debate situation, Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, has been calling for a climate debate in addition to the Sunrise Movement, who I just kind of described to you guys in a hectic paragraph. And they’re all calling for sort of the candidates to get on stage and discuss the single greatest threat to humanity is the framing that activists and Jay Inslee are using.
And the DNC, which is in charge of hosting the debates, there’s going to be like a dozen debates, said, no, we’re not going to do that.
Alexsandra Guerra: That’s so stupid. Sorry, I usually don’t judge things as stupid, but go ahead. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m being stupid.
Zoya Teirstein: No, I don’t think you’re being stupid. You know, it’s hard to say with the DNC. I think that they are convinced that they’re right. And the reasoning goes like this. If we give climate change the spotlight for a whole debate, then... That’s not fair. What about health care? What about gun reform? What about jobs? So it’s kind of like if we give you a cookie, then I have to give everyone a cookie and then everyone gets cookies and that’s when we’re left cookieless. So that’s, I guess, the reasoning.
Alexsandra Guerra: There’s reason, I see. There’s reason, but here’s the thing.
Zoya Teirstein: And I just tweeted about this before coming in. Yes, it’s a single issue, but it’s an issue that touches all other issues to some extent. So that’s the first thing. Food security, health, everything. Everything. It’s going to touch everything. The second thing is that 14 candidates at this point by the latest count have endorsed a climate debate, including Joe Biden just today. No one else, to the best of my knowledge, that has not happened for a health care debate, a gun reform debate, a jobs debate. So, you know, it’s kind of like, why not just have one if everyone’s in support?
Alexsandra Guerra: And if you think about it, too, the climate, there are so many sectors, too. If we’re talking about government and private intersection, like you have industries, whether it’s agriculture, whether it’s oil and gas, like it’s not just like health care. OK. And then you have digital. There’s so much into it. So I would love to see this debate happen. I’m like dreaming about it now in my head. What do we have to do? Do we have to get onto Twitter right now?
Ross Kenyon: I think it might be unique because all the other issues you’ve named, the battle lines between the parties are super old, right? Like we all know how everyone feels about guns, depending on your party affiliation. We all know how you feel about minimum wage or health care or whatever the issue is. The environment and climate change specifically are newer and it feels like the lines are newer-ish or at least, yeah, it isn’t nearly as drawn. And it seems like that’s shifting more than perhaps other of those issues that feel more decided to me.
Is that just me applying some wrong judgment upon to this?
Zoya Teirstein: Well, like, okay, so I don’t know, how are we judging the timescale for that? Because climate change has been politically divisive since the 90s. But I mean, other issues have been divisive for a long time.
Ross Kenyon: But at least now it seems like there are Republicans who are taking it seriously. Absolutely. It doesn’t seem as simple as like left and right as much as it once was.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, there’s still a good amount of oil money at play.
Ross Kenyon: As there always is. So I am wrong.
Alexsandra Guerra: It’s not just oil money at play. And I maybe should ask you like what you mean by that. But even on the right side, I think that there are people who they believe that this is a false dichotomy between conservative government and believe in climate change. And there’s And so that has left a lot of people who believe in climate change, who are just believe in smaller governments. Out in the cold. And now I’m hoping that, well, we can’t really see that with Trump exactly running because he’s the president. But at some point, it would be nice to see, OK, what’s the climate debate for all candidates, right?
So if we didn’t have a second term president re-running, then we could see, OK, what are the Republicans believing are the solutions for climate change in this climate debate? What are the Democratic? And we could talk about that issue on both sides.
Zoya Teirstein: Totally. I mean, I disagree with you only slightly. I think that we might be both right and I’ll explain why. So I’ll explain why I think I’m right first.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, very convenient.
Zoya Teirstein: Yes. Conservation is a Republican issue. Teddy Roosevelt, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, Ronald Reagan, Nixon. Yes. There is a long history there. And one of my first projects at Grist when I was just still an intern was writing about the eco right. I don’t know if you guys have heard about the eco right.
Ross Kenyon: You should have them on your podcast.
Zoya Teirstein: Republican and pro climate action. There’s this guy named Todd Tanner and he brings a brand new shotgun in Montana up to the front of town hall meetings and offers it to anyone who can prove, give him real scientific proof that climate change isn’t real. And he told me he has yet to have to give his shotgun away. He’s changing minds one person at a time. I love that. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: It’s cute. What a story. OK. You got to look into this guy, Todd Tanner.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. So anyway, there’s growing consensus on the right, especially among hunters, fishers, anglers, that something has to be done about climate change because it affects the land that they use to hunt, fish, and angle on. So yeah, at the same time, for example, my money in politics comment about big oil. There was an initiative up for a vote in Washington State, 1631, about a carbon tax. And there was pretty broad consensus among people that it was a good tax. Big oil swept in and spent millions of dollars to defeat the tax, more than the billionaires on the left who were spending money to support it.
And as a result, it failed, at least in part because of that money that was spent.
Alexsandra Guerra: So, oh, I’m just like, I have, I hear you. And there’s like all these things that are at play. And definitely what like there was a lot more money spent to defeat against the bill. I also just didn’t vote for it. I voted against it because I didn’t understand where the money was going to go. It wasn’t clear enough to me. I thought that the price on the carbon was too low. It started at $15. I asked someone who was at a debate, you know, why did you pick $15 a ton?
Oh, well, His answer was equivalent to sticking your finger in the air. I love the idea, but it wasn’t there yet.
Zoya Teirstein: So your solution to it not being there yet is just not to vote for it?
Alexsandra Guerra: No, to come up with a better plan that is more aggressive on carbon. I thought it was going to be more harmful to do a little bit of good and win now than it would be to get something right.
Zoya Teirstein: Well, so the good news is that this can segue into me talking about another candidate, if that’s OK, Jay Inslee.
Ross Kenyon: You’re making my job super easy.
Zoya Teirstein: So Jay Inslee, I recently interviewed. He’s the governor of Washington, for those who don’t know. And he’s a Democrat. He’s running for president. He’s polling at 1%. When I told him that he was polling at 1%, I informed him of that. He said, solid. Very cool. He’s got sort of a folksy charm. And he sort of regrouped after 1631 failed. And basically, he told me that, you know, if something’s not working, you try a different tactic. And that’s what he did in Washington State. And Washington State just passed, legislature just passed a really comprehensive Suite of clean energy bills aimed at cars, building efficiency, and 100% renewable energy in the energy sector.
So, yeah, I mean, if at first you don’t succeed, try something different. And that’s what he did. And he’s running with that behind him. So Jay Inslee has, I believe, after reading his impossibly long climate platform policy rollouts, that he has one of the most comprehensive climate plans out of all of the candidates so far. And what’s interesting about that is that even though he’s polling so low and his chance of becoming president are really low. Come on, Jay. I know. Well, you know, I mean, it’s fine. Yeah. The underdog doesn’t always win, and that’s okay in some cases, but his effect on the primary has been, he’s running as the climate candidate, that’s his whole issue, climate change, is that he has inspired a bunch of other candidates to really step up their game when it comes to Rolling out their own proposals.
And we saw that with Joe Biden’s climate plan. He plagiarized a bit of information from other climate proposals and other campaigns, which was a little bit of a scandal, but his campaign had a solution to that. And, you know, anyway, they said that they’ve just I forgot attribution. And it’s not really, it’s sort of a blip on my radar. I’m not like super worried about that, but yeah. So I think that Jay Inslee, who has a very, so he basically is hoping to mobilize $9 trillion in spending to combat the climate crisis.
And not only that, but he and Joe Biden, and now a little bit Elizabeth Warren, actually kind of a lot Elizabeth Warren, she always comes out of left field with a great proposal. I don’t know what, her team must stay up at all night. She’s very wonky.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, they seem like they’re very detail-oriented. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they’re nerds, guaranteed.
Zoya Teirstein: It’d be nice to have a nerd for president. Not an endorsement, but someone who’s nerdy would be nice. So he has a $9 trillion climate change plan. And part of that includes, and this is where Joe Biden and him overlap, includes an international component that is super important because the US is not the only country that emits Pollution. China, for one, is a major player in that arena. And so those two candidates, and I think this is something that’s super interesting that I really want to impress upon your podcast listeners, many of them who are listening right now.
The Paris Agreement is sort of the best vehicle for making sort of an international plan and consensus on bringing down emissions is what people believe. It’s already in place. So basically recommitting to that and regalvanizing support for that Joe Biden and Jay Inslee say is crucial. And what Joe Biden says is that if China and other countries that emit a lot major polluters don’t play ball, they’re going to impose tariffs. The U. S. is going to impose tariffs and other economic sort of sanctions to get them to behave.
Alexsandra Guerra: Interesting.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. So it’s more of a team effort slash a team. What’s it called when you kind of like terrorize someone into doing something that you want? I don’t know.
Alexsandra Guerra: Pressure. Bullying.
Zoya Teirstein: Well, the United States is not known as being a bully.
Alexsandra Guerra: I mean, but it’d be bullying for like a totally different, like people can call Trump being a bully with terrorists as well. And now we would just do the same thing, but for different reasons, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Zoya Teirstein: The reason being saving the planet. But yeah.
Ross Kenyon: I can just imagine giving someone a swirly for the planet.
Zoya Teirstein: This is for the planet. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, God, we still have so many to go through. I’m sorry. You have a logical order to the progress that you’re bringing to this, though, right?
Zoya Teirstein: Sort of. I mean, so some other people who deserve an honorable mention here are Elizabeth Warren, of course, who was the first to come out the gate with a really great climate plan, which was no drilling on public lands. Public lands are a big factor in emissions in the United States, and ceasing drilling on those lands would be pretty big. That was her first plan. And then she had another plan coming out recently. Actually, she had one about the military, which wasn’t received very well on Twitter. But as we know, Twitter is not the universe.
It’s just one small piece of it. So she had a plan where she wants to green the military. The criticism of that was that why not just make the military smaller? We spend billions every year on that particular sector of the United States. So for various reasons, that’s not... Necessarily realistic or it won’t play well with all voters, clearly. And Warren’s whole family was in the Army. I mean, like, not whole family, but a lot of them were enlisted in various times of her life. So she has a connection to that community.
Ross Kenyon: Is not the United States military one of the biggest emitters? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, so greening it would be great.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. It’s a weird pairing, though. I could see why. Insofar as there’s ever a conflict between military preparedness and the environment, I think it would be a fight, definitely.
Alexsandra Guerra: There’s a large, I mean, not a large push. I don’t know. I don’t know how many people in the military are talking about this, but working the utility, I did hear and talk to a few people who are definitely interested in seeing how do we integrate more renewables, energy storage, microgrids. So greening up the military is a thing. And I don’t think that it’s like necessarily not happening.
Ross Kenyon: We’ve talked about this a little bit, too, and we would love to have a future episode about the strategic implications of climate change and how the military has been adapting. What’s the book we read? The Rolling Stone author, Jeff Goodall, The Water Will Come. The section in there about the military and how they have to not tell politicians the whole story of like, we need to raise these military peers. Oh, why? Oh, just in case. Just to Nothing happens. It’s just safer that way. Oh, okay. But whenever the military has mentioned climate change, they’ve actually, they’re practical people.
Yes. Right.
Zoya Teirstein: Well, yeah. I mean, if you want to know what the smart thing to do about climate change is, you need to look at the insurance industry and the military, Pentagon, because they’ve been prepping. Like, they know this is coming, both sectors, both industries. And the military, I mean, already there are certain bases that are underwater and are prone to flooding, and that’s been a big issue for them. Wow.
Ross Kenyon: Okay.
Zoya Teirstein: Going back.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Okay. So Elizabeth Warren. Yes. More to say.
Zoya Teirstein: Yes. Always more.
Ross Kenyon: So you just got it all, all this knowledge in your brain.
Zoya Teirstein: There is more. Oh, it’s just floating around in there. I don’t even, I’m surprised that it’s coming out this way. Yes. There’s okay. Her most real So she wants to invest in low-carbon technologies and push those out to the rest of the world. So we’re not just saying, hey, if you don’t get your emissions down, There’s going to be hell to pay. It’s like, oh, here’s the tools that you need to actually accomplish that. So we’re not just demanding the world from people and people are like, we don’t know how to do this.
Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: By people, I mean China. Brief side note. Is it interesting to you that there’s all this language that’s being created from like the Marshall Plan is after World War II, Europe’s destroyed, the Green New Deal, obviously the New Deal. Is there just like this, this like returned or is like a way to legitimize these policies that seem new and scary, but it’s like, no, it’s like this other thing that we’ve done.
Zoya Teirstein: I feel like, yeah, well, American nostalgia. I mean, that’s a powerful force, right?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, Trump and Bernie reminds me of like consensus capitalism of the 50s, sort of like the days and like Trump, whatever his ideal is, definitely in the past somewhere.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, well, I think it’s natural to look back in the past and be like, what happened there that we can use now? And that’s what the architects, so one of the articles I’m most proud of that I wrote this year was about how the Green New Deal, AOC’s Green New Deal, not the one that’s, there’s various versions of the Green New Deal springing up right now, which is, I think the AOC camp thinks it’s pretty cool. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. It is. But basically, I think that the people who are building out that plan for her, the one that’s going to be introduced in Congress, they told me that they rely heavily on not only the metaphor, but actually what actually worked back then to create the policy now.
So they’re rapidly figuring out the policy. As we speak, it’s happening. And they have about a few more months to roll that out. So anyway, so back to E. Warren. She’s got a GI Bill. And a lot of the candidates who have released plans so far have some version of this where, you know, it’s like put Americans to work and in the green economy. And that’s sort of a big element of her plan, too. And now we can leave her be for the time being.
Ross Kenyon: God, let’s just keep working down this list. Well, I don’t know. We didn’t really give Bernie his fair shake yet.
Zoya Teirstein: No, you know, I’m mad at Bernie. Where is his climate plan? I know that he’s a climate hawk. I know that because he has a long history of championing environmental legislation. And he talks about it a lot. And he inspired the Sunrise Movement in some way. And the Justice Democrats, that’s another movement that you don’t know about.
Alexsandra Guerra: Maybe he’s just like strategically waiting because people are talking about climate and he’s like, yeah, but I’m going to do it when people are talking about someone else and be like, ha ha ha, here’s Miami.
Zoya Teirstein: Thank you for reminding me about that. That was a good time. It’s possible that’s what he’s doing. So something funny that happened that I don’t know if I should really say because it’s just a hunch that I have. But Beto O’Rourke, who came out like swinging with this like crazy ambitious for him, I believe, climate plan, especially because in the past, you know, he’s a Texan. It’s a Texas boy. He’s gotten all this money from fossil fuels throughout his political career. And that was a point of tension early on. He had promised to take no contributions from fossil fuel companies.
He took this pledge called the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge. It’s like a standard now for candidates. The groups who are pushing that also Sunrise and this group called Oil Change USA are pushing that pledge very hard. It’s basically promising that you won’t take donations over 200 bucks from fossil fuel executives, CEOs. People who are employed in the fossil fuel industry, by the way, like just workers, are allowed to donate. It’s the higher ups who are precluded from doing that. So anyway, sorry, back to the thing. O’Rourke came out with this plan and he said, we’re going net zero by 2050.
And Jay Inslee was like, I’m sure, seething. We’ve got to come up with our plan now. And of course, Jay Inslee has been researching his plan for a long time. And that’s what he mentioned when I talked to him. And then he comes out and he says, we’re going to go net zero by 2045. And I’m convinced that he was just like, damn it, beta work went up me. We’re going to go five years earlier. And that’s what he did. But yeah, across the board, 2050, I mean, only Jaynes Lee has said 2045 so far, but just mid-century is what people are shooting for, for net zero emissions.
And that’s what O’Rourke did. So I feel like we’ve talked about O’Rourke enough. We’ve touched on him, Biden. Oh, Booker is worth talking about a little bit.
Ross Kenyon: All right, let’s do it.
Zoya Teirstein: He has a environmental justice plan. And he’s like a touch controversial because he is pro-nuclear energy.
Ross Kenyon: Gasp.
Zoya Teirstein: Can you believe it? We read a lot about nuclear energy at Grist and it makes our readers very angry.
Ross Kenyon: Oh yeah. It’s Nathaniel’s beat, right?
Zoya Teirstein: Yes. Nathaniel Johnson. He’s a veteran Grist writer and he writes about nuclear and food and all that good stuff. And yeah, we get a lot of hate. I was actually managing the Grist inbox for a little bit as an intern.
Ross Kenyon: Spooky. That does not sound fun.
Zoya Teirstein: It was not, especially after we dropped a Nate original cover story on nuclear. Yeah. I got a lot of hate mail.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, so Cory Booker, he’s okay with nuclear. Okay with nuclear. He didn’t see Chernobyl.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, he didn’t.
Ross Kenyon: That’s like another whole topic.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. Oh, so in his plan, the EPA gets a boost. And he basically is going to go back and fix all the stuff that Trump tried to roll back. And he’s going to have a pay for pollution policy with companies and going to shore up our drinking water supplies. And that’s sort of a little overview of what Booker is going to do.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, interesting.
Zoya Teirstein: And who else we got?
Ross Kenyon: Buttigieg.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, yeah. Mayor Pete. He speaks seven languages conversationally. Did you guys know that? And English really well.
Ross Kenyon: Are you contrasting that against something else?
Zoya Teirstein: No. Mayor Pete. So we actually talked to Mayor Pete in the early days of his campaign. We got him on the phone because he had this media strategy that Beto O’Rourke could really take some notes on. Beto O’Rourke, if you guys don’t know, has been traveling the country, driving himself around, talking to voters. And has somewhat isolated himself from the national media as a result of that. So he’s now realizing, oh, shoot, I need to be talking to those big TV stations about what I want to do. That’s way more effective.
So that’s what he’s doing now. Mayor Pete, on the other hand, has been doing that from the get go. He takes any and every media opportunity, which is part of the reason why he talked to Grist. Maybe he also loves Grist. I don’t know. He talked to our reporter, Kate Yoder, about climate change and talked about what he did in South Bend, Indiana. And He basically did this, like, he spent millions of dollars in South Bend on shoring up various environmental things and doing climate resilience and all that stuff. So he has a little bit of a record with that.
But he hasn’t super come out with a wide proposal yet. He does have a climate platform, though, on his website.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. And then Michael Bennett.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, Michael Bennett, the guy from Colorado. I have only a few notes on him because he really is not super in the... In case it’s not clear, I’ve been writing a lot about Joe Biden, Warren, Sanders, Inslee, Rourke a little bit, and these other guys who are polling... Low, I mean, James Lee’s polling low as well, but he also happens to be in Washington State, so that’s why we cover him. We’re close to him and can get an interview with him. But yeah, Michael Bennett, I haven’t covered as much, but he released a sort of, he’s sort of like a centrist candidate a little bit, as far as people have been positioning candidates and where they stand.
He released a farming-centric package, and... Yeah, Hassan said a lot about the no fossil fuel money pledge or climate debate. He seems to be sort of playing it safe at the moment. We’ll see whether he comes out swinging with anything else in the coming months, but I somehow doubt it.
Ross Kenyon: We saw Colorado had some initiative at the state level for blockchain and agriculture and tracking. And it seems like they are doing some quite progressive things in ag, so it doesn’t surprise me.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, they also just got a new governor, Jared Polis, who is a climate hawk and a climate champion, and he’s been putting in place some pretty ambitious proposals. Colorado, the AG there is also, or sorry, no, Boulder is suing a bunch of oil companies over climate change as well. So there’s like a lot going on in Colorado.
Ross Kenyon: Well, fair enough. We’re making good progress here. Nice job just dispatching all of these. John Delaney, you’re up next.
Zoya Teirstein: John Delaney. So he’s sort of a dark horse. He has a $4 trillion climate plan. Now, that sounds like a lot, but no, compared to Jay Inslee’s $9 trillion, it’s peanuts.
Ross Kenyon: All of those numbers are meaningless to me because I’ve never seen anywhere close to that amount of money.
Zoya Teirstein: Really? You haven’t?
Ross Kenyon: No, I would like to, but I just haven’t gotten there yet. I don’t know.
Zoya Teirstein: That scares me. Trillion? I don’t even, I honestly can’t, I also can’t fathom what that even means.
Ross Kenyon: It’s sort of meaningless in some ways, but okay. It’s all made up. Jay Inslee has nine, and that’s the most.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, I think that’s the most. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: We’re at $4 trillion right now for Delaney.
Zoya Teirstein: Delaney, $4 trillion. He has a price on carbon plan. Now, some candidates have been a little hesitant to do the price on carbon thing. There’s various reasons for that. Price on carbon is also sometimes called a fee, also sometimes called a tax, which voters do not like. So Inslee has been, I think, I mean, when I interviewed him, he was like, yeah, we’re pivoting a little bit away from taxes for the time being, carbon taxes. And I was like, smart. He introduced it. There’s like six different initiatives in Washington state and they all failed.
Clearly, taxes are not super popular.
Alexsandra Guerra: So they all failed and there’s a broad desire to support something like this too, right? So that’s what’s interesting.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, that’s what’s so weird. I was like, what’s going on?
Alexsandra Guerra: Including myself, right? Right. Like, yes, I want to do something. I want to control carbon. I’m not going to vote for that.
Zoya Teirstein: Right. Yeah. I would love to talk about that more post-podcast. I’m so fascinated by that decision. So he has a fortune in price on, yeah, he’s got a price on carbon. Sorry. He’s got a carbon capture technology situation going on. He wants to invest, and this is right up you guys’ alley. The ears are perking up right here. I hit the table. I see it. Okay. So he wants to invest in something called direct air capture, which is basically where you separate CO2 from the air, right?
Ross Kenyon: Whoa.
Zoya Teirstein: Do you know about that?
Ross Kenyon: No. First time I’m hearing about it.
Zoya Teirstein: No. You’re kidding.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. No, I want you to explain it for the audience. I’m playing dumb for their benefit.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, no. Please don’t make me do that.
Ross Kenyon: I’m going to force you to learn everything. Soon you’ll just be covering carbon removal.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, God. My editors would love that. Can you give me the elevator explanation of what that really is?
Ross Kenyon: I think that was a pretty decent explanation. It’s just being able to suck carbon dioxide out of the air, separate it from atmospheric gas as a whole, and either store it in the ground or in a built environment or materials or somehow store it in some permanent or quasi-permanent fashion. Do you agree?
Alexsandra Guerra: Yeah, and some people reuse it due to fracking. So there’s many categories to direct air capture, whether you’re storing it, reusing it. Pumping it to get more oil or enhanced oil recovery EOR. And if you want to follow more and learn more, you got to listen to the Carbon Removal Newsroom podcast, which is also available on nori.com.
Ross Kenyon: You’re just trying to flatter me over here.
Alexsandra Guerra: I love all of our episodes and CRN is great because it’s super, they’re short little stories regarding this stuff. So if you’re listening because Zoya like passed through this podcast, check out more on the Carbon Removal Newsroom.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, there’s a ton of direct air capture episodes over there. I don’t know why it’s so heavily slanted relative to over here where it’s so much ag. But anyways, it sounds like Delaney, John Delaney, maybe we should try and get you on the podcast if you’re a big booster for this.
Zoya Teirstein: If you’re listening, John, they want you on your podcast, on their podcast. Also, I should mention that he wants to fund it through ending fossil fuel subsidies. And he also wants to invest, I think it’s like 1. 5 billion annually in new tech projects.
Ross Kenyon: Is this just basic research, that sort of funding?
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, I think like, you know, R&D. Yeah, that’s the plan. And he also wants to do a $1 trillion for, wow, another $1 trillion for carbon capture. I’m like, I can’t believe I wrote this down. Plus, he wants to shore up the Department of Energy and support them too. So yeah, he seems like the perfect candidate for your podcast.
Ross Kenyon: Well, we’re going to be rent-seeking and trying to get as many benefits as we can out of the political trough. Are you cool with that, Alexsandra?
Alexsandra Guerra: Sure. I have so many questions. This is nuts that we tried to do this podcast.
Ross Kenyon: I know. This is not the best organized. I tried my best.
Zoya Teirstein: No, it is the best organized you could do. It’s just like an impossible feat. Am I all over the place?
Ross Kenyon: No. You’ve saved the show by keeping it has a nice flow to it. It makes sense. We came back and got the stuff that we didn’t get. We got one left here on this list. And we actually did a carbon removal newsroom with him with Andrew Yang. Cool. Right. Which I thought was really interesting because he very heavily favored geoengineering and solar radiation management as opposed to. Yeah. He didn’t really want to talk about soil or direct air capture or anything else.
Zoya Teirstein: I know. Well, he’s such a weirdo. And I mean that in an endearing way. And I find him very cool. He wants to like eliminate the penny. Have you heard about that initiative of his?
Ross Kenyon: No, but they’re kind of just gross.
Zoya Teirstein: He’s like, they’re pointless. And I don’t know if he thinks they’re gross, but I believe it. They also cost more, right? Oh, yeah, maybe.
Ross Kenyon: I’ve heard this too.
Alexsandra Guerra: It costs more like the raw materials and to create a penny than a penny is worth.
Zoya Teirstein: What’s the emissions per penny? You dust my face.
Ross Kenyon: Go write that article right now. Let’s get rid of all cash because it’s trees. Which is actually another thought. Cash is true.
Alexsandra Guerra: So, I mean, one of the things that, like, kind of just is at the top of my mind listening to you and looking at this wonderful cheat sheet paper that you’ve been pointing to.
Zoya Teirstein: It literally says cheat sheet.
Alexsandra Guerra: Yeah, it’s got, it reminds me of college a little bit when I was like in engineering and you had to fit as many formulas as you could on one page.
Zoya Teirstein: Exactly. Yeah, that’s what I felt like doing it.
Alexsandra Guerra: Is like, yeah, like was John Delaney, get rid of the fossil fuel subsidies. Is that who was down for that?
Zoya Teirstein: Most of them are down for that, by the way.
Alexsandra Guerra: Those things sound great, like saying them. And then I think, okay, how would that actually happen? And then I get a little scared because I’m like, wait, well, our economy is still running off of oil. All of our cars and equipment is still running off of oil. So, so long as it’s done with some type of transition and... Not like all of a sudden gas prices are going to skyrocket. I think that would just be so harmful to so many people.
Ross Kenyon: Probably have like that Paris thing, having with all the protests.
Alexsandra Guerra: Right, the Yellow Jackets. Did you ask us about Daily episode this morning?
Zoya Teirstein: No. The Daily? No, I don’t know what the Daily is.
Alexsandra Guerra: It’s like the most popular podcast ever.
Zoya Teirstein: Obviously not that popular.
Alexsandra Guerra: It’s like the New York Times. It’s Michael Barbaro. Again, everybody has a podcast now, so.
Ross Kenyon: We only listen to the nastiest and grisliest of true crime podcasts in our free time.
Zoya Teirstein: Have you guys heard Bundyville?
Alexsandra Guerra: No. OK, we’re getting up. There are so many good podcasts. Anyways, yeah, I’m hearing these things and they all sound great. And then I just realized, like, it’s so much more complicated. And I’m curious now. I have not been political, like I stated earlier, because it’s been a little bit overwhelming. And I’ve just got to focus on the what can we do part. You know, you mentioned with E. Warren, which I didn’t know was a thing that we call her that. It might not be. That she’s like, OK, you have to do these things and then providing solutions.
I’m just so focused on Nori and running and starting a company and a startup. Like exactly what you imagine. Totally consuming. And so I want to spend my free time gardening or doing something else. But.
Ross Kenyon: Is she a bad person for that? No. I’m sorry. I had to make a joke. It wasn’t even that good of one.
Alexsandra Guerra: I just need to like unplug. Like on the weekends, it’s like.
Zoya Teirstein: No.
Alexsandra Guerra: Trails and garden and plants. Anyways, and so now I want to do some, you’ve inspired me. This was helpful. And I want to do some more digging into like, what are they actually proposing? Because if it’s something so... Unreasonably angry and not helpful to help us get there where it sounds nice on paper. Like, you know, Jay Inslee coming out with five years sooner or nine trillion versus four. Like I hear these numbers. I’m like, yeah, but is it achievable? Is what this amazing plan that you’re saying achievable and not going to cause other unseen large consequences?
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, you seem a little inordinately worried about big oil. They’re going to be fine.
Alexsandra Guerra: Oh, no, no. That’s interesting to hear you say that’s not at all what I’m worried about, big oil.
Zoya Teirstein: Let’s talk about subsidies for a minute. Yeah, a lot of the candidates have said they’ll eliminate.
Alexsandra Guerra: Wait, I’m sorry. I really have to interrupt you. I’m not worried about big oil. I’m sure they’re going to be fine. I’m worried about everybody who uses oil, which is pretty much the world.
Zoya Teirstein: Right. So, OK, for example, let’s take a pause on subsidies then. What about a carbon tax? So that would raise prices ostensibly. The carbon tax that, for example, Delaney is proposing is a revenue neutral carbon tax, which means that Americans get the money back annually or quarterly in the form of a check. So basically the money that’s raised by the tax goes back to the taxpayer. A tax that’s being proposed right now that would do that, according to people who are proposing that tax, would eliminate 90% of emissions by 2050 that the U.
S. produces. That’s pretty big. And according to them, that’s not really onerous. It’s not hard for the taxpayer to keep up with that because they get that money back in the form of a check. For a family of four, it’s like $2,000 a year, which is a lot. Andrew Yang is proposing a universal income where every person gets like $1,000 a month. So yeah, anyway, yes. I mean, France is a really scary situation. I mean, people are, it’s not just some fringe people who are upset about the rising prices of different things, namely oil.
It’s also, it’s like more than 50% of people there are feeling angry about what’s going on. Anyway, yes, I don’t think you’re championing big oil. I’m nodding and smiling at her. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Great. Yeah, there’s a lot there to say, but we should keep going because we still have a wild card.
Zoya Teirstein: Bill Weld.
Ross Kenyon: Bill Weld. What is this? I haven’t really tracked it that closely. But last time I heard from him, he was running for the Libertarian Party nomination or he was he was the VP to Gary Johnson. Right. OK, so now he’s back and he’s back in the Republican Party, former governor of Massachusetts, and he’s challenging Trump from inside the Republican Party. How do you rank these odds?
Zoya Teirstein: Not good. Not good. Around the same as Jay Inslee’s. He, yeah, Bill Weld. I have not reported super in-depth or really at all on Bill Weld. I’m mostly just following him because I’m curious what he’s up to. He is challenging Trump and he sort of is of a mind that Republicans are so fed up with Trump’s antics and his... The fact that he’s so unpredictable and wild and all over the place that they want the Republican Party back. They want like someone who’s going to plod along and do the right thing for the Republicans and not tweet so often.
That’s like something that he takes issue with the tweeting, the tweeting. So, yeah. And I think that he from what I remember reading about him, he is not like anti environment per se. He’s more of a mind that, you know, he’s probably like an all of the above energy approach guy. Which means that he, you know, he’s like, we don’t need to transition off fossil fuels immediately. We do need to, we need to transition off of them. And he has not gone so far, if I remember correctly, as endorsing a carbon tax.
But it seems like he definitely wants to do something to approach the issue. And whether that’s enough remains to be seen. His chances are very low. It’s rare, you know, an incumbent, especially if the economy is good, you guys know this, wins. That’s what you learn. I learned that in my political science class when I went.
Ross Kenyon: It’s an open question now. I keep saying stuff about the bond market and who knows how well the economy will be up to the election. Right. But yeah, it’s hard to unseat and incumbent on that as far as I know too.
Zoya Teirstein: Especially within the party. I mean.
Ross Kenyon: Yes. There has to have been examples of that.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. So again, I just read about it not too long ago, but I think it’s like one or two people have tried to do that before and has not been successful.
Ross Kenyon: It’s never been successful.
Zoya Teirstein: I don’t know. Please don’t quote me on that. I need to look it up.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. Yeah. I don’t know. But you’re on a podcast podcast.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. Please don’t. Please don’t air quote me on that.
Ross Kenyon: Too late. That’s okay. I have a question that’s a little off topic. I’m sure you have more you’d like to say. We’re running near the end. But how are you feeling? You want anything else?
Alexsandra Guerra: Oh, no. This has been great. I’m just going to have to follow up and have some more conversations.
Ross Kenyon: That’s great. Did you watch Chernobyl?
Zoya Teirstein: No, I haven’t seen it. But I’ve read the criticism of it.
Ross Kenyon: For portraying nuclear in a certain way. Yeah. Big bad nuclear. I think I watched the first two episodes. I need to finish the show, but I thought it was brilliant. I was surprised Craig Mazin wrote it too. I listened to his podcast back in the day as a screenwriter, but mostly done a lot of comedy. Dark comedy. Yeah, well worth your time, though. But I’m sure it freaked people out on nuclear more than they necessarily needed to be freaked out about it.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, it’s possible. I don’t know that much about it. But just to clarify, I’m not I’m not anti nuclear. I think you just have to look forward to there.
Ross Kenyon: I’m thinking myself a whole time to end the show. Let’s get out of here. So is there anything else that we should know about? And where can people find your work?
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, you can visit www. grist.org, not . com, . org. I don’t know what grist.com is. It’s like some weird website.
Ross Kenyon: Probably some Milner who’s trying to sell their words. Okay. And then you’re on Twitter.
Zoya Teirstein: I am, at ZTierstein. Hopefully my last name is spelled correctly on the podcast page. It doesn’t happen very often, which is honestly usually fine, unless you’re trying to find me on Twitter, in which case it’s E-I-E-I-N, not I-E.
Ross Kenyon: Sure. So if you’d like to yell at Zoya, argue with her about something you don’t know very much about, but yet believe very strongly. That’s social media. I do like that Bill Weld’s criticism about Trump were about social media because every friend I have that posts too much on social media, I’ve always been like, you would be better serving your friends and your social relations by cooling it a little bit.
Alexsandra Guerra: Everything has a perfect window, right? You can’t post too little that like you’re this weird creeper when you do post something. I’m like, why? Or you can’t be overposting. I don’t need to know that you’re tweeting on the toilet.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, true. Trump is definitely tweeting on the toilet.
Zoya Teirstein: On a golden toilet.
Ross Kenyon: Guaranteed. Yeah. Like that’s probably where he gets like the most time to himself.
Zoya Teirstein: Right.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: That’s my astute political analysis and why I get paid the big bucks, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.
Zoya Teirstein: The trillions of dollars. Oh, yeah. The trillions of dollars.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Yeah. Those numbers. Did you watch? Oh, God. This is garbage, but we’re going to do it anyways. Did you watch SNL growing up?
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Do you remember that one where Bill Clinton ran a surplus run one year and he was going to make a movie with it?
Zoya Teirstein: No.
Ross Kenyon: One billion dollar surplus movie. It’s going to be great. Playboy Bonnie’s flying F-16s.
Zoya Teirstein: Wow, your accent’s really good. That was so good.
Ross Kenyon: You can only do it if you do like the little thumb thing that you do. Wish you could see it. You bite your lip. That’s it. So, yeah. Anyways, a lot of garbage time at the end of this episode.
Zoya Teirstein: That’s why editing exists right now.
Ross Kenyon: If you like the show, definitely give us a rating review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts. Share it out with your friends. Get the word out. Follow Zoya on Twitter. Check out Grist. They do a lot of great articles. And thank you so much for listening.
