Forget merely about melting polar ice caps—expansion of deadly diseases is possibly the true Pandora’s Box that climate change is rapidly opening.
In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, host Ross Kenyon is rejoined by Zoya Teirstein, staff writer at Grist, to discuss the intricate and chilling intersection of climate change and disease.
The way Zoya puts it, climate change is taking the Earth and shaking it like a snowglobe: pathogens are meeting up in new configurations and wreaking havoc. She covers these proliferating diseases and their connection to climate change in her timely beat at Grist.
Learn how bacteria is traveling up the coast due to warming temperatures - accessing geographies where doctors are not familiar and not prepared to deal with the resulting, often fatal, illnesses.
Beyond the rising temperatures creating breeding grounds for deadly mosquitoes, and disrupted ecosystems with unpredictable consequences, the episode explores the challenging discussions around managed retreat and adaptation.
While the threat of mass death from heat waves exceeds critical thresholds, the conversation also unveils rays of hope—community resilience, the potential for preventable deaths through early action, and the ultimate cure lying in reversing climate change.
This critical wake-up call and call to action underscore the urgency of addressing the disease dilemmas caused by climate change. Share, discuss, and unite in the fight for a healthier planet.
More from the show
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Carbon Removal Newsroom, the news show that ran alongside this one, is over. Its episodes are still up, on the feed Climate Workers Anonymous now uses.
Carbon Removal Memes is still going.
Resources
The New York Times article on oyster-related deaths
Wet Bulb Temperatures, National Weather Service
Zoya Teirstein’s previous Reversing Climate Change episode
Boots on the Ground article
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: 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. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m one of the co-founders of Nori. Nori is a carbon removal marketplace based in Seattle, Washington. And today I have with me Zoya Teirstein, staff writer at Grist, and alumni from 2019 — that’s when we last spoke. Zoya, thanks for being back here.
Zoya Teirstein: Yes, super glad to be back. I was just thinking, this totally feels like full circle. Like, you know, when I came on the first time, I felt like — I don’t— I know that I was in my 20s, but it feels like I was 16, and I don’t know why it feels that way, but I feel different now.
Ross Kenyon: You didn’t mention that, and I don’t remember you feeling especially young or green in the horn. I feel like you covered all of— because we talked about carbon removal, or maybe it was just climate platforms within the various election 2020 presidential candidates, right? That’s what we were talking about.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. And I had come with, like, all these notes and everything, and I was just, like, so rapt and amped for, I think, what was my first ever real podcast experience. And this time I’m here just — I’m six years older, but I have no notes whatsoever. I’m becoming so much less prepared.
Ross Kenyon: I also prepare less than I used to in some cases as well, especially when I’ve had authors on in the past. I’ve been— and this helps me get them on, and it makes for better radio if you do. But I used to have people where I think, if I’m going to have you on, I have to have read literally every, every book that you’ve ever written. And turns out, no one does that, because it makes journalism or podcasting essentially impossible.
Zoya Teirstein: That, exactly. I’ve also learned that the hard way.
Ross Kenyon: So yeah, now, anyways, though, at least your stuff is a little bit easier to digest. Although I saw that you had nearly 120 pages worth of several articles each, so you’ve written the better part of 1,000 articles, I think, since we last spoke. I couldn’t catch up on all of those.
Zoya Teirstein: Of course not. I mean, God, I can’t. I mean, I have no— Sometimes I’ll be reminded of something I’ve written and I’m like, oh my God, what? Especially because Grist has changed so much in the past six years. I mean, I started as an intern at Grist with a blog, and now Grist is just a totally different organization, which I think is a good thing. I mean, it’s definitely a good thing objectively, but, you know, like, now we’re like a real magazine.
So it takes— you know, each article, each year that I look back on on my archive, which is, you know, it’s rare, but I sometimes take stock of what I’ve done, and it feels like every year things get more professionalized and better. The writing is better, you know, and some of that just has to do with growing older and getting better at writing. But it also has a lot to do with what Grist is like now versus back then.
Ross Kenyon: Do you feel like you could just show up and, you know, the deadline — you have to get it in by 3:00 PM, and you will. You will make something work, damn it. You will see it.
Zoya Teirstein: I mean, it’s funny to say — a lot of people so rarely ask, like, when things are, like, recording, like what Grist is like as a workplace. But it’s usually a conversation that happens, you know, not on a podcast. But Grist is just, like, incredibly chill compared to some other publications that require you to write, you know, like 10 stories a week. Grist is not like that, and deadlines are, you know— if I can go to my editor and say— I mean, right now I’m working on a piece about West Nile virus, and the deadline for that passed a little while ago, and, you know, it’s totally fine. Like, they’re screwing around on the podcast with me and I— yeah, I was like, I’ve got to take an hour and do a podcast with Ross. So yeah, no, it’s not as strict as all that.
So you really have — I mean, the benefit of that is that you have so much time if you’re writing a feature. I think for shorter pieces there’s tighter turnaround. But for writing a feature, you can have as much time as you really need to get the story right, which I think is rare in the industry.
Ross Kenyon: I know. That’s basically the top of the pyramid for journalists. I’ll see some of the journalists that are, you know, people know their names — like regular people, civilians know their names. Essentially they’ll have, like, one article every 18 months, and it’ll be a big feature, and that’s seemingly it. Like, what do they think? They’re bringing down a nice paycheck, I’m sure, in that time.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, they’re just shooting the shit with David Remnick. They’re just hanging out. I mean, that would be nice.
Ross Kenyon: He’s been on the podcast before.
Zoya Teirstein: Has he?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, yeah. I’d love to have him back on, because they did that climate book for The New Yorker. Also, Lenin’s Tomb — have you ever read that book? His book?
Zoya Teirstein: No, I haven’t. But you’re talking about the Liz Kolbert book. It’s a children’s book, right?
Ross Kenyon: No, wait. Oh, it’s not. She— wait, sorry. Elizabeth Kolbert has a new book and it’s a kids’ book. Yeah, it’s like Climate Change from A to Z or something like that. She wrote a magazine piece that was on that theme, and then I think came out with the full book, or is coming out with it.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, I need to go check on this.
Ross Kenyon: You’ve got to. She’s so great. The way that I always put it — I sort of was so bashful having her on, and I feel like I made myself blush more than her. But she’s one of the writers that I read where she makes it look so easy. I’m like, I could write a— no problem. And then you’re like, oh, she’s so good that the craft is essentially hidden. That’s how good of a writer she is.
Zoya Teirstein: You know what’s funny about that, Ross, is that she is the reason — I mean, her book, The Sixth Extinction, is the reason why multiple people, like, work in climate change. I mean, we all read it and we were like, oh yeah, we could do this. And then we got into the field and we were like, OK, so it’s hard.
Ross Kenyon: So you’re saying it’s hard? It’s so nice. It’s so nice to have external confirmation that I’m not the only person who had that reaction. I even read her piece about speaking with whales. Did you read that? I think that might have been her last New Yorker piece that came out.
Zoya Teirstein: I don’t think I read that one yet, but I have a New Yorker here on the counter right nearby, so—
Ross Kenyon: Isn’t that the main job of The New Yorker? I used to get it in print when I was young and very pretentious, and they stack up quick.
Zoya Teirstein: We order it. We just want to send it out so we can see that we read, you know— [unclear] to work in journalism when you work through.
Ross Kenyon: No, not at all. I do like it when you name-check people where I get to pat myself on the back for having had them on the podcast. That’s always a nice feeling.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh yeah. I mean, hey, I’m here to validate you.
Ross Kenyon: That’s true. The whole podcast is all indulgence and making me feel good about myself, so that’s why I’m over here.
Zoya Teirstein: Hopefully we can. Nice chatting with you.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, yeah, good. I’m feeling great. Let’s try and give you some of those feelings too, because your writing is really great as well. You’re covering a new beat that I think is under-reported. We did a show recently on, like, climate prepping and what the future might look like for personal and familial adaptation, and disease came up a lot. But I almost never hear anyone lead a conversation with disease and climate. What exactly is your beat? How do you define it, and why are you doing it now?
Zoya Teirstein: Such a good question. I’ve never had the opportunity to answer this, you know, in, like, podcast form. So I’m really excited to be here. And I think that you— I mean, even the fact that you’re having me on to talk about this beat at all is a signal of some change, you know, in the way that people think about this overlap. It’s easy to assume, if you get deep enough into anything, it’s easy to assume that you know, or to think, that everyone should be thinking about it and that it is the most important thing in the world. And I’m aware that when it comes to the climate crisis, there’s a lot of different essential angles.
The thing about climate change and disease, and climate change and human health, is that it is such a visceral climate impact. And it’s visceral because it’s both, like, overt and totally subtle. I mean, there have been reports that have been coming out since, like, 2020 — so a little after I came on the show last time — there was a report that came out that said that climate change threatens to erode 50 years of public health gains. That’s like progress on tobacco and cancer and, like, you name it — HIV — like a whole bunch of other stuff that we had kind of managed to corral and to tamp down. And climate change kind of is, like, opening a Pandora’s box of these ills that are just— they’re hard to even sum up because they’re so varied.
The ones that I’m most interested in are the unexpected ones. So, you know, since the last talk I’ve been to Alaska to cover toxic shellfish poisoning.
Ross Kenyon: That was good. I really liked that one. That’s good. That was an interesting thing.
Zoya Teirstein: But yeah, yeah, super scary. I mean, the funny thing about that trip is that — I mean, that was one of my first ever reporting trips, and I feel like I wish that more young journalists knew how fun traveling somewhere for a story is. I mean, I made friends in Alaska that week. I almost didn’t get on a flight back home because I was invited to a wedding by these cool — these, like, bear biologists that I met. It was just, like, such a fun time. I think that might be somewhat unique to Alaska. Everyone’s really friendly there. But in general it’s just—
Ross Kenyon: It’s like going gonzo, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson style here. You know, you’re exactly like, “I’m [unclear] the family.”
Zoya Teirstein: Precisely. Yeah. I was like, I have to, like, infiltrate this community and, like, become part of it. That story was interesting because, you know, you have Alaska Natives who depend on shellfish, you know, for subsistence living, which is a crucial part of life up there for most people, actually. And you have this shellfish that is accumulating these toxins over time and becoming incredibly toxic. I mean, so toxic — you eat one of these clams or mussels, doesn’t matter if you cook it or not, freeze it or not, I mean, it just remains toxic, and you can just die right there on the beach. I mean, people were dropping dead. So it’s the only state where that happens, because there’s not this monitoring system.
And so that’s, like, one example of the type of story that I’ve been kind of hunting down since I’ve decided to cover this beat more or less full time. But it’s not just, you know — it’s not just oddities or, you know, once-in-a-while deaths. It’s also, you know, tick-borne illnesses, mosquito-borne illnesses, diseases that are claiming thousands of lives around the world, millions of lives really around the world when it comes to mosquito-borne illnesses, and what kind of impact rising temperatures and changing weather patterns have on that. And it turns out that the impact is pretty profound. I mean, it’s, like, all-encompassing, and it’s going to absolutely reshape the makeup of our world. And we’re still just beginning to understand it. And that’s really why I’ve decided to kind of focus on this more or less full time, because it just feels like not enough people know about it.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think that you are ahead of the curve on this journalistically? Do you think more people are going to pick up this beat later?
Zoya Teirstein: It’s hard to say. I’m going to say yes, because I just really — I don’t see how it wouldn’t become more of an issue. So this past summer, three people died after eating shellfish in Connecticut and New York. And that story was in The New York Times. It was in the news. The connection between Vibrio, which is the bacteria that caused the illness and the deaths, and climate change did not feature front and center in those conversations or in those articles — although I think The New York Times mentioned that, which is great.
The issue there is that people are used to living their lives a certain way. And there are certain traditions and certain pastimes that are just, like, crucial. Like, you’re going to go out with your friends, you’re going to have a dozen oysters, you’re going to drink some champagne, or whatever it is that people do when they’re eating oysters. And that’s going to get some sort of, like, highfalutin thing. Like, people can eat oysters no matter where they are.
Ross Kenyon: They’re expensive.
Zoya Teirstein: So yeah, there’s probably one thing. And, you know, when it comes to Vibrio vulnificus, which is the bacteria that these people got sick from — the disease called vibriosis — you can eat an oyster and feel a little bit strange and go to bed, and by the time you wake up the next morning you can either be ready for amputation — that happens to 50% of people who get this disease — or dead.
And Vibrio is so clearly affected by climate change. It is just moving up the coast. So you can see on either side of the country, it’s just like — and also, like, along the Gulf. Like, it is just a march up. And every summer you see, you know, the next notch achieved in the way that this bacteria is moving. And that is just — I mean, any expert you speak to is like, climate change is warming the water and this bacteria is moving into new places. People aren’t prepared for it. They don’t know what it looks like. The symptoms of the disease — the bacteria itself is invisible. Doctors don’t know how to treat it.
Another example of this is this fungal disease in the desert Southwest, which is called Valley fever. And that’s another fascinating example of this type of, you know, climate change making this fungal pathogen move deeper into the West and further up than it’s ever been before. And in Arizona especially, doctors — even doctors there, where this is a hugely prevalent disease and has been for a long time — don’t always know what they’re looking at when they see it. I talked to this one guy who contracted Valley fever after helping his mom. He flew out to California and helped his mom, you know, dig out their basement after a massive wildfire. And while he was in the basement working on, you know, like, saving whatever objects they had left, he breathed in these fungal spores, the Coccidioides. And when he got home the next week, he started feeling sick.
And the disease progressed from there. I mean, he got so sick at one point, he said it felt like he had been hit all over with a baseball bat, and when he walked it felt like he was walking on razor blades. And the doctors had no idea what was going on. No clue. And finally they’re ready to do a lung biopsy. They found a mass in his lung. They thought it was cancer. They’re going to biopsy it. He said that it felt like an episode of House. Like, at the very last second, this infectious disease specialist burst into his hospital room, said, “Wait, we think we know what this is. It’s not cancer. It is a fungal mass.” It is so common now to have this issue if you’ve been to an area of the country where Valley fever is prevalent, and people still are not getting treated right. They’re not getting the care that they need. I mean, you can’t cut this out of your body. You need to take antifungal medication.
So the way that I see it — and this is a very long-winded way of answering your question — but the way that I see it is that there is no single source of the problem. You have a warmer continent, a warmer world, and it’s almost like — one researcher explained it like, you know, climate change is taking the globe and shaking it like a snow globe. And all these pathogens are meeting up in new configurations, and some of those are going to jump into humans, and animals are going to move around, mosquitoes are going to go up, ticks are going to spread out, and people are going to get really, really sick. And it’s already happening, and we’re already behind the curve on it. So yeah, I think people are going to start covering it more and more.
Ross Kenyon: Long-winded, but not unwelcome. That’s terrifying. I’m from Arizona originally. I haven’t anecdotally heard of anything like that happening amongst people I know, but wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t that far away either.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, it’s thousands of people every year. Thousands of people every year.
Ross Kenyon: Is there any potential upside to some parts of the world, that they will maybe face less impacts? One of the things I see from people who are a bit more skeptical of climate change and its impacts is that weather-related deaths will continue to go down, and some parts of the world where it’s really cold may end up seeing some positives come their way. Is there any at least disease upside to this, or is it all just getting worse everywhere?
Zoya Teirstein: It’s hard to know. So you’ve touched on sort of the chaos element of all of this, which is that these insects, a lot of them that spread diseases like West Nile — or Valley fever even is a good example. The fungal spores that cause Valley fever: if it’s too wet or too dry, the instances of disease go down. So, like, cases go down. So Valley fever, for example — like, I don’t know if you’ve ever gone mushroom hunting in your life. Have you?
Ross Kenyon: Not in Arizona, but yeah, I’ve been mushroom hunting.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, I mean, in Washington state that’s sort of a huge thing. And so you’ll luckily know that after a big rain, you know, you’ll see these fruiting bodies popping out everywhere. If it’s too dry, mushrooms can’t proliferate. And so in the areas where Valley fever has been, you’ll see during periods of drought that the disease drops way down. Then when you have a big rainstorm, like a random rainstorm, it flourishes again. So predicting when those things will happen — or, like, you know, if widespread drought occurs, will that be good for Valley fever? Potentially. Will it be really bad for humanity? Yeah, like, for a number of different reasons.
But the same is the case with mosquitoes. Like, in Bangladesh, for example, when there are massive, massive floods, some types of mosquito-borne disease, you know, go down, because the areas where mosquitoes breed are kind of, like, washed out, and so their eggs are washed away, etcetera. But then if you have, you know, some rain but not a ton, it’s amazing for mosquitoes. It’s complicated. I think that it’s going to be a mixed bag overall. The way that I see the trend moving, though, is in a negative direction.
Ross Kenyon: The chaos element alone — where even if it’s really cold in Minnesota or, you know, parts of Canada, there are people there who are used to that, because they probably chose to live there, or maybe they just have always been there. So there is a little bit more regular— just the fact that things are changing can be— sometimes I’ll get asked to do something at work. This is such a mundane example, but the mere fact of having to expend new cognitive energy on learning something new and operationalizing it, even though the task is small, eats up a huge amount of real estate in my brain.
I don’t know if you feel that way at all too, even if it’s, like, tiny but new. Sometimes it’s like, oh God, I’ve got to learn. Imagine that multiplied for lots and lots of things about how you were supposed to behave outside, how you’re supposed to protect yourself and your family, in addition to everything else. That might just be — the shock of it alone might be quite distracting and hard to absorb.
Zoya Teirstein: Totally. I think that — I mean, that is the real issue with adapting to climate change, right? Like, first of all, it’s expensive. So that I think is probably the primary obstacle. But then it’s also the things that people have long known that they can do, the traditions. You know, I think about — I mean, the holidays are coming up, right? Like, I think about Thanksgivings past, and it looks like the Northeast is going to be — I mean, I’m in the Northeast — it looks like it’s going to be chilly for Thanksgiving, which is, you know, par for the course and historically. But I remember last year it was unseasonably warm. You know, even a couple weeks ago we had, like, a mosquito in our apartment. So it’s just, you know, Christmas — people want a white Christmas. Like, I don’t know when we’re going to have a white Christmas.
Overall the trend is decreasing in that realm. Like, you might have a freak snowstorm once in a while, and that happens often. But the overall trend is just, like, these things that we’re used to, that we love to see, that kind of shape how we relate to the world, the natural world, to ourselves — our traditions are just shifting. And I find that element of this whole crisis incredibly sad. I mean, that makes me feel awful. But that’s just, like, it’s 1,000 little sorrows over the course of a lifetime. And I’m really not looking forward to that part of this. I mean, growing older and having to shift the way that I understand the seasons, and shift my cultural and traditional, you know, understandings of how things work — it’s just, it’s very painful.
Ross Kenyon: It’s hard to quantify too.
Zoya Teirstein: It feels a little bit spoiled to complain about it, but I know—
Ross Kenyon: Compared to some things, and the other thing, yeah.
Zoya Teirstein: Compared to literally any other thing. But yeah, if you want a white Christmas, and that’s culturally important to you and you grew up with it, and—
Ross Kenyon: All of our culture and music that— the music even makes sense to kids who don’t have it. I guess they’re OK in the South and Southwest. They’re not seeing white Christmases, but—
Zoya Teirstein: No, that’s true. But, like, you know, I also have in the past felt somewhat ridiculous for, like, mourning those things. I just think that it’s important to do, especially because, you know, people still don’t really understand how climate change is affecting them. I think especially in North America we’re very lucky to have a climate that feels these changes subtly, you know, or has kind of thus far — that will change. But yeah, I think it’s important to be aware of those things.
Ross Kenyon: I still have many friends and family who live in Arizona, and many also in California. Always subtly encouraging: have you ever seen an opportunity to move to Duluth, or the Northwest, or certain parts of New England? You should consider that — without freaking them out. But are there other things?
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if you are trying to pull them out of the zones where it’s like, at what point did they— I know, it’s so hard to do, especially because I feel like I covered — I’ve written a few stories about managed retreat, and oh my God, it’s such a fraught topic. It’s like telling people that they can’t live where they’ve lived is just an impossible thing, and politically it’s impossible.
Ross Kenyon: I mean, that— yeah, that guy who— did you ever— how old were you? Sorry, I don’t have to put this on the show if you don’t want to say, but I’m curious if you’re the same generation as I am.
Zoya Teirstein: I’m 28.
Ross Kenyon: 28, OK. Maybe you didn’t watch it then, because Mount St. Helens blowing up when I was a kid — was it? And then there’s a video of that guy who’s like, “I’m not moving, I don’t care, I’m going to stay here until it explodes.” And you’re just like, you’re going to die in a blaze of glory. Like, you could also just move like 10 miles down the road and it’s fine. But so that multiplied by how many people need to move — well, like 40% of the US lives along the coastline. I mean, I don’t know what percentage of those, like, 123 million Americans are going to have to move due to rising [unclear] and more extreme storms, but it’s going to be some percentage of that. Even 1% of that is crazy. That’s so many people.
Zoya Teirstein: I mean, yeah, it costs millions of dollars to move, like, 100 people, you know. And so I don’t know what’s going to happen there.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t either. And I’m wondering — I mean, yeah, your colleague Jake. Jake Bittle — that’s how I say his name.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: The Great Displacement. It was a really, really cool book. But the stories in there about the politics of asking people to move and compensating them for doing so are even still so complicated, even when it’s done seemingly out of good. It’s not like eminent domain, where a stadium is gonna get built there and people are annoyed by it. It’s like, your house will keep flooding and flooding and flooding forever. Even still, it’s hard.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. Jake has really— Jake, though, my colleague who writes about managed retreat and climate migration, and that budding beat and sort of, like, field of research too — he’s an amazing writer, and he really has opened my eyes to how interesting politically that conversation is. And, you know, like, people I think don’t realize — and again, that’s not something I would ever say to someone who is facing the possibility of having to move themselves in the short term. But something I definitely think about is that there is funding for this right now. I mean, governments are right now throwing money at this problem. That money will run out. You know, so I don’t know, it’s hard to think of these people as, like — they’re both lucky and unlucky, you know. So it’s a tricky place to be in.
Ross Kenyon: Very much feels like musical chairs, even if it’s just on the private market side. How long — if you bought property in Florida, how long do you hang on? Because it’s still— I assume it’s probably still booming, except interest rates have gone up so much at this point I wonder if it’s maybe cooled some. But still, Florida and Arizona are still very desirable places to be. At some point that might not be true. And then what happens? Do prices collapse all of a sudden? Is everyone rushing to get out in time before the prices really collapse?
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, that’s going to be such a cluster. And then it’s also, you know, in Arizona, for example — it’s like, I covered heat a lot this summer. We had a limited-run newsletter focused on extreme heat and we wrote about Arizona a ton. And I wrote about, you know, what heat like that does to the human body. And one of the stories that stuck in there was this woman who — she was elderly, and she was too hot inside of her house where she had air conditioning on, and she went outside to get help and she fell and landed on the pavement, obviously, where you fall. And the pavement, though, was extremely hot. I mean, she had surgery for burns over most of her body.
And it’s that kind of thing. I spoke to ER doctors who were telling me about — I mean, me and this ER doctor had this long conversation about how she was treating patients and what that looked like, and I have an article about it. But, you know, after I stopped recording we talked just casually between us about what it’s like to live there. And she was saying that she can’t — her child, who’s very young — they go to the local pool, and then when they leave it, the asphalt is so hot that her kid’s shoes melt. And so she just, like, can’t fathom what the future will look like there. She’s not feeling hopeful about it at all. And so you think about that. I mean, you’re going to have people — it’s like brain drain almost, you know. It’s like you’re going to have these people who play really critical roles in their communities fleeing. And I don’t know, I’m glad Jake is covering the subject, because I could hardly even get my mind around how to do that at all.
Ross Kenyon: Well, I’ve not heard the brain drain [unclear], but obviously the people who are most mobile, probably most wealthy, able to make alternative career choices — they’re going to probably be among the first to leave when they can.
Zoya Teirstein: Totally.
Ross Kenyon: Arizonans love to say it’s a dry heat, so it’s OK. But maybe that—
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, totally.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, maybe we’ll have to retire that horrible — my personal — I’ve heard it probably 1,500 times in my life.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, I mean, it is a dry heat. That’s the thing.
Ross Kenyon: It’s like — I’m sure you know about wet bulb temperature, but, like, tell us about it. Humidity.
Zoya Teirstein: Well, humidity. So this is actually one of the most distressing things that I learned this summer. So heat-related death is a really interesting climate-driven impact, and obviously people have been dying from extreme temperatures on either side of the spectrum for a long time. It’s nothing new. What is new is these, you know, climate-driven extreme heat waves. So there was one in 2003 in Europe that killed in the end, like, 30,000 people. And what’s interesting about that is that while it was unfolding, there wasn’t — you know, if a bomb had killed 30,000 people, I mean, think about what the reception to that would have been. Everyone in the entire world would know about it. Heat, over the period of a few weeks — about a month, really — in Europe killed 30,000 people, and it didn’t make headlines in that way.
Like, people had a hard time at the time. I think this is changing now as journalists kind of get better at recognizing what these deaths really are. And governments do, of course. But at the time, there wasn’t this clear, like, threading of the needle where it was like, OK, there was a heat wave, people died in their homes, that area of the world doesn’t have air conditioning, they’re not used to extreme heat. And that was really one of the first examples of, like, OK, if temperatures get to a certain level, the human body cannot keep up with it without external cooling technology, and then you have mass death. And that is the sort of— a lot of studies that came out this summer talked about wet bulb, which is sort of the humidity plus temperature. And there’s a threshold of that where it’s like, if you pass that, then your body can’t keep up and you overheat and you die.
And so one of the studies that I wrote about talked about how — and it was a very complicated study to cover; it took me a long time to figure out the science behind it — but basically they made two assertions. The first is that the levels that approach wet bulb — you can die in that zone too. You don’t have to, like — there is no clear threshold. It depends what you’re used to, it depends what you have access to. So you can die when it gets hot out even before you’ve reached, like, the technical wet bulb threshold. And the second thing that they discovered was that much of the world is on track to meet that dangerous, like, red zone of high heat and high humidity much sooner than we thought. So by mid-century we’re looking at large swaths of the world where you might have periods where temperatures exceed the threshold of human survivability.
Ross Kenyon: And what happens then? Do you have—
Zoya Teirstein: Well, I mean, it took me a long time to get this researcher to, like, tell me straight up what he was saying. He was, like, using kind of academic, like, research jargon. And I was like, hey, like, what do you mean? Like, what are you talking about? And he was like, I’m talking about mass death. And I was like, oh, OK. And from then on, my whole perspective on this has kind of shifted, where I’m like, oh my God, this has happened before. We know that it can happen. It’s going to happen again. Are we aware of what’s at risk here? Because we’re talking about a lot of people being at risk of dying. You’re— I see your face and I feel like maybe I’ve gotten a little too dark.
Ross Kenyon: No, no, it’s— I just— I’m just laughing at the academics. Like, it’s sometimes so hard because they’re often so reticent to say things so firmly like that. So yeah, I love that you pinned them down.
Zoya Teirstein: I said, OK, no, it’s like, I don’t understand what you’re saying. No, it’s OK to go down. But I want to know what the world is actually facing here.
Ross Kenyon: I imagine the parts of the world that are both humid and very hot are probably not, you know, the wealthiest parts of the world that are going to be able to add huge amounts of cooling infrastructure rapidly. That sounds— but I don’t know what’s going to happen. Is it just migration, or death, some combination? Or is maybe adaptation going to swoop in and save things? What are you expecting?
Zoya Teirstein: I don’t know. I mean, I think that I’m always hesitant to believe that, you know, like, tech will save us. But I do—
Ross Kenyon: It’s gonna be— at least a little skeptical of that. It may work. But yeah, sometimes people go overboard with it for sure, right?
Zoya Teirstein: I think that the reality is that a lot of people will die, a lot of people will move — they’ll also move within their own countries as well. So they’ll shift; city centers will get probably more crowded. There will probably be some element of technology that aids with this, so, like, you know, portable ACs, more affordable ACs. The problem there, of course, is that air conditioners use a tremendous amount of energy. So you have grids that, you know, particularly in developing countries where the grid is not as reliable as it could be — but, like, even the Texas freeze, if you think of it as— it’s counterintuitive, but it’s also a partially climate-driven impact, you know — killed so many people in Texas.
And that’s Texas. You know, we have areas of the world that are far less advanced when it comes to, you know, their energy grids, and so you’re hooking up a lot of new tech to that, and you know, you could have blackouts, deaths. There are unlimited ways in which this could go wrong. And so I’m not feeling super confident that we’re going to save the number of lives that we need to in order to, you know, avert the worst health effects of climate change.
Ross Kenyon: I’ve often been— I’m almost more worried less of the deaths, because I imagine they’ll probably be something like — I imagine what happens at the beginning of The Ministry for the Future, where there is a heat-related mass death event. God, there’s got to be a better way to say that. Like, I think it’s in Rajasthan or somewhere in, like, northern India anyways. So there’ll probably be, like, some of those, and then people will freak out and then try to find places that are safer in their country or elsewhere.
But I’m also worried about the political ramifications of having mass immigration, where I think a lot of times that does result in sort of populist sentiment there that is not positive. Even in the Nordic states, they’re much, much less generous with their welfare benefits once there’s a lot of immigrants who come in. So if it’s bad, the Scandinavians can’t do it, I can’t imagine the rest of the world is probably going to be much more welcoming and good about it — especially when, you know, mass immigration could have manyfold the amount of people that need to leave the parts of the tropics and the hotter parts of the world very quickly. I imagine that’s going to lead to basically types of, like, fascist backlash, essentially. I hope it doesn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that were a possibility.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, I also think that’s definitely a possibility. You know, one of the— so back in May I wrote a piece — it’s called “Boots on the Ground” — and this is a little bit off topic in terms of climate and health, but basically what I had— so I had fallen down, like, a rabbit hole, and, you know, coming off of— I’m too long-winded here, but this story is just so fascinating.
Ross Kenyon: Go ahead. I like it. Just teach me something. Go ahead.
Zoya Teirstein: OK, great. So, OK, this is probably the weirdest story I’ve ever written. Like, and most random. But while— so I was monitoring this situation unfolding during the midterm elections in Arizona where these groups were, like, surveilling ballot boxes. Do you remember this? It was, like, a big scandal. OK, so these, you know, like, far-right individuals — this conspiracy had spread that Democrats were, like, ballot stuffing. And so they were, you know, sitting out, kind of staking out ballot boxes in Arizona. And the group that was behind that was called — or is called — Lions of Liberty. And so I started just randomly— I had some free time and I was Googling Lions of Liberty, and I found out that it’s the political arm of a group called the Yavapai County Preparedness Team.
Now, that sounds like a government group, and I had been covering disasters at that point a bit, disaster response. And so I kind of just started looking into what that group was, ’cause I was [unclear] there.
Ross Kenyon: They sound like they work with [unclear] on their website, pretty much.
Zoya Teirstein: On their web— they refuse. So, OK, I’ll get into that. It’s complicated. It’s not complicated. Yes, they are. I would define them as a militia. They obviously would not, and take great issue with that categorization. But what I discovered was that this group actually stemmed from the Oath Keepers. The guy who runs this group, Jim Arroyo, was the vice president of the Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers, which was and still is the largest Oath Keepers chapter in the US. And so what I ended up finding out was that this guy basically, after the insurrection at the Capitol, the Oath Keepers kind of splintered. So they’re, you know, you’ve got people who went to jail, etcetera. I said there’s this kind of population sort of in the uppermost ranks of that group. And this guy Jim Arroyo decided to sort of split off his section of the Oath Keepers and rename it. They’re still Oath Keepers. They still put the flags at meetings. But they’re named this, like, very innocuous name.
And what they drew on is this interesting history within the Oath Keepers that dates back, you know, years and years, like a decade or more. The Oath Keepers, when they first started, created these things called Community Preparedness Teams, CPTs. And these groups would go in after a hurricane or another event like that and hand out meals and help rebuild and basically just, like, lend a hand. And, you know, that sounds really, really great. And I think that for some of the communities they served, it probably was a welcome, you know, sight to see these guys show up after, like, Hurricane Harvey, for example, which is one of the hurricanes that they came and helped out after in Texas. But what really was happening behind the scenes was that basically these guys were, like, kind of using disasters as, like, an opportunity to maybe recruit, but also, like, galvanize public support for their work. It was sort of like a PR scheme a little bit, to some extent.
And so, I mean, that in and of itself was just fascinating. I had no idea the Oath Keepers had this history of sort of using disasters as an opportunity to sort of build their brand. And then I started looking into this, you know, YCPT, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team, and they were using some of that same — some of those lessons learned — to inform their work in Arizona. And so what they’re doing is they are, you know, they’re preparing the community for disasters. And so I started, you know, listening in on their meetings and interviewing. I interviewed Jim Arroyo, the guy who was behind it, and he just, like, you know, totally a conspiracy theorist through and through. And his meetings have been drawing larger and larger numbers of people. He’s got sheriffs and folks from all over Arizona, like, the political landscape there. I mean, he is, like, deeply entrenched in Yavapai County and in state politics there.
And people don’t really realize that, like, the group that’s, like, training people to, like, survive, like, a climate apocalypse are actually these people who have, like, very, very dangerous — and yeah, I would just define them as just very dangerous — conspiracy beliefs about, about, you name it. I mean, we’re in a World War Three. This is the beginning of a civil war. There’s going to be mass blackouts, like, that the government puts up and is orchestrating. So it’s like that was just the strangest rabbit hole to fall into, where I was like, you actually do have these right-wing groups preparing for climate change in these really twisted ways. And unpacking that — I mean, that’s not just happening in the US, it’s happening all over the world, and it’s a growing issue, you know. So yeah, that’s the weirdest story I’ve ever written.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think that they believe climate change is happening, but it’s sort of the government is doing it on purpose or something? What do they think about climate change? Did you even catch an inkling of that?
Zoya Teirstein: I think some of them probably believe that it’s real. Jim Arroyo — I asked him straight out, you know, do you believe in climate change? And he said no, that it’s, like, a conspiracy, China’s involved. It’s really hard to kind of get a sense of, like, what he’s been saying. But no, I mean, he just recognizes that disasters are an opportunity, happen often — and there for a reason, happening more often — and that, you know, getting people prepared for those— It’s almost like when you are building up a militia, you need constant, like, tests of the militia’s strength to, like, keep people active and involved. And the fact that, you know, there are natural disasters that happen all over the country all the time is, like, almost, like, proof to him that the group has a purpose and needs to keep going.
Ross Kenyon: The line of reasoning isn’t wrong. Naomi Klein coined it and then also inverted it with This Changes Everything. It’s, like, common that after disasters, changes can happen. They can be good changes, they can be bad changes. But changes are probably the most likely in those moments, right?
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. I mean, and it’s definitely a change. You’ve got— I don’t know. It was a tough story to write, because oftentimes I write about how communities need to help each other post-disaster. I mean, that’s the reason why this works. FEMA is stretched. I mean, that’s the part of the story really, is that FEMA is stretched incredibly thin and is not built for the era of climate change. Yeah, that was one of the things that this Arroyo was telling me — that, you know, FEMA is building camps and it’s gonna imprison Americans. And I was like, oh, OK. Like, I think that where that stemmed from is, you know, after a disaster, you know, they’ll erect a giant, like, ground operation. I mean, it’s huge. And to the conspiracy theorist next door, that looks like a camp for prisoners.
Ross Kenyon: Sounds like you had something to say and then I had to jump in with my asinine comment. But you’re driving towards something about FEMA being stretched thin?
Zoya Teirstein: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. FEMA— well, FEMA is stretched thin. I mean, that is the unfortunate reality, is that the US is so large and faces such a wide array of climate-driven threats — and, you know, hurricanes, tornadoes, or you name it — like, it’s just massive. And so there is no way for FEMA to be everywhere at once. And so what happens after disasters often is that communities will help each other, and that’s a beautiful thing. It has to keep happening. I mean, there is no way forward in a climate-changed US without communities helping each other. Unfortunately, people are not aware that, like, one of the groups that shows up to help, which sounds like it works for the government — you know, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team — might be a crew of, like, conspiracy-fueled, you know, like, nut jobs. I mean, so it’s dangerous out there for a variety of reasons.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. And we got onto this topic by saying that it’s possible that with mass immigration we’ll see a lot more intergroup conflict. We might see more movements like this that have a reactionary kind of feel to it. Maybe this becomes a more mainstream disaster response. Is that an OK supposition?
Zoya Teirstein: Well, I think, yeah. I mean, the idea is that there’s potential here for this to grow into a larger problem. The people that I spoke to at FEMA, and the people who research FEMA and research far-right white nationalism, are concerned that, you know, the government’s not aware of this threat. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every time there’s a disaster there’s going to be a right-wing group showing up to, like, hand out hot meals. That’s not the case. It’s not as widespread as that. But there are these examples. I mean, there’s a different example of, you know, in California after some really bad wildfires, this, like, right-wing group came in and handed out, like, business cards with the QR code on the back that went to their website, and it was, like, essentially, like, a neo-Nazi group. So it’s definitely a thing. It’s not the number one thing that happens after a disaster, but it’s definitely a growing, potentially growing trend that is alarming to a lot of folks that I spoke to for this story.
Ross Kenyon: It’s possible. We’re pretty far out speculating, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was a trend. I think when there are times of conflict, I always come back to the hard hats. Do you remember that, from the Nixon era? Do you remember that the hard hats were— I think there were New York City construction workers who were so annoyed at flower power happening in the streets of New York City that they would come down, they’d see these hippies with Viet Cong flags, and basically just come down ready to fight and be like, why are you flying— our buddies are over there fighting and dying in the mud, and you’re flying the enemy’s flag.
And I think what they’re— and of course the protests are lawless. They’re at the, like, ’68 — like, what do they call it, like the Days of Rage in Chicago or whatever. So, like, the average person — I feel like people, even if they’re not politically that engaged, even if they ostensibly agree with the protesters, that amount of chaos is really threatening. And I think people probably are more likely to accept a stronger hand of order, and maybe even side with the hard hats just because of the disorder. Even if they agree that the war in Vietnam is wrong, they still might end up siding with the hard hats because they hate the hippies destroying downtown and breaking windows and all of that. So it wouldn’t surprise me that if we did have more of a reactionary feel to climate change, it might not lead to the All We Can Save sort of left-of-center “our hearts grow and encompass the entire world.” That might just be — we’re tighter and meaner than ever.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah, it looks to be. That’s exactly right. I mean, it looks to be that way already. You know, nationalism aside — white nationalism aside — you can see that happening with the way that countries are, I mean, back to what we were talking about before, shutting down their borders or restricting immigrants. And people are going to have to move out of areas that are going to become just simply too hot for human survival. I don’t foresee a lot of countries welcoming those migrants with open arms. I think tighter and meaner is sort of going to be the name of the game.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I’m trying to think of some upside or, like, some silver lining or something to hope for. But I think that outcome is somewhat likely.
Zoya Teirstein: Well, I mean, yeah, back to, like, the politics of it. I think that, you know, you can look at— I’m sure that this has been a topic for a lot of guests on this show, but the IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure bill — I mean, there’s so much good funding that I think is, you know, too little too late to some extent, but it’s great that it’s here now, and that will save a lot of lives. Back to the health element, I mean, the fact of the matter is that a lot of these illnesses and potential deaths are preventable. So, you know, heat deaths are preventable. And so that is the silver lining, is that, you know, we’re very good at saving lives when we recognize that there is an issue and we dedicate resources to it. And so that to me is sort of the most hopeful element of us all, is that humans are pretty good at coming up with solutions. We just have to recognize that there’s a problem first.
Ross Kenyon: You’re optimistic then, at least on the disease front, the heat front, that some amount of a handle will be achieved on it?
Zoya Teirstein: I think so. I mean, the reason why people in Alaska die after eating toxic shellfish is mainly because there isn’t a monitoring system there. So every other state in the nation that has coastline—
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, you see the signs on the beach, it’ll be like Red Tide, or like, don’t eat anything.
Zoya Teirstein: Yeah. OK, that’s what you mean. Yeah. And so that saves a lot of— people are aware. In Alaska there is no such system. The government there has not dedicated resources to it. I won’t get into Alaska’s complicated funding structure, but it’s just— oil has a lot to do with it. Doesn’t really matter. It does matter, but not for our purposes. The thing about that story that was so uplifting is that the community there is coming together to solve this problem. So you’ve got, like, the research community that lives in Kodiak, and also tribes that are, like, the Alutiiq, who are nearby, teaming up together to try and prevent people from dying. And that is huge. It’s better when there are, you know, a lot of resources thrown— it’s better when it’s not just, like, a couple of community members trying to save lives together. But it’s awesome that that’s happening, and those deaths are preventable, you know? So yeah.
Ross Kenyon: For the insect-borne illnesses, are we going to see a resurgence of things like DDT, or other types of pesticides that we’re going to see? Probably there’s something better that is not nearly as destructive. But is it possible it reinforces some of the original Rachel Carson-esque environmental concerns here as we try to deal with disease?
Zoya Teirstein: It’s possible. I feel like the good news there — and it’s true, DDT and mosquito-borne illnesses, I mean, that is a— you can really clearly see how that has affected— how pesticides and other chemical agents, you know, really decrease the level of mosquito-borne illnesses, like the—
Ross Kenyon: People who are supportive of it, like— yeah, like, you are trading human lives versus some more abstract, indirect— other types of life will die. It will harm the ecosystem. There will be some bad effects from DDT. But the mosquito-borne illnesses, like, on net, could it possibly be good in some places? Maybe. I don’t know essentially what it is to say here.
Zoya Teirstein: Well, but yeah, because— only because, I mean, the trade-off is not even in that way. I mean, there are other ways to save lives, and that’s what’s interesting about especially mosquito-borne illnesses, is that the vaccine element is fascinating. With malaria, for example, there is a great vaccine, but the problem with that is that that vaccine is outdated and it needs to be updated, and so that’s underway. I mean, the Gates Foundation, for example, works on this issue a lot. There are mosquito nets that are handed out usually in affected countries every three years. They usually degrade in about a year and a half. So making stronger nets is, like, a very simple solution that saves a lot of lives.
And then you have, you know, other types of, like, therapies that are getting developed when it comes to, you know, treatments in that way. And then even before someone gets bit — I mean, beyond mosquitoes — female mosquitoes are the only mosquitoes that bite. And so there are efforts underway to, like, inoculate mosquito populations with this bacteria that, like, eliminates either the disease, the pathogen, in the first place, or to produce only male mosquitoes. That’s really exciting. I mean, there are real advancements happening there that I should be writing about more, actually. That feels like a second phase of my beat that I haven’t quite stepped into yet. But I’m excited to get there, because the solutions are totally possible. There are some climate problems that don’t really have solutions. I mean, have you had anyone on talking about tipping points?
Ross Kenyon: I’m not— not by itself. But yeah, that’s a spooky one. Antarctica. [unclear] Right now you can do that, what you want.
Zoya Teirstein: I don’t want to. I mean, I feel like— I don’t want to be the bearer of doom. But for example, you know, those types of issues where you’ve got, like, entire ice sheets collapsing — that type of thing, solutions there are a lot trickier than solutions in my realm of coverage, which are, you know, like, let’s engineer a better— let’s engineer a solution, you know, let’s make all these female mosquitoes male. And so that’s exciting, that’s cool. I mean, that gives me some hope as I cover this increasingly hopeless beat.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. For someone who’s skeptical of tech, that’s a lot of faith to put in there.
Zoya Teirstein: So yeah, well, I just— I have faith in, like, gene editing and stuff like that, and I have faith in some tech. I think that obviously the one solution that no one really wants to embrace is just the most obvious and only time-tested real solution to this problem, which is just: we have to stop burning fossil fuels. I mean, there is just no way around that.
Ross Kenyon: Is it bad that I didn’t know what you were going to say until you said it? Yeah, I did that. Yeah, it is bad, OK? So what could it be? OK. Yeah, fossil fuels. Yeah. With you. Yeah, I’m dumb. OK. Yeah, that’s sad.
Zoya Teirstein: Come on, I’m here to validate you. Don’t forget that.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, God, yeah, I forgot. Yeah, thank you. That’s good. Let’s get back to that. What are some other amazing deaths that we’ve had? So anyways, you’re happy — though there are some things that you’re able to say that we could get a handle on it. We’ve identified the problem, more awareness is coming to these things, you’re writing about them. I’m sure occasionally you cross paths with policymakers or staffers who are reading these things and trying to create policy to deal with it. It’s not nearly as insurmountable as maybe— we could put pumps that pump deep, very cold water back on top of the ice sheet to prevent it from fully melting, which is more science fiction maybe than reality yet. So you’re more hopeful then? There’s good stuff?
Zoya Teirstein: I am. I’m hopeful because, you know, deaths are generally preventable, and the more people are aware of it— it comes back to this thing that you highlighted in the beginning of our conversation, which is that this beat and this realm of research is not fully understood yet. I mean, the research community just started, really — I mean, not just, but it’s a young field, and it’s definitely a young beat in journalism in general. So I think that the more people are aware of this, the more solutions there will be, and that is great. I mean, there’s only up to go in that realm. However, we’re in a race against the clock, as with all things, and the Pandora’s box that I was referencing is, like, creaking open. And so it’s kind of a matter of figuring out if we can, you know, stem these threats before they really start killing a lot of people.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I mean, the show is called Reversing Climate Change. I’m hoping over time we’re able to bend it back down, PPM-wise, to a pre-industrial level of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. But also I wonder just how bad it’s going to get, and how much of Pandora’s box is open, and hopefully you’re able to stuff it all back in there before it’s really extremely dire. I don’t know, some days I feel quite optimistic, some days less so. How do you feel about it? Do you also waver?
Zoya Teirstein: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it’s complicated. It’s like, I definitely waver. I generally feel pretty— not hopeless, but, like, pretty resigned to living in a different type of world in the coming decades. I think one of the cool things about, you know, let’s say we get back to, like, pre-industrial levels of particulate matter — I think that, of pollution rather, of greenhouse gas emissions rather — let’s say we get back there. The good news is that the progress we will have made on combating these infectious diseases is going to still be relevant.
There were diseases obviously before climate change was a thing, and there will be diseases if we, like, solve, you know, the climate crisis. I’m honestly not sure what that looks like really, but let’s say, you know, we invent, like, a giant vacuum that sucks all the CO2 out of the atmosphere — then you’re still gonna have, like, insect-borne illnesses, mosquito-borne illnesses. Any solution we come up with is gonna save lives far out into the future as well. So that’s good. I mean, I feel hopeful about that.
Ross Kenyon: Good, that we don’t totally depress everyone and leave them with something to be hopeful for. And if someone wants to follow your work, I’ll put a link in the show notes to your writer’s profile at Grist, alongside some choice articles, the ones we talked about. Is there anything in particular you want people to go to — one piece of all of them that you think is a great starting point?
Zoya Teirstein: Oh, that’s a great question. Yeah. So, yes: over the summer I collaborated with The Associated Press, their climate data team, and we wrote this sort of package of stories called Climate Connections. That’s their name. They, you know, they have some very particular ways that they go about writing about climate change. I wanted to call the whole thing Just Sick, but then no one went for that. And so we collaborated with them — Kristen at AP — and that’s online, and it’s beautiful. It’s, like, gorgeous to look at. The data team there did such a great job.
Our illustration team — this woman Amelia Bates — they illustrated the whole package. And so if you just look up Climate Connections Grist, or Climate Connections Associated Press, you will be able to scroll through this, like, visually amazing and rich piece of work that kind of walks you through how climate change influences the spread of disease. You can look at, like, the way we plumbed the internet for — and, like, the research available — for all the data we could find on this topic, and presented it in a really interesting and beautiful way. So that’s where I would send readers if they wanted to check out this overlap a little bit more.
Ross Kenyon: Link to that is in the show notes. Zoya, I’m so happy that we got to have you back on. Let’s not make it another four years.
Zoya Teirstein: Oh my God. And several hundred articles since. Let’s halve that time next time.
Ross Kenyon: Sounds great.
Zoya Teirstein: I’ll be here whenever.
Ross Kenyon: OK, great fun. Thanks so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed and have a lovely day. Thank you so much for listening. If you could please subscribe and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or a rating on Spotify, that’d be much appreciated. It helps us get our content out to more people. You can sign up for our newsletter at nori.com, follow us on social media, and we will catch you next time.
