The Marshall Islands Part Three: Climate Change

James looks at the threat posed to the tiny atoll nation by climate change, and how the RMI has centered culture and community in its response.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Slow.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
United Airlines Flight one five four starts to Honolulu. When
it leaves, it carries not only a full load of passages,
but also a mechanic and spare parts for the plane.
On its journey, it stops in the Marshall Islands at
Marjora and Quadulin before heading west to make three stops
in Micronesia, and finally it stops in Guan. The next day,

(00:29):
it turns around does the same route in a reverse
landing in Majorro you can see the ocean on both
sides of the plane. In fact, you can see the
ocean on both sides of the plane from a disturbingly
low height, and despite this being one of the larger
islands in the Marshall Islands, it almost looks like the
plane won't fit on it without a wingtip overhanging the lagoon.
The plane does fit, of course, and there's even room

(00:52):
left at Major Airport for the best airport bar that
I've ever seen. But even after a couple of hours
in the company of the island's finest whiskey collection, it's
very clear that the Marshall Islands are in a great
deal of danger when it comes to rising sea levels.
The Marshall Islands don't have much land to begin with,
and through no fault of their own, their island paradise
is being gradually lost to the ocean. Start with, I

(01:15):
want to let Kathy Gentle Kitchener, the poet who he
heard from yesterday, outline the scale of the threat.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Climate change is a challenge that few want to take on,
but the price of inaction is so high. Those of
us from Oceania are already experiencing it firsthand. We've seen
waves crashing into our homes and our bread fruit trees
wither from the salt and drought. We look at our
children and wonder how they will know themselves or their

(01:41):
culture should we lose our islands. Climate change affects not
only US islanders, it threatens the entire world. To tackle it,
we need a radical change. Of course, this isn't easy.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
It means ending carbon pollution within my lifetime. It means
supporting those of us most affected to prepare for unavoidable
climate impacts, and it means taking responsibility for irreversible loss
and damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The people who
support this movement are indigenous mothers like me, families like

(02:18):
mine and millions more standing up for the changes needed
and working to make them happen. I ask world leaders
to take us all along on your ride. We won't
slow you down, will help you win the most important
race of all, the race to save humanity.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Currently, Pacific island nations are responsible for less than zero
points zero three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but
the United Elations estimates that more than fifty thousand people
in the Pacific displaced every year, many of them by
climate change. Of course, people leave for other reasons. Perhaps
they're looking for work, which can be hard to find
on a small land, or perhaps they won the uptunities

(03:00):
at the United States life offers. Thanks to their Compact
of Free Association, Marshalise people can live and work in
the USA without a visa. Most Marshallyse people who do
leave the islands move to Springdale, Arkansas. It's where the
largest off island Marshallese community is gathered, and they tend
to cluster around the reliable jobs offered by the Tyson
Chicken Factory. In twenty twenty, the Tyson Chicken Factory remained

(03:23):
open during lockdowns, and people who had left the islands
for a more steady income and a better chance for
a stable future, suddenly face more great risks at work.
Life is by no means easy for marshal Ease people,
both in the US and at home, and the choices
they face because of climate change constricting global economy and
the United States refusing to pay its fair share of

(03:43):
compensation don't make that any easier. On my last night
in the Marshall Islands, I was having a beer in
a bar and chatting with a local journalist. I asked
him what I should write. He said that I needed
to tell you that people in the RMI aren't moving
because they're afraid of waves. We're not afraid of the ocean,
he said. We're ocean people. We go in the ocean

(04:04):
every day. He was right, of course. The drivers of
migration are complicated, and they always have been. I always
tell people who ask me what I cover that they
cover climate and conflict and migration, because in fact they're
largely the same things. There are many reasons for migrating
from the Marshall Islands. If there are people who have left,
and all of them are valid, But everyone I spoke to,

(04:26):
whether they'd left or come back or stayed there their
whole lives were pretty clear that nobody wants the community
to leave. The people of the Marshall Islands love their
islands and they want to raise their children and grandchildren
on their ancestral land. But the people making the choices
that impact their ability to do that are a long
way from the lagoon that's creeping closer and closer to
the houses around Magro at all. Climate change making the

(04:50):
islands uninhabitable doesn't necessarily mean they'll be swallowed entirely by
the ocean long before the last scrap of land disappears.
The rising saltwater will kill bread fruit trees, and flooding
will destroy homes. To get a cent of that threat,
we spoke to a meteorologist.

Speaker 5 (05:07):
I'm regally white, Regional White, and I'm the meteorologist in church.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Here ready explained what climate change might do to make
the islands less easy to live on and eventually perhaps
impossible to live on. If something doesn't change, it's hard
for people to see these kind of creeping changes. When
we think about climate change rendering an island uninhabitable, we
think about that island ceasing to exist, or the house
is being swept away. By a storm searge or a

(05:33):
massive king tide perhaps, but in fact the changes are
more gradual, but no less destructive.

Speaker 5 (05:39):
We have to go back to the imagion scenarios that
IP is produced, and based on them, worst case scenario,
if we look at it, I have to open up
the computer and look at the table. But in one
hundred years we may be not completely listening, and that's
not what's important here. What is important is that lens.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
Will be uninevitable way before they sink, because we will
not be able to drive on the road. We will
not be able to rely on our water lenses because
they'll all have salt water into them. As more and
more frequent salt water introgs and get on top and
down into the water lens, they will be undrinkable.

Speaker 5 (06:20):
So at what stage can we put that target. I'm
not comfortable at this moment to point that out, but
I think anyone of us can look at the numbers
and decide, based on this emission scenario, this is the day.
Based on that the mission scenario, that is the day.
So there's not a set date or a what do

(06:44):
you call it the hair that broke the camel's back?
What was it. What was the American saying?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
As Reggie explained, the impact of rising sea levels is
already being seen, particularly in the case of flooding.

Speaker 5 (06:58):
Oh, there are many but in a low lying at all,
your most concerned is flooding, coastal flooding. So we've seen
more frequent flooding during Landinia. Laninea is the face where
in the Marshall Islands specifically, you get elevated sea levels
about ten centimeters or so eight to twelve inches on

(07:23):
top of the normal sea level at any given time.
So when there is a storm search king tide, those
things compound on one another to give us more frequent
coastal floodings in the low lying areas. If you go
in the bag of Measuro, you will see people building
up sea walls to protect their properties. With those sea

(07:46):
walls the impact has been lessened a bit, but without
those sea walls, nuisance flooding has been almost a monthly
occurrence during Alminium phases.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
In twenty twenty one, the World Bank and the Marshalleasee
government produced a report which allowed visualization of the impact
of climate change on each building in Marjuro in broad strokes.
The report stated that quote, rising sea levels and the
atoll nation of the Marshall Islands are projected to endanger
forty percent of existing buildings in the capitol Marjoro, with

(08:21):
ninety six percent of the city at risk for frequent
flooding introduced by climate change. According to a World Bank study,
change seems to be very hard for the corporations and
governments most responsible for it. Indeed, one could argue that
seeing that change is hard because of those corporations and governments.
Namia Rescuers, a Harvard historian of science, studies the propaganda

(08:43):
that has allowed major corporations to deny the damage they
do to the planet and generate massive profits by not
paying for the negative externalities of their actions. Negative externalities,
if you're not familiar, are the costs that their business
imposes on other people but they don't pay. In her
book Merchants of Doubt, Arescus traces how nuclear testing did

(09:05):
huge damage to the ozone layer. Indeed, much of the
technology we used today to track global climate change was
developed using government money. Part of the reason why was
to assess with the Soviet Union was doing nuclear testing
by tracking the environmental damage that was done using some
of the data these instruments created, scientists, among them Carl Sagan,

(09:25):
began to discuss the possibility of a nuclear winter and
the fact that any use of nuclear weapons, or even
a nuclear accident, could put the future of all humanity
at risk. Unsurprisingly, as huge public relations effort spun up
to dismiss the idea of nuclear winter and attack the
concept of nuclear war being an unwinnable proposition. There was,
after all, a huge amount of money at stick. In

(09:47):
an excellent New York CARESSI on the subject, Jill Lapour,
another Harvard historian, outlines a campaign to discredit those scientists
and their claims. In nineteen eighty four, in an effort
to count to Carl Sagan and to defend what was
called the Strategic Defense Initiative, the George C. Marshall Institute
was founded by Robert Jastro, a NASA physicist, Frederick Seitz,

(10:09):
a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, and
William Nieremberg, a past director at Script's Institute of Oceanography
Right here where I live in San Diego. The Marshall
Institute began trying to get PBS to not air documentaries
opposing the strategic defense initiative, the so called star Wars
program wouldn't be of any use of a single nuclear

(10:30):
incident could trigger devastating change in the global climate. Another
Master Institute scientist, Seltz's cousin, Russell, who was a physicist
at Harvard Center for International Affairs, published an essay in
the National Interest in the fall of nineteen eighty six
dismissing the idea of nuclear winter and saying it was
nothing but a series of long conjectures. He describes the

(10:51):
nuclear winter theory as dead course of death, notorious lack
of scientific integrity. By nineteen eighty eight, the Institute of
pivoty and It began publishing the first of many papers
on climate change. Other scientists there, including Fred Singer, challenged
the model that predicted a nuclear winter. They've gone on
to do the same with climate change, claiming that in

(11:13):
both cases it was far from certain that catastrophic consequences
would occur. Singer incidentally was a consultant for Arco exon
shell oil and sol oil. He died in twenty twenty
after serving for years as a director of Science and
Environment policy at the Heartland Institute, which was founded in

(11:33):
nineteen eighty four. Its position on global warming at the
time was quote, most scientists do not believe human greenhouse
gas emissions are a proven threat to the environment or
human well being, despite a barrage of propaganda insisting otherwise
coming from the environmental movement and echoed by its sickophants
in the mainstream media. In the Marshall Islands, this kind

(11:55):
of de nihilism, no matter how well funded and qualified,
really isn't going to stick. Everyone here is personally seen
the impacts of rising sea levels eroding away on their
precious land. But it's the actions of people everywhere can
impact people here, so they have to persuade the rest
of the world to care about them.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
I will bet that every Marshal Marshalise understand impacts because
every Marshalise has been a victim of some coastal inandvision
has been you know, has been impacted by those, so
they understand.

Speaker 7 (12:29):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (12:30):
The youngest ones maybe they experienced there first, but the
older ones, they've been around during those days when the
you know, coastal flooding wasn't an issue.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
One of the things I like to do in my
free time is to freedom Sometimes I can collect sea
urchins or cools, but lots of the time I just
like to be underwater. I've never done scuba diving. All
the gear and equipment kind of scares me, but holding
my breath and swimming around the reef is probably the
closest thing I'll ever feel to flying. To be able
to hold your breath for a minute or two underwater,

(13:15):
you need to get your heart rate very low, and
this means being very calm, letting tension and stress float away.
It's a magical feeling and one that I've tapped into
even outside the water. In stressful situations. Sometimes that ability
to calm yourself could be a bit too effective. I
remember once starting to walk off a broken pelvis and
passing out from blood loss later. Sometimes that calm focus, though,

(13:38):
can be exactly what you need, Like when you're holding
your breath on the bottom of the ocean and you
realize that you got your fins tangled and an abandoned
fishing line and you need to cut it so you
can get back to the surface and breathe. I saw
that same ability to remain calm and even happy despite
what seems like another impending crisis every time I spoke
to Marshally's people about climate change between their nuclear past

(14:00):
and their perilous future. The Marshallese people have every right
to be angry, and maybe they are angry when they're
not told them to British journalists. But whenever I ask people,
they still seem hopeful, upbeat and excited about the future
of their country. As we're going to see tomorrow, marshal Lease,
people are still very much investing in their shared future.

(14:20):
I think that's something we can all learn from. Resilience
to the Marshallese community, even in the face of what
seems like a second apocalyptic threat. He's Reggie discussing how
climate change makes him feel well.

Speaker 5 (14:31):
I try not to dwell on what could happen. I
could try to think of what we could do now
to change people's heart, to change how we behave how
we treat the world. I mean, it's our only home.
You go out in space and look back. It's one
lonely place in an entire galaxy of stars and whatever.

(14:52):
You But when you look at it that way, you
begin to realize I must respect my police. Who else
will respect? The divide.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
It's worth noting that some people we talk to are
less concerned about climate change.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
My name is Juliet Maranda from Mussel Island. I live
on Takhan.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Juliet's an older resident of wrong Rum, one of the
outer islands on madro At all her life there is
in many senses adyllic. Her cook house is built around
a large bread fruit tree. The tree also serves as
a work service. It's like a solar punk vision of
the future where we live in harmony with nature. But
for her it's just a place she makes lunch along

(15:31):
with the other wrong Wrung islanders. She served a visiting
group that I was part of, a delicious lunch of
coconut breadfruit, pandanas, crabs and rice, where we talked about
what brought her back to the Marshall Islands after thirty
years living in the United States.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, so though you always are own sick when I'm
in USA, I miss my you know, war around freedom
like USA, not go to next door because you know
trust passing, But around here you do everything. Yes, it's

(16:08):
it's different, lots different. So I love a the USA
tell libers could and a lot of different things you
as do then modules so I love it here. I
do all my old thing I usually do breaking and

(16:29):
make my home chicken and chewing in and on pigeon.
Shanna Barbara, you have to get a guy to go
to the peach over year recruiting Peachie.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
She clearly loves her little piece of paradise, and it's
easy to see why she was happy to share it
with us, as were all the islands on Wrong Run,
I short walk away from her house. Her neighbor's children
played in the sand with their pigs, chickens and dogs,
and it's certainly a very different place from Santa Barbara. Well,
she spent much of her time in States, but it's
no less special. Like many Marshal Leaves, she has a

(17:05):
very strong faith, and that faith is helping her explain
why climate change is happening. Do you think it's because
their sea levels rising? You can get gonna make it
harder for people to.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Live in Some people do that, but I don't believe it.
Only God will do it. I believe in God. When
they do the weather and said it's going to rain
tomorrow and tomorrow is not going to be rain, God's
going to make it rain. The nost no, you know it,

(17:40):
you're for others.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
The threat is already here. Here's one conversation with Monique
and Francine from Core and Akarmi, a local NGO who
you'll hear a lot about tomorrow. They're doing incredible work
investing in the future of the Marshall Islands by installing
water filters and smokeless stoves and homes across the nation.
You might never have had to worry about clean water
or never been concerned that cooking your food might hurt

(18:05):
your lungs, but both of those things are massive public
health issues if we don't have access to electricity, gas
and clean water from a pipe that comes into your home.
One night before dinner, we talked to them about climate change.

Speaker 8 (18:17):
The scientists are saying that you've got so many years
until all eyes melts and affects us. We don't have
mountains to run to. Like some places they can just
runt of the mountains.

Speaker 6 (18:36):
We don't.

Speaker 7 (18:37):
Yeah, so it's Marshall Islands too.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
Well, we're at the front CLIs So you're also blessed
that you get to see the Marshall Islands. Yeah, I
really well, really see firsthand what the plastic.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
The impact goes beyond the individual though. When we heard
from the Ministry of Health and the impact the climate
change is already having on the well being of Marshallys people.
They reminded us of both the physical and mental health
of residents has been affected.

Speaker 9 (19:17):
So we are well uh as Active secretary said, my
name is Nathan Carbon Climate Change and amn.

Speaker 10 (19:29):
Uh. Well, first of all, we'll come to our dure
to visit us. I think Michael Jackson said, I best.
Do you want to see change in the world, you
have to look in the mirror. And so this is
our climate Change of Health to frontment uh UH.

Speaker 11 (19:50):
Climate impacts on health and well being.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Nathan went on to explain what that means both in
terms of mental health and in physical health as mosquitoes
and other disease vectors adapt to the changing climate and
rising sea.

Speaker 12 (20:02):
Levels I communicable diseases and x CDs, reducing vulnerabilities with
the vector borne diseases and then improving mental health resilience.

Speaker 11 (20:19):
So the mental health resilience is a.

Speaker 10 (20:21):
Really key thing. We have our seminar that's ongoing right
now partnership with.

Speaker 11 (20:27):
Jojibu which lets the youth express how climate change based
their field.

Speaker 6 (20:35):
And also.

Speaker 11 (20:38):
In MH involving the community and getting their feedback. You know,
the climate issue is not just at a national level,
it's mostly at the community level.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
All of these changes are hard to predict, but it's
easy to see the impact climate change has already had.
We spoke to the Island's Environmental Protection Agency to get
a sense of what that meant.

Speaker 13 (21:16):
My name is Marianna Phillip and I'm the general manager here.
As you can see, we're a very small organization with
a very broad mandate anything environmental related. We are accountable too,
and we're supposed to provide advice to the government and

(21:41):
the Marshal Lease people about new issues that are coming up.

Speaker 6 (21:45):
And so.

Speaker 13 (21:48):
You know, we're easily overwhelmed and outmatched. And then you know,
you throwing climate change into the mix, and suddenly I
can't even imagine what the change is going to be
like in the next five years or ten years. It's

(22:12):
hard for me to imagine. When I was a child,
I used to go to the school over across the
street is a DS is a public school, and we
would cross the road and swim from here all the
way to Develop and then cross the road and go home.
This was all white Sandy Beach. You know, obviously that's

(22:37):
not the case anymore.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
One way that the Marshal Lease community has responded to
climate change is to take a position of leadership on
mitigating carbon emissions. We heard about this all over the island,
with solutions ranging from electric canoes to sailboats to a
grid that runs on renewable energy. They've also taken leadership
and how aid money is spent, rather than just accepting
the projects has fund to suggest him. The RMI has

(23:01):
been vocal in making sure that unique challenges that they
face are reflected with unique solutions that they propose. For example,
they simply don't have the space for larger solar farms,
even though they do have the funding.

Speaker 7 (23:13):
My name is Angeline Heini Rammers. Other than being part
of PO, I'm also the director for the National Energy Office.
And then i'd like to introduce you to Ben. He's
the deputy director. So we're a very small office. It's

(23:34):
newly created. It was developed in twenty eighteen, so we're
trying to be creative and we partnered with our local
government in exchange building them basketball courts. The reason why
there's so many basketball courts is that we'll be installing
rooftop and on the rooftop thats we're going to be

(23:56):
housing the solar connecting it to the grid. And it's
with this project we had. It took us I think
more than a year. Ben right, so went back and
forth with our partner because they just wanted to go
ahead and put on solver.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Sometimes the scared of the programs larger countries use simply
isn't a good fit for the Marshalis.

Speaker 7 (24:18):
We get funding to go on trips to places like Korea, Japan,
Okinawa to see all these systems that in the eyes
of big countries that you see as islands like Jju
Island and Korea, but they're like so advanced compared to here.
You go there and they have ocean thermal and to us,

(24:41):
where like, okay, what about our corals that's where.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Our reefish lives in.

Speaker 7 (24:46):
Do we have to get rid of our corals? Maybe
we should rethink of that or.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
They also make sure to incorporate traditional methods and their
culture along with mboderant solutions. More about the electric canoes
that they had it, they're very pretty cool and I'm
interested to know, like a well, Jeremy, I really liked
that you were incorporating in the traditional ways. Why it's

(25:16):
ignoring the trying because that's something that the electric canoe is,
that's something that.

Speaker 13 (25:22):
Was trained up here at the wham And can.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
You talk about how surface convention, how much.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Fun it might save.

Speaker 7 (25:30):
Then do you want to start with that? We came
up with the idea for the and and then where
we are at.

Speaker 14 (25:39):
Yeah, So WOM started the initiative of the boat building
and they wanted to it strictly started with wamb We
We had no idea about the project. But initially they
got a project from a donor for boat building where
they would modernize these traditional canoes, just to make modifications

(26:05):
to make the hull bigger for catching fish or just whynot.
And then out of the blue, the director for WHOM said, hey,
what if we put solar on this boat?

Speaker 5 (26:16):
I think there's something in the market.

Speaker 14 (26:18):
So we just out of the blue just wanted to
test it. Unfortunately, when we purchased the motor and they're
going to start the testing, wound burned down and the
motor burned down with it. But they did a few
runs in the lagoon with it and it was really awesome.

Speaker 8 (26:37):
I wrote on it.

Speaker 14 (26:39):
At one point they started using wind in the wind
died down, turned on the motor and they started using
the motor, and then one pick up they turned.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
Off the motor.

Speaker 14 (26:47):
It was really awesome, but we Anio the director, wanted
to procure another one, so we procured another one with
our own funds. So it's on its way and should
be here very shortly do some real testing. But we
wanted we also partnered with Wanem because of that just

(27:08):
pilot project, we saw the need to build more of
this similar kind canoe, so we asked another donor if
we can use their funding to fund the second phase
of that project. So right now they've been approved and
they're building an additional eighteen more canoes for each each island.
And so the process is they're bringing these boat builders

(27:30):
from the outer islands, they train them how they build
these new style canoes with modern technology, and then they
ship it back out. One success story without the motor
is in the atoll of likyp They completely stop using
their motorized boat because they're one hundred percent using the canoe,

(27:55):
and the canoe can carry up to a ton, So
they've been carrying copra from one island to another, back
and forth with the canoe and they said, they save
so much money that they decided to do a fishing
tournament at their outer island from the.

Speaker 13 (28:10):
Money they save.

Speaker 14 (28:11):
You.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
He's ready talking about how he sees his role in
combating climate change.

Speaker 5 (28:18):
Oh, I don't enjoy being helpless. I don't believe that
the impacts of others should you know, impact me. I
make the changes where I can. I try to behave
in a manner that is not detrimental to the earth.

(28:39):
And I preached that to my kids and hopefully the
compounding effect or you know it will grow exponentially from
them to other ambassadors to spread the word that, you know,
we need to do something. It's not about politics, and
it's about you know, the your overhead or how much

(29:01):
profit you gain at the end of the days, about
how you gained those by you know, being a good
ambasgeldor to preserving the earth and the climate, you know,
all the all the other inhabitants, not just humans.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Wherever we went in the Republic of the Marshall Islands,
it was hard to find dooming gloom with regards to
climate change. What we found everywhere was people adapting and
making changes, both the kind of changes that reduce their
carbon emissions and the kind that made their homes more
defensible because the rest of the world is not making
that first kind of changes. Resilience doesn't just mean sea

(29:40):
walls and houses on stilts that can withstand flood are
those those are important. It also means making hard choices
and forming strong communities. Here's Mariana again.

Speaker 13 (29:51):
There's a lot of attention on us as like frontline countries,
you know, in the face of climate change, and we
get all the reporters come in asking us questions. We
get a lot of consultants that come in and out
and collect data.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
You know.

Speaker 13 (30:09):
Of course we're seen as sort of the sad countries
that will eventually face the reality of having no land
to live on, right so forced relocation, displacement. I don't

(30:30):
want to say migration, because that's not exactly a migration.
If you have to leave, you're you're being you're being displaced.
Our concern is that.

Speaker 15 (30:44):
We're not we don't have all the capabilities in the
science at our fingertip to help inform the government or
you know, everyone.

Speaker 13 (31:01):
Interested donors about how much is changing, how much is
going to change, and especially how that change is going
to change us you know, we it's it's overwhelming. We

(31:23):
we have a national adaptation plan. I hope that you
will get into that when you get the chance to
h that's the survival plan. In that survival plan.

Speaker 12 (31:38):
There is.

Speaker 13 (31:40):
You know, there is very scary reality that we may
need to take down some islands to elevate some islands.
You know, and every island have their land owners and
what happens to those people. Marshals are connected to their

(32:04):
land so much culturally, and so how do we adapt
to that change when it comes so quickly? That's scary.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Everywhere you go in the Marshal isings you see the
impact of climate change and rising sea levels, but you
also see the community responding and supporting itself through the
existential threat. The RMI isn't a sad place, quite the opposite.
It's a tremendously happy and beautiful place. And I had
one of the most enjoyable weeks I can remember there.
I'd go back in a heartbeat. But the joy with

(32:41):
which people approach every day doesn't mean they aren't concerned,
and it certainly doesn't mean they're not worthy of our concern.
Tomorrow we're going to discuss how the people of the
Republic of Marshal Lions and in particular the women of
the Republic of Marshall Lions, and making sure that Marshali's
people have a safe and healthy future.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 13 (33:05):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
You listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.

Speaker 13 (33:19):
Thanks for listening.