 Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm J. Five. That's the one o'clock block on a given Thursday and my co-host today is Ken Howe and he is a journalist investigative journalist researcher writer interviewer And a person who appears on movies about climate change and pandemics among other things and our special guest Richard A show show Larten close enough Martin shoe Larten, okay And he joins us from Stover Mont and he's with spillover stop spillover and spillover is a very important word in this context because spillover is what happens when a disease Somehow is created, you know Mutates what have you in the wild? Then it spills over into human populations before you know it you have a pandemic and that was one of the subjects of the movie we made that Ken made called alarm, what was it? spiraling crisis The alarming convergence of climate change and pandemics a postcard from the future Ken, you know, we could put that to music, you know several verses. What do you think? Okay, so Richard a lot of writing words with pandemic, you know, you might ask It's on everybody's lips these days So Richard tell us about stop spillover and your organization And why you think we are at an intersection Thanks, thanks, Jay. Great to be here with you this afternoon Stop spillover is a global consortium of 13 Really diverse organizations Funded by the US Agency for International Development and led by Tufts University That's working really to understand and address the risks posed by known zoonotic viruses And those are viruses that have the potential to spill over from an animal into Into humans and cause outbreaks of disease epidemics or pandemics like we're Like we're facing today And we're really excited to work with this This team at Tetra Tech. Tetra Tech is a global science engineering international development Consulting a firm and our role in Stop Spillover is really to help Bring the perspective of the interface between agriculture and food security and climate risk and spillover So really look at what people are doing in the places where Zoonotic diseases might might spill over into humans. So if you think about You know in in agriculture pig farms or on the margins of forests that are being cleared for For new fields or grazing for for cattle those kind of areas And so where we're focused on on that aspect within a larger team that's looking at the really complicated picture of what drives spillover Now let me ask you one more question that I think would be relevant to set the stage on this Richard How are we doing? was was the Current pandemic a result of spillover is spillover getting worse in our world where we are damaging the environment So yeah, that's a great question. So COVID COVID-19 SARS COVID-19 Is a virus that's found in bats and other animals and almost certainly spilled over into into humans There are many other viruses Ebola HIV Marburg to name a to name a few That have the potential to spill over And quite simply what we're seeing around the world is that we've got more people Entering environments where animals and insects that have these viruses live we're degrading the environment Reducing their habitats We are Facing a climate crisis at the same time Which as you and Ken know Is changing the patterns of the vectors where mosquitoes breed for example where bats live where insects are And so we're we're seeing a significant increase in the risk of of spillover And you know, how how are we doing clearly a lot of of work to do? And that's why it's so exciting that we've got a program like stop spillover focusing on this now Okay Yeah, I've got a question because you've got also a background in food insecurity, right and and what what interests me is that One of the ways these spillover events happen is that you've got particularly in poor countries that need food They're cutting down forests and changing the landscape in order to provide food for themselves and and and yet This is getting them ever closer to the vectors of some of these diseases So how do you balance, you know, some of these poor countries need to develop their food resources With protecting them and the rest of us from these spillover events. How do you how do you deal with that? Hey, yeah, thanks Ken. I mean, I think I mean not just for the risk of spillover, but there are many many good reasons to help people Develop their agriculture and food systems in in more sustainable healthy Climate smart Ways and so I think there's there's a couple of answers to that that question one is about really thinking through what the future of our agricultural system Will be and how that relates to our our natural environment so that we're increasing Our production of food and we need to we need to increase the amount of food We've produced by 50% by 2050 to feed the population But do it in a way that And Restores the environment and forests and the sequesters carbon And protects protects our waters. So that's a very that's a very long long-term process And we certainly can't wait to do that. It's urgent to do that now and it will require significant investments by by countries themselves by by the international community and by and by private private businesses to get us there But I think also there's a There's a really important aspect of this which is about Being able to support poor and vulnerable households small farmers who live around the world who are exposed to climate shocks and many other many other challenges to better deal with Those shocks to become more resilient and so if you think about what we can do to better Warn of droughts and floods and storms and and the impact of those on people's food security And the systems we can put in place Think about school feeding programs for kids that keep them in school and keep them keep them fed Or nutrition programs for for kids who who are in a drought stricken Area if we can make those systems more effective and more responsive to Climate stress from from droughts and floods and storms Then households won't have to resort to the behaviors which increase spillover risk. So what happens for example is that You know when when there's a drought And your maize crop or your cassava crop doesn't Doesn't yield what you need then you hunt more you go to the forest you hunt for bats or wild food and in doing so you increase your interaction with animals or insects that are hosts of Zoo and autistic viruses and you increase the risk of there's a spillover event. So if we can do things that help help people Maintain their food security and and and whether the storm Then then we can reduce the risk There are other I think there are other things that are really kind of key that we can do. I mean one of the first The first time I really kind of started to understand the connection between Zoo and autistic disease and and climate It was I don't know 15 years ago I was trying to understand what the impact of El Nino was in in East Africa And one of the things that I learned is that when you have an El Nino event quite often The rainy season at the end of our year so in October November and December which is usually very short Not very significant rainy season In East Africa extends and it can go six six to eight eight weeks And in some ways that's good because there's good pasture and range lands for animals But it's also six weeks is the amount of time that the vector for Rift Valley fever needs to incubate so Almost inevitably when you have an El Nino You have this very high risk of risk Valley fever in In East Africa and that That causes all kinds of issues not just the spillover to humans and And the health challenge but also it has a massive food security impact because Countries ban the export An import of livestock, which is the main livelihood of many people there And so there's this huge knock-on economic effect, which causes all kinds of other problems And so if you think about what we can do now in terms of forecasting the impact of something like El Nino on floods And rainfall in East Africa and how we could link that to things like quickly scaling up preventative veterinary care the vaccinate animals against Rift Valley fever Then then you start to see the kind of really proactive things we can do to manage those shocks now While we make room for the long-term Investment in a more sustainable healthy Agricultural system As we go so we got to manage the the short-term shocks and risks now while we take care of the long-term challenges urgently Yeah you know one of the One of the interesting strategies that I was reading about was you know Peter Dasek's eco health alliance and he was talking about Setting up kind of monitoring stations in Areas of the world where a lot of these zoonotic diseases come from whether it's you know largely Southeast Asia and Africa and other areas tropical zones mostly and and I'm getting very trying to get very close to The emergence the first emergence of the disease to have some monitoring stations that would be very close to where these things start and then that would give Scientists and and doctor the head start and you know in finding them and figuring out ways to Pthwart them as is stops available or or your your company tetra tech Involved in any of that or is that or is do you think that's an interesting strategy? Yeah, absolutely. I mean we we definitely need more information on all range of factors to be able to Not only detect when when spillovers occurred, which is obviously a huge challenge in many of the places that we're We're talking about but but also to predict it eventually so we can take preventative Action so stop stop spillover really has three Three main strategies that it's trying to to use one is just understanding the risk factors that contribute to spillover and so a Lot of work is being done with local Local partners and that by that I mean, you know local local governments and national governments, but also local universities local nonprofits Development agencies working working in those In those places to identify will first where the highest risk locations are for spillover And then really prioritize what what what do we need to know to understand better? What that what that interface looks like? What are the pathways for? the virus to go from from an animal To a person and and that's different everywhere in some places it could be on a poultry farm in another place It could be out in the forest hunting and in others. It could just be sleeping in your bed at night and getting bitten by a mosquito or or being exposed to you know rodent droppings that that might might carry the virus so then from there We work with local partners to develop Interventions that help us monitor what's happening detect what's happening Reduce the risks for both both in the long term so think about rehabilitating a wet market So it's more sanitary But also in the short term to be able to kind of mobilize the public health or veterinary Authorities in a country to to deal with with a problem and then the third the third thing That's I think really important for for making this all work is is learning Assessing which risk reduction practices Which policies ultimately work in preventing? spillover and mitigating the spread of disease when it when it happens and and all of those things Really rely on having good information and data On a range of things climate of course is is one of them But yeah, so we're doing a lot of work to try and systematize that kind of data to help improve data collection methods Rely on you know mobile mobile devices to collect data or crowd crowdsourcing data so we can Expand it but do it in a way that's that's rigorous and scientific Yeah, I'd like to ask you you have you have USAID you have Tufts University You have tetratech I don't know if there's more members of the consortium But what what are the respective members of the consortium do and how do you get the boots on the ground to go out into sometimes? remote places and remote continents and actually affect social conduct there Yeah, that's I mean that's a great question. So as I said, there's there's 13 consortium members With the overall project funded by by the US agency for international development And it includes the Africa One Health University Network and their equivalent in Southeast Asia the Southeast Asian University Network So there's a lot of kind of on the ground Researchers and students within those within those partners. It also includes Local organizations like right track Africa And then and then a number of kind of global research institutions like The University of Glasgow Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health and Comparative Medicine UCLA the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard University of Nebraska Medical Center Humanitarian Open Street Map because it's such spillover such a complicated issue that That links to so many different aspects of society that the team itself is really broad and brings different Different perspectives and so we've got that kind of global team working then with Country teams where over the next five years going to work in 10 countries during the first year We've got four countries that are up and running. That's Bangladesh, Uganda, Liberia and Vietnam And so there's a team in each country with with staff working with local partners And then that team goes through a very kind of participatory Planning and prioritization process with local local authorities and local partners We call it outcome outcome mapping because we're really focused on trying to identify what are the kind of behavioral outcomes We need to change to prevent spillover And then we come up with our action plan from that and we pull all the capacity to do that And then we come up with our action plan from that and we pull all the capacities of the Of the consortium together and quite a number Quite a number of the consortium also like like Tetra Tech Like JSI International Have the presence in these countries or already Tetra Tech has 22,000 Staff working in 400 offices in 90 countries. So we're you know, we provide a lot of kind of on the ground Knowledge and experience about operate in in those countries and Ken are you impressed yet I am You know one of the things that can that Ken did is he interviewed reader call well wasn't Who is a scientist of biology biologists very you know well known and she talked about Modern methods of identifying where disease breaks out globally and she had some very sophisticated high-tech ways to do that Including you know developing information developing a database on crowds. How do you develop a database on crowds cell phone traffic And I mean there were two or three other things that she mentioned when Ken interviewed her She'd be somebody that could help you get this data together. It sounds like a good part since it's global It's like a good part of what you're doing is gathering data from various places And then watching the changes in that data and then trying to learn, you know the common denominator You know the spillover phenomena and then developing Systems that work which you don't know sometimes if a system is going to work until you try it out So I guess my my question is To Ken really you think that reader call well could could help spillover stop spillover Well, she's probably working in related fields. Yeah, sure You know one thing that that intrigues me a little bit is that so far we've been sort of talking about Really the implication has been we're talking about village life or you know bush market some things like that but I mean One of the one of the biggest causes of like Deforestation are major like palm oil plantations and and the degree to which countries like oh Indonesia are And and and others are sort of dependent on these mass, you know farms. How do you Wean them of that That's not only an issue for climate change, but particularly with the palm oil The palm oil here, they're not only destroying natural habitats for a lot of these wild animals live but in the case of bats Providing sort of the feeding ground for these bats and I mean that's How do you approach that situation? Yeah, I think that's a I mean that's a that's a big big question in it in its own own right. I mean First maybe to Come back to Jay's Point, you know, it is so exciting to see kind of the amount of data that We're starting to be able to access in developing countries to Better understand and and even more exciting to better connect people with with services and markets and the information they need to thrive And that certainly is giving us a lot of Kind of analytical power that we we've never had before in in developing countries that said a lot of the places where spillover risk is highest of the The least connected places the places where only wealthy people have mobile phones if they're a mobile phones or internet connection. And so there's still a tremendous need to Improve our understanding and availability of data in those places To really know what what's going on and and and so you know better digital inclusion obviously will help in the long run but we can't just rely on big data in those in those places. I mean if you think about the Forests of eastern eastern Congo It's hard to hard to get data from those places so trying to figure out how to how to really address that information gap is a big big part of what spillover is To that point Richard we've been doing a number of shows with an organization called transitional justice They're interested in atrocities war crimes in the the court of criminal justice in the Hague They talk about failed states and failing states they talk about dictators who you know with with militia they go out and involve themselves in genocide Still happening still happening. You know the world is a dangerous place these days are a lot of this place people a lot of unhappy people and unhappy governments and here's US AID out there trying to get data in places that are you know not necessarily friendly to the United States open that matter friendly to any global effort, even though it's obvious this effort is intended to help everyone So how do you deal with what do you want to call it political resistance or the lack of political cooperation in these remote areas. Yeah, I mean I think that's a really, I mean that's a really important question. Jay we I mean we have many projects in, you know, in countries that are classified as fragile or failed states where we really focus on working with communities and people themselves to support their their aspirations and their and their dreams and build their their capacity so even in the absence of a state that's that's functioning you can still do really meaningful development work to help those those households for example in in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo we're working on another USA project to help, especially women coffee farmers improve the production of high quality coffee and an exported So they can improve their their incomes and be be more resilient to all kinds of shocks and stressors and and doing in a way that builds community cohesion and reduces conflict so you know I think the work, especially if you USA ID in those environments to try to improve people's lives is a key part of a sustainable way to ultimately end those those conflicts but we do have more refugees and displaced people in the world today than we have since the end of the Second World War it's a it's a major Well in the I way way movie called human flow, he estimated 65 million maybe now more was because the movie was three four years ago, maybe 70 million people are in camps behind Bob wire with no prospects of leaving or having a normal life. And that and that is especially so in places that are remote. Yeah, and I think, you know, working in those places is obviously a challenge but that's that's why you know for stop spill over this whole process of being very participatory from the beginning in working with a wide range of stakeholders to figure out what local priorities are and help facilitate local partnerships and solutions that address kind of the core drivers of the issue in that place is so important because the last thing you want is is a global expert coming to a village in Vietnam or Liberia or Uganda and saying this is the way you should you should do things we learned a long time ago that that doesn't work but but going and trying to help facilitate locally driven priorities build capacities and knowledge and skills in local institutions and then and then supporting that that process that can be really really empowering and really effective and even gratifying you know what about Ken and me suppose we want to sort of relive the days of our youth and do kind of a Peace Corps trip. A Peace Corps with stop spill over where we go into remote areas and we go to the village level and we try to help them and explain to them and change their social arrangements to you know improve this prospect can are you ready. Yeah, be sure to write me regularly. I do I do know the Peace Corps Peace Corps welcomes volunteers of all ages. I'm a Peace Corps spouse myself I'm not my wife when she was in Peace Corps. Is there a job there is there is this can I sign up can somebody sign up. Is this the modern way of looking at Peace Corps, because it sounds you know like a wonderful contribution to global climate change and global health. Yeah, I mean definitely there are there are ways to get involved in stocks fill over that that I would say are you know much more about spreading awareness, sharing on social media. The lessons and progress that that we're making, I would say those are really good ways to be involved, probably not jumping on a plane and going to Uganda to volunteer. That's not not yet Jay. I think they need more aging white guys I think we're doing better doing what we're doing here. The other thing that I would, I would say in all serious nurses and I and I think we've all learned this with with COVID spill over is not a remote problem in an African or Southeast Asian jungle spill over is a risk that affects all of us has global and catastrophic consequences. And so, you know, letting, letting public officials know Congress, men and women that supporting this kind of investment through USA in keeping us all safe is important. That's something that everybody. Everybody can do. You know we have a couple of questions from viewers and I want to try to get to get to them here. Let me read them one of them I understand the other one I'm afraid I don't. Maybe you will understand them. First question there have been accusations that the COVID pandemic was initiated intentionally. He's not saying where or why or what sort of mental. That's an article nasty question. What sort of mental case would create a spill over that cannot be contained or controlled such as COVID I mean would anybody do that. It sounds like weaponization. How far away from spill over from the wild is weaponization. I don't. I mean to be honest that's not. Maybe this is a dodge of the question I apologize to the viewer it's not it's not really my my area of expertise. I mean I think the fact is, regardless of whether any of those theories are true or not spill over Israel. Spill over happens naturally all the time. You know, and you don't have to look far far to see it. MERS SARS, avian influenza HIV AIDS. These are spill over events and so, you know, we'll I'm sure we'll be debated exactly what debating what exactly the origin of COVID-19 was for for decades or longer. And the fact is, we need, we need to learn that the spillover is real and we need to be very proactive about understanding where the risk is highest and helping those communities reduce the drivers of spillover. Yeah, Ken is not going to disagree. Ken, do you think that that that that we in the developed world have, you know, kind of direct responsibility for some of these issues I mean it's, we're the ones that are sort of exporting our needs in terms of, you know, food and, and, and and other commodities for, you know, poor countries to fulfill. So, can you reflect on that issue. Yeah, I mean I think that's, that's a, that's a critical question and you know it's maybe good, good timing we've got the UN food summit coming up to discuss that and the climate change negotiations and in Scotland coming up at the end of the year where the issues will will also be discussed and that that's true our consumption patterns drive the global, the global food system and the global agriculture system for not just for food but also for for fiber thing cotton and feed for for for animals. And so unless we have a significant shift in our global food system to a more sustainable and climate smart food system than than the risk of well not just spillover but biodiversity loss climate change. Increased intensity of climate disasters when they do happen will will increase and so that means yeah changing our agricultural practices. And as well as our consumption patterns and so I mean there's a lot of really great examples of how that can be done out there but quite frankly, we need to scale them up at a pace that I'm not sure we really appreciate if we're going to deal with all of these challenges. You know, the other, the other question I think I understand it a little better now. The preface is that, as Attenborough says, over hundreds of thousands of years, nature has found a way to balance. It's our job not to disrupt the balance which we are certainly doing, but then the process of nature is always to seek balance. That's what nature is seeking balance. And I say that as a preface to what I believe this question is asking me since thinking globally, systemically, is it possible that the ecosystem creates virus spill overs or allows them to bring the system back to a kind of homeostasis balance. And others will you let it happen. Let this spill overs happen and let the viruses happen. At the end of the day, the world and the species will be at a kind of maybe you don't like it, but a kind of balance through nature. I mean, you know, nature I mean I tend to agree nature tries to find the balance I think the question is do we want to live in on a planet where nature is rebalancing our, our excess. And I certainly don't and I don't want my, my kids, kids to, you know, climate climate change itself is a great example and it's a hard thing for, I think, to really get your head around because when we talk about climate change, we talk about a change in the average. And the average global temperature to any individual is almost meaningless. And all of a sudden, I get hit three times in as many years by a category five hurricane climate change is really real to me. Nature may be trying to find its equilibrium. But it's not. It's not an equilibrium that I personally want to live through I would much rather that we, we put in the effort to address aggressively the challenges of climate change so that our kids can live on a planet that's habitable. And I think that's one of the things that is really important for people to understand is, especially with, with climate is the science is very conservative. You know, we, because it's controversial we're quite conservative about the science so if you dig into what you know the IPCC the intergovernmental climate change panel. This latest science report released a few, a few weeks ago they confirm what we've known for some time that climate change is accelerating that our goal of reaching a limit of 1.5 or two degrees of global warming is going to be extremely difficult to attain. And that things are accelerating faster than we thought before. It's really scary the acceleration of, of change in the environment in the climate. In our interactions with with zoonotic disease, it's really scary and I think we need to kind of take our current situation with COVID as a bit of a wake up call to get to get serious and that doesn't, you know, doesn't. Doesn't mean we have to stop doing everything we're doing it just means we have to really seriously change the way that we do things that we support sustained sustainable a sustainable ecosystem and society. Can you can you respond. We're almost out of time and try to summarize what this means to our viewers. I'm not sure I can. I mean we've been talking about climate change and and the spread of zoonotic diseases. And we've been going through a number of ways that people scientists are trying to take to grapple with this problem. I guess what I would prefer to end on is more. The individuals that may be viewing this do I mean is there any actions that you know just normal people can take that's within their within their powers and abilities. Because we've been talking about massive problems, and oftentimes issues that are thousands and thousands of miles away. How do we bring us into the living room what can I do today or tomorrow do I turn into a vegetarian do I buy an electric car. There's options but I'm wondering, what do you know what what can individuals do. Yeah, I think that's a great. Great question. Can I think there's lots of things we can, we can do ourselves as as individuals. Be careful about what we eat what we buy, how we travel. And I think, you know, people have been trying for for some time and I really believe that that people want to solve these problems and don't want to be the cause of problems, but I would I would say that you know we're at the point. With climate change, especially where individual action is not enough. It's not enough for for me to buy sustainably produced palm oil products or organic vegetables that that's really important and we should, you know, we all we all need to do that we need to support our local for farmers and support sustainable production We need significant global coordinated action to transform our energy system to transform our food system to transform many aspects of our of our society. And that takes partnerships with government and the private sector so what can individuals do and think carefully about how to how to get involved civically how to encourage their elected representatives to address these issues. And, you know, in their work and their business to make partnerships with others that will help us move move forward. Those are, those are essential in addition to what we can do individually because individually we, we can. I don't think we can do enough I've got my solar panels I've got my electric car I eat organic food. But I know that that's not enough to do this problem by my own so we've got to we've got to find partners and push for more systemic change. I'm sure that you realize that many of the things you're saying were said in almost the same words in our movie. It's really remarkable that things you're saying are the same things I I hear the words of Aaron Bernstein in my head. Chip Fletcher these are scientists said that can interview you're saying the same thing so I want to ask you one last question. A little tender. And that is what you've seen the movie. I want you to think of the movie Richard and, and if you liked it, tell us now, if you didn't like it, tell us after the show is over. Okay, well in that case I like the movie. Yeah, I mean, I, I, shameless shameless. No, I think, you know, I thought I thought the movie was was was really good and I, and I, I particularly appreciated. You know, the fact that you were able to capture the long term changes that are happening in our environment and climate and their impact. The impact of climate disasters on people's lives and, and, and our health. And the fact that many of the drivers of this are are pretty fundamental to our economy and way of life and I really appreciated that I come from a background of disaster management. Most of my career, trying to prevent and respond to food crises and famines around the world that's what I've done for for most of my life and I got into climate change because I was trying to understand why in certain parts of the world. People were saying floods and droughts are getting more frequent and severe like what we used to get them every 10 years now we get them every four or five. And I worked with climate scientists like the ones you you talk to in the movie to try and figure out what was going on and it became really clear to me that the trends were, were there that that more frequent floods droughts and storms were happening you could you could see it in the climate data. It's based with the, the human consequences of that with kids not having enough to eat being malnourished and many of them dying in those places, more frequently than than than before and I think that really brought it home that it's not like the long term is important. But it's the, it's the extremes that happen along that road to a hotter planet that really are the most dangerous and I appreciate that you were able to bring that out in the, in the movie and show you know what happens when, when this flooding that increases people's exposure to poor sanitary conditions and diseases and mosquitoes. And that, that kind of storytelling was, was really, was really good in the movie so thanks. Thank you Richard. Ken what was the name of the movie again. I'll say it for Ken. It's a spiraling crisis the alarming convergence of climate change and COVID it seems to be truer every day. So Richard one last thing what's your website where we can find more. And then go to stop spillover.tux.edu. That's the best site to find out more information about stop spillover and all the great work the team is doing.