Science Friday - COVID Variants And Vaccines, U.S. Energy Justice. Feb 5, 2021, Part 1

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

Will Vaccines Work Against New Variants Of The Coronavirus? The rollout of COVID-19 vaccination programs around the world has been anything but smooth. Complicating the effort is the virus itself. The original coronavirus genome that the current vaccines were based on has mutated. Now, there are three virus variants, and experts are somewhat concerned. How will the vaccines scientists have worked so hard to make fare against these three variants, and future ones? Stephen Goldstein, post-doctoral researcher in evolutionary virology at the University of Utah, joins Ira to talk about what the new numbers on vaccine effectiveness against these variants really mean. This Biden Appointee Is Bringing Justice To Green Energy President Joe Biden has the most ambitious climate change agenda of any U.S. president in history. A large part of the plan is a shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy, like wind and solar power. A new member of Biden’s energy team wants to prioritize something we don’t normally hear from the federal government: energy justice, or making sure communities aren’t left behind, or stepped on, in pursuit of a greener world.  Shalanda Baker, deputy director for energy justice at the U.S. Department of Energy and law professor on leave at Northeastern University in Boston, joins Ira to talk about equitable energy, “The Big Greens,” and her new book, Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Guide to the Energy Transition. The Thinking Behind New Double-Masking Recommendations If you’re at the grocery store or taking a walk in the brisk winter air, you might see someone sporting the new pandemic trend—double masks. Sometimes it’s a cloth mask over an N95; sometimes it’s two fabric masks layered together. And it’s not because it’s cold out (although the extra warmth is nice). This week the CDC says it’s considering updating its masking guidelines to include wearing two masks, to protect against new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus. Sarah Zhang, staff writer for The Atlantic, joins Ira to discuss whether two masks are really better than one. Plus, how the U.K. is studying whether mixing Astrazeneca’s new vaccine with a dose of Pfizer or Moderna’s formula might actually be more effective at obtaining immunity. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. A bit later in the hour, how effective will vaccines be against new variants of the coronavirus? But first, if you're out at the grocery store or taking a walk, you might see someone sporting the new pandemic trend, double masks. Sometimes it's a cloth mask over an N95. Sometimes it's two fabric masks layered together. If you are already double-masked, you may be prescient because this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the CDC is considering updating its mask guidelines to suggest wearing two masks to protect against new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus. Here to share more about the thinking behind the double masking guidelines and to discuss other science news of the week is Sarah Zhang, staff writer for the Atlantic.

Hi, Sarah. Hi, Ira. Good to talk to you again. Nice to have you back. So we just got used to wearing one mask and now we can anticipate their saying it's time to up it to two? Well, I confess to having been someone who has occasionally worn a double mask myself, mostly in cases where I've been indoors talking to other people, which is kind of the most high-risk COVID situation, right? So, yeah, what are the benefits of two masks? Well, there are a couple of different ways to think about it. One is you're obviously

just getting another layer of filtration in front of your face, and that, you know, just kind of keeps out any particles. But maybe the bigger benefit is actually having a tighter seal or a tighter fit around your face. I think this is probably especially true if you're wearing a surgical mask as a first layer, which is kind of tends to be fairly loose, especially around your nose and maybe around your chin. And then you might wear a slightly better fitting cloth mask over it so that you just kind of don't get that air that's coming out, like, you know, around your mask and you're actually breathing through your mask. I wear glasses. So when I walk outside in the cold, it's really obvious to me when a mask is not fitting well. But what you're really trying to avoid is kind of like

breathing around the mask rather than through it. Yeah, I kind of test my mask. masks by putting my fingers on it and see if I'm pressing it, if I'm breathing more through the mask than at the top on the bottom, then I know it's not a good seal. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think if listeners have been lucky enough to get a N95 mask or one of the Kagan 95s, you'll probably know that those actually do kind of sit against your face a little bit tighter. They really do press against your face. Sarah, why do we need double masking at this time? Has it got something to do with the new variants of the coronavirus? Part of it is, you know, one is there's just a lot of COVID spread in general around right now,

but also the new variants are more transmissible. You know, the variance is not like the, it's not going to have magic powers. It's not going to automatically, like, jump through your mask. But what might be happening is that you might need, like, less of the virus to get sick. So a double mask is just kind of like an extra layer of protection, an extra precaution to kind of protect us against this more transmissible variant. There are also reports that the White House is considering sending everyone a cloth mask. Yeah, I think we should have probably done this a year ago. I think that would have really helped.

You know, I think it would be great to have masks available for everyone. Certainly, when I walk around outside, I sometimes feel people see people wearing scarves. I think it certainly would be better if they're wearing masks. If we could be getting anyone N95 masks, that would be even better. You know, also one of the things we haven't talked about much is the flu season. It's like run under the radar screen, and there are so many fewer cases of flu. Is that from the mask wearing or just people social distancing or both, do you think? Yeah, yeah, flu has like almost completely disappeared.

It's probably a little bit of both. I think what we're seeing is that our measures that are being used to contain COVID or have been really, really good at containing flu. So, you know, as you mentioned, we are wearing masks more. There's more social distancing. A lot of schools are also closed or, you know, are also kind of precautions in place in schools. In the past, you know, kids tend to be a pretty big vector for flus. I think that's probably another reason we're just seeing very, very little of it.

But, yeah, it's really astonishing if you're just talking to people in public health. And I think it shows that COVID is a lot more infectious than the flu. And flu shots? Are people getting flu shots at the regular rate, or has that dropped off also? That's a good question. I know earlier last year people were, you know, really trying to encourage people get flu shots because we're afraid of a quote-unquote twin-demic of COVID and the flu. I don't know if we have the numbers for this year yet, but I think the flu drops off have been so dramatic that just vaccination alone would not explain it. Let's talk about other COVID-related news.

We got some new data this week from the UK, and the UK is looking into whether you can mix a shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine with a shot of the Pfizer or a Moderna vaccine. I guess sort of mixing and matching. Tell us how that would work and what they are studying. Yeah, yeah. The UK is starting a trial to see if you can mix and match these vaccines. So the idea of why you would want to do this is partly just because it would be a lot easier, right? If you, you know, when you have all these for vaccines, if you don't have to worry about making sure you have exactly the same one, it'll just be easier to administer. There's sort of no specific reason to think that it would be bad and there's no specific reason to think that it would not. work, but we always just want to run the trials and have the data to make sure there's nothing

unexpected. The reason we might think that two different doses of two different vaccines will probably work is because basically all of the vaccines we have have a very similar target. So, you know, vaccines kind of present a snapshot of a virus for your immune system. And basically all the vaccines present the exact same snapshot. It's the spike protein of the coronavirus. And so what's different about the AstraZanka vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine is not the snapshot they're presenting, but the way they're getting it to yourselves. Yeah, we'll be talking a lot more about vaccinations a little bit later in the program. Meanwhile, Johnson and Johnson filed for emergency use authorization on Thursday with the FDA. They were expected to do that. So what is the timeline

that we might expect to see the Johnson and Johnson vaccine? And if I heard them correctly, that's just a one-shotter, is it not? Yeah, that's right. That's part of the excitement that'll be a lot easier to roll out a one-dose vaccine. So I think we can probably expect it in early March. The process will probably be very similar to what happened with Pfizer-Modonor vaccines. The FDA is currently going to be reviewing lots and lots of data. On February 26th, I believe a FDA advisory committee is going to have a public meeting, which you and I can watch on YouTube if we have a day where we want to do that. and then we can probably expect an emergency youth authorization very quickly after that. The possible limiting factor right now is that Johnson & Johnson doesn't have that many vaccines, like currently sitting on shelves waiting to be used.

So I think the latest reporting has said there were probably be single digit millions. So this will be a, you know, definitely be more vaccines, but won't be like a huge flood of new vaccines yet. So it could be maybe the middle of the summer or the beginning of the summer, or the beginning of the summer before we see any large quantities of the Johnson and Johnson. Let's talk about this month marking the 20th anniversary of the first human genome getting published. Boy, I remember that back in February of 2001. Can it be 20 years already? Did you cover on this show back then?

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it was huge news, right? I think what was, so what happened 20 years ago is that the first drafts of the human genome were published in the journal's nature and science. And the reason there were two papers, listeners might remember, is that there was a huge rivalry between a kind of publicly funded group led by the National Institutes of Health and then a private company, and they were in this, like, bitter rivalry, like racing against each other. The first drafts were published 20 years ago now. And it was really a first draft. I think when scientists first went through the human genome, they were just really surprised to realize that there

were way fewer genes than they expected. Yeah, that was the big news. How could we have so few genes? Yeah, right. And there was a lot of this quote-unquote junk DNA. I think in the 20-year sense, we've learned a lot more about what this quote-unquote junk DNA is, and it's probably not so junk.

What it probably does is it helps us regulate to what genes are actually expressed. And so there's been a lot of, you know, we learn a lot in the 20 years, and we kind of filled in the parts of the genome as well that were originally a little bit patchy. Yeah, we had an unofficial rule on Science Friday, never to call it junk DNA.

That's a good one. If it's been conserved for who knows how many hundreds of thousands of years, you know, we must be doing something with it, right? Yeah, yeah. And I think we've really seen that in the past 20 years of research. And you know, it's amazing how comfortable people have become with the idea of reading their genome or getting their ancestry info from it. We've developed a whole industry around this.

But I don't think people actually thought a whole lot about anticipating how their genome might be sold to third parties. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think, you know, we're getting some news this week that 23 and me is getting ready to go public as a company. Early on, there was so much excitement about the health information of DNA. And certainly there's, you know, been some big advancements. But I think for the most part, even folks at 23 and me would tell you, they're a surprised at how many people are really just interested in the ancestry part and not necessarily so much the health part. So I think we are, you know, we're kind of in this moment where people, people are really, it's in consumers' hands now. We have the democratization of DNA. But there's still

a lot that we don't know about how health might be impacted by your genes and how much is actually environment and your upbringing instead. The fear back then, and I think some of the fear now, is still that health insurance companies might deny you coverage if they look into your genome and say, uh-oh, you're susceptible to such and such a disease. Yeah, we currently do have a law so that health insurance can't do that. But there might be other areas such as life insurance where they might be be able to look at your genes and deny you coverage for various reasons. So I think, you know, as we get more and more genome sequencing, as we're getting more DNA tests, like this will be an issue that continues. Let's move on to some final fun creature news. For those of you into reptiles,

which so many of us are, scientists say they have found the tiniest chameleon ever discovered. How tiny is that? It's as small as a sunflower seed and can fit on the tip of your finger. How do you find one like that? I can easily say that's why they're there and we're here because that's not our job, but how do you do that? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know. I wish the scientist who discovered to told us a little bit more, but this chameleon is found in Madagascar,

and it kind of lives in like the leaf litter, the dead leaves are on the floor of the rainforest. And so it seems to eat other tiny bugs, even smaller than it. I don't know who, who, like, you know, was painstakingly going through the leaf litter to look for this very, very tiny reptile. Do they think there might be even a smaller one out there? Yeah, that's a great question, right? We obviously do have smaller animals that are insects. But there might be some theoretical limit to how small a reptile can be. One problem is that when you're smaller, your surface area to volume ratio is bigger.

So this means like water starts evaporating from you faster. You know, insects obviously have these hard shells that protect them. But, you know, are reptiles? Did they have a limit to how small they can go before they just kind of, the laws of physics don't work anymore? All right. Thank you very much for taking time to be with us today. All right. Thank you.

Sarah Zang, staff writer for the Atlantic. When we come back, what about those new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus? Will our vaccines work against them also? We'll break down everything you need to know after this. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. The rollout of COVID vaccination programs around the world has been anything but smooth. And complicating the effort is the virus itself. The original coronavirus genome on which our vaccines were based has mutated,

resulting in three variants that have experts somewhat concerned. How will the vaccine scientists have worked so hard to make, fair against these three variants and even future ones. Here to tell us everything we want to know about vaccines and variants is Dr. Stephen Goldstein, a postdoctoral researcher in evolutionary virology at the University of Utah. Thank you for having me. Hope I didn't put you off by saying you're going to tell us everything we want to know. I'll do my best.

I'm sure you will. Okay, let's talk about what a variant is. Now, the virus is constantly mutating, right? Is that what causes these variants? That's exactly right. So the virus is constantly mutating, and there are many different variants. Most of them not of concern. These three that we've kind of all become more familiar with are what are termed variants of concern. And that's because they have particular mutations or sets of mutations that do give us concerns that they may be more transmissible or, you know, affect vaccine efficacy, as you alluded to. We have been hearing the word variant and the word strain being used interchangeably. Is that correct? Are they the same? we probably shouldn't use them quite interchangeably. Like I said, there are variants associated with all the different mutations that are happening all the time.

We'd probably shift a variant over into the strain category once we've confirmed that there is some different biological property about it. So is it more transmissible? Is it more or less deadly? And so some of these probably, you know, the B-117 variant in particular that's come out of the UK, we can probably call that a strain at this point. the other two, probably also, but maybe there's some difference of opinion on whether we're there or not. Well, let me talk about the U.K. variant first because of that you bring it up. There is a report that the U.K. virus, the one that is more contagious, has acquired the worrisome mutation seen in the South African virus and the mutation found in the Brazilian virus.

Does that double dip making an extra burden for the vaccines? So it just brings it closer to what that South African virus. variant and the Brazilian variant already appear to be. It's a particular mutation that's shared by the South African and Brazilian variants that some viruses in this UK lineage appear to have acquired. Most of the virus circulating in the UK doesn't have that particular mutation right now. And it's not clear if that, as you called, the kind of double-dipping variant is really going to take over or not. We'll have to wait and see. It would pose similar concerns that the South African and Brazilian ones pose right now. But I don't think we're quite there yet as far as

really kind of looking down that barrel. I've heard that some of the mutations in these variants affects quote unquote neutralization. What does that mean? So neutralization is a term looking at what's going on in the lab. So it basically means how well the serum from somebody who's either recovered from COVID or been vaccinated with one of the vaccines, you take their blood serum and you mix it with the virus and look at how much of that serum you need to prevent or reduce the infectivity, the infection by that virus. And that's what we call the level of neutralization. The amount you can dilute that person's serum by and still say reduce infection in the lab by 50% or 80%. You can pick whatever number you want.

Let's talk about effective vaccinations. What do we mean when we say we hear if vaccines are less effective against variants? What does less effective mean? mean? It's a good question because we have to really think about what the vaccine trials are measuring. So most of them are measuring symptomatic COVID could be mild, moderate, or severe. And so that in many cases, you know, Moderna and Pfizer, at least specifically, means any one of the symptoms associated with COVID. So if you got a cough or a fever, whether alone or together, and that's the worst that happened, that would be considered an event that's a vaccine failure. But what we have seen is these vaccines still seem completely effective against the variants at preventing severe disease,

hospitalization, and death, which are really the bottom line for most of us. If, you know, the vaccines lose some efficacy at preventing you from essentially getting a cold, but your chances of getting really sick or dying are still 0%. That's the pretty great outcome still. So if you have a vaccine that's effective, let's say, at 50%, that's still pretty good because it could prevent you from developing the severe part of complications. That's exactly right. So that Novavax trial where we saw the efficacy in South Africa was 50% instead of the 90% that was seen in other parts of the world. There was still nobody infected with that South African variant who was hospitalized or died. So that's why we have to be careful about these efficacy numbers. It still looks like you're in pretty good shape here. Let's talk about these vaccines. The Pfizer, the Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Novavix. They have all tested their vaccines against these variants. And I understand that they each did it a bit differently, right? Yeah, they did do it a bit differently, partially by just by luck. So, you know, Moderna and Pfizer were running their trials months ago. These variants hadn't even appeared yet. So they couldn't have tested them against these variants in the real world. Johnson and Johnson and Johnson and NovaVax have been running their trials later.

and they happen to be running them in South Africa, which lucked them into the opportunity to directly see how their vaccines work against the South African variant. Moderna and Pfizer are sort of limited to lab studies right now. And what does that mean about the quality of the testing that's going on, if they're testing them different ways? It means that we certainly have more real-world data about Johnson and Johnson and Novavax, which of course is our favorite kind of data to have. What we can do, though, is take the serum from people who have gotten the Johnson

and Johnson or NovaVax vaccines and do the same kind of tests that are being done with serum from people vaccinated with the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. And given we know what kind of efficacy impact we've seen against the two that were trialed in South Africa, if we do those lab experiments in parallel, we can probably make some pretty good inferences about the efficacy of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Are we equally concerned about the three variants, the UK, the South Africa and the Brazil one? Or should we be concerned, about one more than the other? So I think right now we should actually be concerned most about the UK variant,

not because it necessarily seems to really impact vaccine efficacy, but because it seems to be the best established already in the U.S. compared to the other two variants, and it clearly does appear to be more transmissible. So as our vaccine rollout is going kind of slowly, there's a risk that as this UK variant spreads more rapidly, that we could have a few more surges to deal with, with because of this UK variant. Concerns about vaccine efficacy, I think, are a little farther down

the line because the viruses that are circulating in the U.S. right now are totally susceptible to the vaccines that people are getting in the U.S. right now. And as we discussed, the vaccines are likely to prevent severe disease, even among people infected with the South African or Brazil variants. So I think what we have to worry about now is the virus that's spreading here the most. And how could you tweak the vaccine we're giving out to make it more effective? Is it a simple tweak or do you have to start all over again? From a technical standpoint, it's a pretty simple tweak. You would just exchange the genetic code, the spike protein, genetic code that's in the vaccines,

switch it. So you have the genetic code for the spike protein that's in the South Africa or Brazil variant. And then you'd have to produce that, of course, takes a bit of time and go through whatever regulatory steps the FDA says are necessary to approve an updated vaccine. But technically in the lab, it's pretty trivial. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were made from the latest technology, the MRNA technology. But some people have called into question whether they're working as well as traditional vaccines. Are there any clues that the way these vaccines were made is contributing to their ability

to neutralize the virus in these new variants? As far as I can tell, my read of the data is that these MRNA vaccines are spectacular and that they basically appear to be as effective as any vaccines we have on the market for any viral infection. There's a question, of course, of how long the immunity will last and how often we may need to update the vaccines based on the virus mutating. And those are questions that just remain to be answered. But as far as the efficacy at this point, they look incredible. And of course, there's the question, will we have to keep getting vaccinated to keep up with these variants. And to look for that answer, we spoke with Dr. Adam Lurring, a clinical immunologist

at the University of Michigan, and he shared his thoughts on a potential vaccine schedule. The way I look at it, we're somewhere along the spectrum between polio, measles, hepatitis B, but then there's flu. What's unclear, I think, is where we're going to end up with SARS-CoV-2 on that spectrum. I guess I would be surprised if we're every year. but I would be surprised if it were every couple years, or every three years or something like that. So would you agree, then we might be taking booster shots every few years for this virus? I think that's probably right. Looking at data from other coronaviruses that generally cause the common cold,

so not a huge concern medically, but they do seem to change enough over the course of a few years that our immune systems sort of lose some of their ability to recognize them. And if we expect SARS-CoV-2 to take a fairly similar course, it makes sense that maybe every two, three, four years we might need to get an updated booster shot. Is there a way to make a vaccine that would work against all the mutations, a universal vaccine? And if theoretically that were possible, where would and how would that work? This is one of my favorite questions, because this is something that I actually think should be a huge priority for our biomedical research funding agencies. In theory, it should be possible.

And people have been working for years on universal influenza vaccines. And I think some of the same principles can be used to guide our research in trying to make universal coronavirus vaccines. The idea here would be to develop vaccines that would guide the immune system to target parts of the coronavirus spike protein that don't change very much, the least likely parts of the protein to mutate. And we already know where those are. The question is how do we shape our immune response to direct it towards those areas?

And we just need the research. to do that. But I think theoretically it's possible and needs to be done. Dr. Goldstein, I've been learning from scientists that the vaccines that we have now result from a lot of the work done to try to find an HIV vaccine. Do you think that if we work on this a little bit more, it might push the development of an HIV vaccine? Well, I think from a technology standpoint, the pandemic has clearly accelerated the development timelines for mRNA vaccines and for, frankly, for the ad no virus-vectored vaccines as well, like the Oxford vaccine or Johnson and Johnson, HIV is a difficult target because it mutates so rapidly. And so the reasons why we don't

have an HIV vaccine, I think, go well beyond technological standpoint. But if these new technologies make it easier to develop an HIV vaccine, then that would be great. And we've certainly jumped ahead in our technical achievements with some of these platforms. I want to go back to the future for a minute and talk about the first vaccines that were made with the virus itself that was inactivated or weakened going all the way back to Louis Pasteur and then into the polio vaccine. What is wrong with that technology to create vaccines of today? So inactivated vaccines, there's nothing wrong with them. I think that the mRNA and ad no virus vaccines have a bit of an advantage because our immune

response kind of has two different elements to it. So one are the antibodies we've all heard so much about, and those are assisted, the development of those is assisted by helper T cells. There's another part of the immune response called the killer T cells. And what those can do is if the virus kind of slips past your first line of defense, even if you've been vaccinated, those can swoop in and kill the cells that have been infected and nip the infection in the bud. Inactivated vaccines only produce that first part, that helper T cell and antibody response,

which when it works is great. doesn't really give you that last line of defense that you get from, say, these MRNA or adenovirus technology vaccines. And so that's why I really like those. And it's always good to have a backup, right? Exactly. It's always good to have a backup. The live attenuated or weakened vaccines do this, too. The issue is they can't often be given to people who are immunocompromised because even a weakened version of a virus could cause disease in someone who's immunocompromised, whether through some sort of disease or medical treatment, often they're not given to women in pregnancy. So these new technologies

have a lot of the benefits of those without the downsides. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios, talking about COVID-19 mutations and vaccines with Dr. Stephen Goldstein, a postdoctoral researcher in evolutionary virology at the University of Utah. Do all three vaccines do the same thing, have this backup system to boost the efficacy of the vaccines? So the Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson, and Johnson, and Oxford vaccines all produce the antibody helper T-cell side and the killer T-cells. And that's because the spike protein is made in your body, right? We're injecting the genetic information, but then your own cells actually make the spike protein. And that's the key difference. That kind of mimics natural infection.

The Novobacs are just injecting the spike protein in. And so your body sees it outside of your cells and makes antibodies and those helper T cells, but that's it. And this is just like a technical point of immunology to get that killer T cell response. You need that protein that's provoking the immune response to be made inside your cells. Well, so if I could choose which vaccine to get, I'd want to get that extra one. I would as well. I would say, you know, right now, while we're supply limited, if you have a chance to get a COVID vaccine, get that COVID vaccine. They all work. And, you know, it's worth pointing out that even the Novavax vaccine protected very well against severe disease, even from the variant. But, you know, yeah, if you could go to the doctor's

office and choose from a menu, I would personally choose one of the vaccines that is going to get those killer T cells cranking as well. Would it be fair to say that over time the vaccines, the number, their high efficacy number is going to drop and drop as these variants come out? And at what point do we need to actually tweak them? And who makes that decision about tweaking them? So I think it's fair to say that over time, some of those efficacy numbers may start to come down a bit. Again, though, that may not mean that people are becoming more susceptible to severe disease or death. But of course, we'd like to keep people completely healthy if we can. To figure out exactly when we need to tweak them, I think that's a question we don't really have an exact answer to yet.

We need to figure out what are known as correlates of protection, which means we need to figure out what level of antibodies you need to. need to have to be protected. And then if, you know, people's antibody levels against a particular strain start to decrease towards that level, that minimum level, correlative protection, we'd probably talk about updating the vaccine. But they're going to make these formulations in advance, the updated formulations, and then we'll be able to pick whichever one seems to be most urgent to actually put into production. The timeline for that actually happening, of course, depends on both manufacturing and regulatory questions. And the manufacturing, you know, hopefully with more money, we can develop the capacity

to maybe in parallel as we continue to manufacture the current vaccine formulations, start manufacturing the updated one. And I can imagine that we'd be ready to start boosting people, you know, towards the end of this year, which seems sufficiently quick to me. If we do start boosting people towards the end of this year, I don't think that means we're going to need boosters every year. It may mean we need a relatively quick booster this first year or two or two or two of the pandemic. And then I think it's more likely we're onto something like a two to three to four year schedule. Well, the timeline could then depend on how much money

we have to spend on getting those new vaccines out, would they not? Money always helps in science. Always makes things move faster. It certainly does. Well, we'll all hope for that. And I want to thank you very much, Dr. Goldstein, for taking time to talk with us. having me. Stephen Goldstein, a postdoctoral researcher in evolutionary virology at the University of Utah. We're going to take a break, and when we come back, a conversation about making our greener future equitable with the first ever presidential appointee for energy justice, Shalanda Baker. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. President Biden has the most ambitious climate change agenda of any U.S. president. A big part of that plan,

is a shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy like wind and solar. A new member of Biden's energy team wants to prioritize something we don't normally hear from the federal government. Energy justice, making sure communities are not left behind or stepped on in the pursuit of a greener world. Shalonda Baker is author of a new book, Revolutionary Power, an activist's Guide to the Energy Transition. She is the new deputy Director for Energy Justice at the U.S. Department of Energy and a law professor on leave at Northeastern University in Boston, where she's talking to us today. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you. I want to say congratulations. You're in a new White House administration with a first

ever position. How does that feel? Well, you know, I'm honored. It is very much the culmination of a career's worth of work at the intersection of energy and equity. And I think, think it'll be the thrill of a lifetime to work with this administration to create an energy system that works for all of us. Let's talk about the core phrase in your new title, energy justice. How do you describe this concept? In my mind, energy justice is really about ensuring that the benefits and burdens of the energy system are equitably distributed. And further, it's about centering the voices of those who have been most harmed and most marginalized by the existing system. So it's a paradigm shift. It's about participation and it's about equity and ensuring that, you know,

folks have a leg up in this new system. The cover of your book evokes the black power fist. Why is this important for you to have this imagery front and center? Sure, you know, it's funny. I think the cover can be interpreted in so many different ways. You know, some folks said, oh, it looks like the sword supply chairs, you know, there's so many different ways that you can interpret the cover. But I really wanted to evoke the sense of people power. I wanted to evoke the sense of folks coming together to create a system that works for them. And, you know, there is also an image of someone holding up a wind turbine, which is to say that we are moving into a clean energy future and we very much have a stake in that future. So

there are a lot of different ways to interpret the cover, but I love the idea that this speaks to the lexicons and the imagery of the black power movement as well. But it's interesting that you put it that way, because if you have a fist holding up a wind turbine, that's a new kind of power. It really is. It really is. And so, you know, I come to this work, having observed energy transitions in Mexico, so I spent, gosh, you know, a decade almost of my academic career looking at the impacts of

large-scale wind energy developments in Waxaca, Mexico. And I also had a front-row seat to Hawaii's energy transition from 2014 and 2017. And in each case, it was clear to me that the leaders, the stakeholders, the decision-makers who were engaged in that transition were basically seeing the transition as a technical one, right? One where we're simply switching out the fuels from fossil fuel-based energy sources to clean energy sources. But they didn't see the deeper, structural transformation that is possible in this transition. And so, yes, this is very much a call to communities to get engaged in the very, very, very technical policy elements of this transition. And how would they do that? How can these communities get engaged this way?

Sure. Well, so I stand on the shoulders of so many activists who have been engaged in justice movements since the Black Power movement that you spoke about. But we can really mark engagement and environmental issues to the late 70s and early 80s, where we had just seen this incredible decade of environmental legislation get passed in a bipartisan manner by Congress. And, you know, it was really a high watermark for the environmental movement. But in the late 70s and 80s, communities of color realized that those laws were not impacting their lives in beneficial ways. And they were still sort of being sought out. for the siting of, you know, waste, the siding of, you know, polluting facilities.

And so the environmental justice movement really emerged in the 80s as a counterbalance, in some ways, to the mainstream environmental movement. And from there, we also saw the climate justice movement really takes shape in the 90s and 2000s. And now we have this thing called the energy justice. I would call it a movement that is very much about ensuring that this clean energy transition doesn't leave them behind. And so there's already an infrastructure of activism and advocacy related to the environment and climate. And so folks need only plug into those networks to get

engaged in this new movement. And what would be the metrics that you would use to judge whether this new movement is getting the results that you talk about? And this is where it gets really exciting, Ira. So we are transforming every aspect of our energy economy. We are transforming the transportation sector. We're transforming the energy system, which is to say the electricity system. We are in need of, again, that deep, deep transition, that deep decarbonization work away from fossil fuels to clean energy. And what I would use as sort of a measuring stick are a couple things. One, are communities meaningfully engaged in this transition process? So, you know, the rubber hits the road, and not to get too wonky on you, but the rubber hits the road on energy policy

in regulatory proceedings around the country. So are communities really engaged in those regulatory proceedings? Are they getting support, technical assistance to participate in those hyper-technical proceedings that are really the place where the benefits and burdens are ultimately distributed? So we're talking about the siting, which is to say the locating of energy facilities. Are they engaged there? The second piece of that is the distributive justice piece. So are communities actually getting the benefits, the economic benefits that inevitably will flow from this transition.

And so that means communities of color, which so far have been left out of this solar transition, have increased penetration of solar in their communities. There are other mechanisms such as community solar. where renters and condominium dwellers can engage in this transition by signing into a project or coming together as a community to create their own energy projects. So those are the things that I'll be looking at. I'll also be looking at at the end of the day, how much people are paying for electricity and energy. Our bills still extraordinary. Right now, we know that low-income communities and communities of color are more likely to pay a disproportionate amount of their overall income.

simply to meet energy needs, which some have seen as a human right. And so in this country, we've got to reckon with all of those aspects of our energy system. Let's talk about that energy system. Is there an actual formal plan and legislation to bring about the kinds of jobs and the kinds of industry change that you're talking about? Well, so the nominee for the Secretary of Energy at Governor Granholm, Jennifer Granholm, is currently making her way through the process. And we are all anxiously waiting to see what her priorities will be. She hopefully takes that role in the coming weeks. Right now, there are a few

different bills, I think, that are on the table in Congress. But there is no actual legislation that has been passed that is specific to this particular energy transition. So we're sort of in this lull, you know, we're waiting to see kind of, again, what the executive branch comes out with. And I, as an employee and really waiting for that. And we're also, I think, going to let Congress kind of work its process out. But I would be remiss without mentioning this sort of groundbreaking executive order that the White House did issue last week was on Climate Day, which very much spoke to issues of equity and justice. And, you know, around the movement, you could really just hear a collective, you know, sigh or, you know, an exhale as people realize that

We are in a new moment and we really have an opportunity to create something special. You know, as someone who was around during the first Earth Day in 1970 and started covering the environment back in that day, it does feel like there is a little bit of that excitement about a new day occurring. Right, right. It really feels like that. And I don't think you can overstate that, Ira. I mean, I was in a lot of meetings last week, and at the top of every meeting, people were sort of like, can you believe what happened? You know? I mean, it's just extraordinary. I think in particular, coming on the heels of a four-year period where there was an all-out constant assault on the environment and on communities of color, vis-a-vis some of the rollbacks that the former president enacted.

And so we are in a new moment, and there really isn't any time to wait. I mean, the first Earth Day in 1970, that was over. Not to, not to show your age here. I wrote, it was a long time ago, right? It was. We had rivers that caught fire. That's how long ago that was. That's how long ago that was.

That's right. So, you know, we've come a long way and we have so far to go, but we don't have a lot of time to do that. There is an urgency. And what I love, I mean, as a professor, I had the privilege and honor to interact with students who were just like, why are we still talking about this? We need to move quickly. And so I know that the generations that are coming behind us are anxious to see us make progress now because we're working on their behalf. I imagine that one of the reasons that you were chosen for this position is because energy justice is a very personal philosophy for you,

because you were exposed to these inequities at a young age. Tell us a little bit about that. if you will. Oh, sure. Yeah. So thank you for referencing that and lifting up my own history and my family story. So my first encounter with Energy Justice really was when I was about eight or 10. I mean, I come from a family where my parents were divorced. And so I had the opportunity to go down to a place called Port Arthur, Texas, to visit my dad and his family. And Port Arthur, Texas is both the birthplace of the modern fossil fuel industry and the epicenter and spine of it, I think. What I didn't know at that time, you know, at eight or nine years old, was that it is also an environmental justice community. So the people there are mainly low income, black and Latinx folks, and they very much rely on the

fossil fuel industry that has shaped their lives and the petrochemical industry that has shaped their lives in so many different ways. My own father worked for the electric utility as a worker way out offshore. My grandfather worked for the Texaco refinery. And my father and his brothers grew up in the Carver Terrace housing projects, which were a fence-line community right up against the fence of the Texaco refinery. And so my family's lives were shaped in profound ways by the oil and gas industry. But I didn't see that. at that age. It wasn't until I became a scholar. And I got curious about my own family history that I realized that I, too, have been shaped by energy policy and by the choices that we've

made around energy and the design of our energy system. And so I grew up with my mom in Austin, and she was a low-income single mom who was a government worker. And so she was right at the border between actually qualifying for meaningful public assistance and having to sort of scraped together her money on a monthly basis to meet our bills. And so she was always sort of juggling, you know, paying one bill or not paying the other. And I remember, you know, using the oven to heat our home on some nights and using boiling water to heat our baths. And, you know, all of these memories sort of came flooding back as I started to write this book, both thinking about my father and his community. And, you know, I also should say that he passed away very much, I think as a result of

growing up in a community where the air quality is so bad that even today, there are calls for folks to shelter in place. And so he grew up in a place that was so toxic that I think ended his life too soon. His brother also died in his 30s. His mother died in her 50s. So, you know, this is a part of my history. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Talking with Shalanda Baker, Deputy Director for Energy Justice for the U.S. Department of Energy, and author of the book, Revolutionary Power, An Activist's Guide to Energy Transition. You talk in your book about the big greens,

well-funded environmental organizations that historically have not thought about energy justice. Are you going to have to help them understand what that is about? Well, so, I mean, there's no secret among those who are advocates for climate justice, energy justice and environmental justice, that they have had an uncomfortable and difficult relationship with the big greens. And so we should define that. The big greens are those organizations that did come out of the 70s in the environmental movement,

the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council. These are enormous organizations with sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of their budget. And they have done so much, I should say, to advance environmental good in the world. So I do want to say that. But they have also done so at the expense of equity

and jettisoning equity in some ways and often sort of forcing the most under-resourced organizations and communities to say, look, equity issues are important and we should actually be centering them in our approach to law and policy. And so I critique the big greens, because I think we are in this moment where we finally have policymakers who are listening to the environmental movement.

And we know that we cannot engage in this transition in a way that simply replicates or reifies inequality. And so we have to create alliances between the sort of well-funded, well-financed big greens and the scrappy grassroots organizations that see the impact of climate change in their day-to-day lives and see the impacts of the dirty fossil fuel system. in their daily lives. And so I think a lot of that work is already happening. So I'm not going to, you know, take that on myself. But I wanted to call it out in the book because it is such a part of the dynamic within the environmental justice movement and in the environmental movement at

large. Will there be a signal for you in your job when you know the administration is serious about environmental justice? How will you know, I guess, that you're making an impact? Well, so the signal for me was January 27th and the climate order that the White House issued. I mean, that to me was a signal that the administration is serious. So I think we're really on a transformative path. I mean, I wouldn't have joined in this effort if I thought they were not serious. And, you know, I think it says volumes to just create a position like the Deputy Director for Energy Justice in this new administration. So I'm excited. I'm not naive about the pace of government. And again, I anxiously await the final arrival of the governor, Jennifer Granholm, into the Secretary's Will and the Department of Energy so that we can really get to work on advancing issues of justice and issues of climate justice as we move forward. Well, we wish you great success.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Shalanda Baker, Deputy Director for Energy Justice at the U.S. Department of Energy, author of the new book, Revolutionary Power, an activist guide to the Energy Transition. And that's about all the time we have for this hour. Charles Berkowitz is our director. Our producers are Christy Taylor, Katie Feather, and Kathleen Davis. Our senior producer is Alexa Lim, contributing producer, John Dan Koski. BJ Leatherman composed our theme music.

And this week on the Science Friday Voxpop app, Dr. Anthony Fauci will be on our show in a couple of weeks. What questions do you have for him? Send us your questions for Dr. Fauci. That's on the Science Friday Voxpop app, wherever you get your apps. Have a great weekend. I'm Ira Flato.