Science Friday - Vaccine Hesitancy, Colorado River Drought, Alternative Syrups. May 28, 2021, Part 1

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

How Do We Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy? This Memorial Day weekend, many people will be traveling to the beach, hitting the road or socializing with friends—maskless—for the first time in over a year. As of this week, 50% of people over 18 are now fully vaccinated. Another 15 to 20% of people are taking a “wait and see” approach. Of those still on the fence, some are concerned about the vaccine’s side effects; others have a long standing mistrust of the institutions responsible for the vaccine rollout. In order to fully end the pandemic, public health officials will have to find a way to get the vaccine-hesitant on board. Dr. Gary Bennett, professor of psychology and global health at Duke University sheds light on the hurdles that must be overcome. And a new segment of the population can now receive the Pfizer vaccine: children 12 years and older, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave approval in mid-May. But many American parents don’t want their children vaccinated at all—including for measles or the flu. One recent report from this past April showed that over 30% of parents would wait to get their child vaccinated—nearly double the percentage of adults who were hesitant. Matthew Simonson, a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University and lead author on the report, joins us to break down the numbers.     What Happens When The Colorado River Runs Dry? Dry conditions are the worst they’ve been in almost 20 years across the Colorado River watershed, which acts as the drinking and irrigation water supply for 40 million people in the American Southwest. As the latest round of federal forecasts for the river’s flow shows, it’s plausible, maybe even likely, that the situation could get much worse this year. Understanding and explaining the depth of the dryness is up to climate scientists throughout the basin.  Read the full article at sciencefriday.com.     Making Syrup From More Than Maple Trees Researchers at the University of New Hampshire are studying new ways to make syrup out of the northern forest—not from maple trees, but from beeches, birches, sycamores and more. They want to create new markets for an industry that, right now, depends on just one kind of tree—making it vulnerable to disease and climate change. At the tail end of maple sugaring season, other kinds of sap were still flowing freely in the woods of Lee. UNH researcher David Moore had sensors plugged into a stand of beech trees to measure that sap and the conditions helping produce it. “You can see I have three trees with sensors here that are all tied back to one data logger,” Moore said, pointing to the tubes and wires running from the beech trunks. Nearby, a bucket collected the resulting sap, while other equipment gathered weather data. Researchers say monocultures, like the all-maple syrup industry, are more at risk from climate change, pests and other unpredictable threats. So Moore sees untapped potential in other common species, like the American beech. It’s found throughout New Hampshire’s forests, farms and sugar bushes—almost like a tree weed. “If you can think of some economical use—if you can make syrup from them, that would be a nice way to actually generate a little profit from them,” Moore said. Read the full article at sciencefriday.com.     Big Oil Reckons With Climate Change Depending on your perspective, Wednesday was a bad day to be an oil company, or a good day to be a climate activist. Three major oil companies had climate change pushed higher on their agendas: Shell was ordered by a Dutch court to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030; Chevron was told by its shareholders to reduce not just its emissions from oil production, but also those of its customers; and at Exxon’s annual shareholder meeting, a small advocacy firm managed to score two, and possibly three, spots on its board of directors. So where did these climate coups come from, and what could come next? Vox staff writer Umair Irfan talks to John Dankosky about this week’s wins for the planet, as well as the limits of such reforms. Plus other stories from the week, including Moderna’s promising COVID-19 vaccine results in adolescents aged 12-17, and President Biden’s call for more investigation into COVID-19’s origins.   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 John Dankoski in for Ira Flato. Later this hour, we'll talk about the 15 to 20 percent of Americans who are still in weight and sea mode about getting the COVID vaccine. And we'll look at how drought in the Southwest is affecting the Colorado River Basin. But first, depending on your perspective, Wednesday was a bad day to be an oil company or a good day to be a climate activist. Three major oil companies had climate change pushed higher on their agendas. Shell was ordered by a Dutch court to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Chevron was told by its shareholders to reduce not just its emissions from oil production, but also those of its customers.

And at Exxon's annual shareholder meeting, a small climate advocacy group managed to score seats on its board of directors. So where do these climate coups come from? And what could come next? Vox staff writer Umer Erfond is here to talk about this big story. Welcome back to the program, Umair. Thanks for having me. So I just ran through these oil company stories. pretty quickly. Maybe you can dig into them in a bit more detail. A lot happened on this one big day. Yeah, that's right. You know, one of the biggest ones was at Shell. This is a major international oil company. And a Dutch court ruled that essentially they have to control their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. Now, Shell did put out a plan a few years ago saying

that they were going to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But crucially, this ruling says that they have to account for what's known as scope three, which is basically not just the emissions that they produce, but emissions that are produced from burning their product by their customers. And so that means that they have a much larger scope of responsibility here. And what this ruling will likely mean is that they'll have to actually stop, you know, combusting and also drilling for more oil. So this is a fundamental change to their business model. A fundamental change they're coming from the courts. In some ways, though, these other moves that are really shareholder based might make even more of an impact. Talk us through those. Right. So these shareholder old companies mean that, you know,

investors have a say in how these companies are run. And more recently, climate activists have found that they can get a seat at the table by buying stock in these companies. And in the case of Exxon this week, yes, there was an investment firm that literally got seats on their board. And they have two. They potentially get up to three seats. And this is a way that they've been able to, you know, make their voices heard.

Essentially, they have these big meetings that these companies are required to hold. They can make their case for why actually addressing climate change is a good business decision, but also that continuing to drill for oil is a bad decision. And that's kind of what's interesting here with both Conoco Phillips and Chevron is that they're making the case that this is a business benefit to address and mitigate climate change and that it's causing harm if they don't. What are some of the limitations of the power that shareholders actually have to force any change in these companies, though? I mean, the big thing is that these companies are obligated to generate a profit for their shareholders. And so anything that requires an investment up front has to

translate into something that's going to generate a profit down the line. And so that business case has to be made. They're legally obligated to do this. They can actually be sued if they do things that are counterproductive to their shareholders. So it's really hard to make that case. But in recent years, you know, with this global push for climate action, with companies coming out with their own developments and technologies and also governments starting to impose more restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, these shareholders, these activists are actually able to make a compelling business case that it makes sense to actually start addressing climate change to start diversifying the business portfolio and dealing with the world past oil.

Despite all this good news for climate activists, though, it should be clear that there are plenty of big oil companies that just can't be forced to change at all through these kind of avenues. That's right. You know, these are the investor-owned oil companies that we're talking about, but the largest share of oil production right now is being held by nationally owned oil companies. So these are basically government-run corporations. And for these governments, you know, particularly those around the Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, oil is the dominant source of revenue. They don't really have much of an alternative. And because they're owned by governments, there is less opportunity for individuals and activists to get a seat at the table to try to sway their

decisions. And so these companies are increasingly making up a larger share of oil production, and they're becoming harder and harder to sway. Let's move on to some COVID-19 news here. Pfizer's vaccine was approved for adolescents earlier this. month. And later on in the program, we're going to be talking about vaccine hesitancy, including in parents. But in the meantime, now, Moderna has some promising results for this 12 to 17 age group in its latest set of data. Tell us more about what we heard. Right. The company, Moderna, reported this week that they found 100% efficacy in children ages between the ages of 12 and 17 with no serious safety issues. And now they want to seek FDA approval to administer this

vaccine to younger people just like Pfizer did. So Pfizer had similar results. So Pfizer had similar FISA has already been approved. What took Moderna so long? Well, part of the reason is how Pfizer got their initial emergency use authorization when they filed for that initial approval. They looked for approval for ages 16 and up. So they were able to vaccinate teenagers this whole time. Modern's approval was primarily for ages 18 and older. And Pfizer also being a U.S. biotech company knows how to grease the wheels and work with regulators. And so they had a little bit of an advantage in terms of organizing and getting their results out faster. So this is really good news. gets approved, then there's more vaccine available for adolescents. But Umair is supply,

at least in America, really the problem here? Right. I think we're running into an issue where we've already vaccinated most of the people that desperately want a vaccine and now we're trying to get to the people that are a little bit more hesitant and the holdouts. And so we're going from the people that, you know, we're willing to be in wait in line for this to the people that really need a little bit more persuasion. And so supply is not really the issue here. I think it's more about demand and persuading people to actually get this vaccine. Yeah, and there's this question about whether or not the vaccines that might be used for low-risk 12-year-olds in America could be better used elsewhere in the world. That's right. You know, the important thing to remember is that while

the cases and deaths are declining in the U.S., the pandemic is just about the worst it has ever been when you look at the international picture. You know, India, for instance, is still reporting huge numbers of cases. You know, the New York Times this week pointed out that there are 27 million official cases, but the real number could be high as 700 million infections. And so the cases could be made here that the United States would actually benefit by vaccinating health workers in other countries because the U.S. is part of the global economy. And when other countries get their economies back on board, that benefits us as well. And it also helps control the transmission of this disease. The more it spreads, the more likely it is to mutate and produce new variants.

In the other big COVID-19 news of the week, President Biden has ordered an investigation into the origins of the virus. Now, the bulk of the evidence, as we know, has pointed toward natural origins. Why is Biden asking for more investigation into this right now? Part of it is that, you know, there has been sort of a change in thinking among some of the scientists, you know, now that we have a little bit more distance from the initial days of the pandemic, scientists are, some scientists are saying that, you know, we haven't completely foreclosed the possibility that this could have escaped from a lab. Now, let's be clear that what we're not talking about here is some sort of engineered virus or some sort of bio weapon. What they're saying is this potentially was something that

was being studied in a research laboratory and through an inadvertent accident through just some sort of mistake just got out of there. And they want to make sure that this is something that's ruled out because that will help them probe the true origins of the virus. And so that's why they're saying this deserves a little bit more attention. Yeah. So much of the conversation around the source has been political over the course of the last year. But, you know, Anthony Fauci, Akiko Iwasaki from Yale who's been on this program are among the scientists who are saying it's pretty importantly we actually find out the origin here. That's right. You know, the potential of a global pandemic causing virus is, you know, something that's very important. And we want to find out where the

reservoirs of this virus are. You know, do these occur naturally in nature? Is there a natural exposure route that we can close off? And if it wasn't in nature and it came through a human error, then that merits even more investigation because, you know, we have laboratories like this all over the world that are studying viruses, and we want to make sure that if there was a mistake, we can find it and close that pathway off. Given all the politics around this, though, is there any kind of evidence that would really cement our certainty that the virus emerged naturally or didn't? Well, some of the scientists I've talked to have acknowledged that, you know, even if they

are interested in probing the natural origin versus the lab leak, they know that, you know, it's unlikely we might get a definitive answer. But there are still some things that we didn't get a chance to look at in the previous investigations, you know, like the World Health Organization inquiry. things like certain lab records. They want more interviews with scientists. They want a little bit more exploration of how the lab was functioning on a day-to-day basis. And by looking at those sources, they can actually help narrow the range of possibilities and point more narrowly at where the likely sources are going to be. Right. Let's move to space news here. And all of a sudden,

there's another rover on Mars. China has one there now. Tell us more. Right. This is part of China's Tianwen mission that was launched last year. That included an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. and the Jurong rover just got rolling this week and started returning some of the first images of the red planet this week. This rover looks kind of like the curiosity and the preservance of rovers from NASA, so it has six wheels. It has solar panels on top. But this one's a little bit smaller, weighing in about 500 pounds. And its instruments are going to be used to steady mineralogy and weather on Mars, but also look for things that can support life like water and ice. Will it have a helicopter?

It will not have a helicopter, but, you know, it does have cameras and sophisticated instruments. and it is expected to operate for about 90 days. Does it seem like there's going to be more competition about more countries trying to get rovers onto Mars? Now there are two. Could there be a third or maybe some sort of private investment firm that gets a rover there too? I mean, there's certainly a lot of international interest in Mars. It's an important scientific area of study, but it's also a point of national pride for countries. So the Soviet Union sent missions to Mars. India has a satellite in orbit earlier this year.

the United Arab Emirates sent spacecraft to Mars. So a lot of countries really do want to plant their flag, perhaps not literally, but with scientific instruments on Mars and let the world know that they are capable of conducting research in that area. So definitely something that we're going to see more activity in in the coming years. All right. Let's finish with what I think is a really cool story. Scientists sent a laser pulse that moved faster than light.

Okay. So can I just say this is really cool? And I didn't know this was possible. Right. So these research team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that they detected pulses that move faster than light. What they used was a couple of lasers pointed at a plasma made of hydrogen and helium. And when the lasers collided, they detected these brightness spots that were moving. And so when one of the lasers had a larger wavelength, the pulse moved slower than the speed of light.

But when it had a much shorter wavelength, it was able to be detected at a pace that seemed to be faster than the speed of light. So this is remarkable. Are there any practical applications of this? I mean, now that we have seen this, what happens next? Well, one thing is, you know, this is an experiment that will probably lead to more experiments. You know, this is something that they're going to probably probe further just to make sure that this is a valid result. But also, this is something that they can use to better optimize lasers and other equipment that they use for measuring and conducting other experiments. You know, they are running into some limits with some of the lenses that they use, particularly with high energy lasers that can, you know, sometimes melt glass.

but important thing to remember is that this doesn't really violate the laws of physics as we know them. What the scientists did point out that none of the photons themselves in the light beams and the laser beams actually moved faster than the speed of light. What they were detecting was a pulse of brightness. It's not something that you can use to actually transmit information. So information still can't move faster than the speed of light. And so that rule has still not been broken here. Okay. So we haven't broken this foundational rule at least this week.

That's all the time we have. Umair or Fawn is staff writer for Vox. He joined us from Washington, D.C. Umear, always good to talk to you. Thanks so much for joining us. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Coming up after the break,

what will it take to convince the vaccine hesitant to get their COVID shots? We'll talk to experts about the wait-and-see population. This is Science Friday. I'm John Dankosky. This Memorial Day weekend, many people will be traveling to the beach, hitting the road or socializing with friends,

maskless for the first time in over a year. As of this week, 50% of Americans 18 and over are considered fully vaccinated. Another 15 to 20% of people are taking a wait and see approach. Of those still on the fence, some are concerned about the vaccine's side effects. Others have a longstanding mistrust of the institutions responsible for the vaccine rollout. In order to fully end the pandemic, public health officials will have to find a way to get the vaccine hesitant on board. But how exactly? Joining me now is someone who has thought a lot about that question. Dr. Gary Bennett is a professor of psychology and global health at Duke University.

Dr. Bennett, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you, John. As I mentioned in the intro, we still have around 15 to 20 percent of the population taking this wait-and-see approach. What do we know about who those people are and what's keeping them on the fence? Well, you know, it's a larger cross-section of American society than we originally imagine. In the past, when we think about hesitancy, and this has been most common for things like childhood immunizations, for influenza vaccine, and things of that ilk, we have tended to focus primarily on racial and ethnic minority groups, those in socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstances. And indeed, those populations do tend to be more hesitant at this moment. But we've also seen a large, in fact, a larger number of individuals in rural circumstances,

those on the right end of the political spectrum, who remain hesitant at this moment. It's a major public health challenge at this point. You say that hesitancy to getting the COVID vaccine is a behavioral condition. What do you mean by that? Well, you know, at this point in the pandemic, so many of the remaining hurdles are effectively behavior change challenges, the challenge, you know, formally of masking, social distancing. These are effectively behavior change challenges. And indeed, at this moment, the primary challenge we face is I'm helping the remaining

segments of the American public to recognize that vaccines are really our best option. for preventing the progression of the COVID crisis. And so in populations that remain hesitant, the challenge that we're facing is really moving them along in the continuum. I think about hesitancy is really existing on a continuum from refusal to acceptance and hesitancy somewhere in the middle. And our job from a behavior change perspective is to push people towards that end of the continuum that's about acceptance and getting vaccinated.

So what are the strategies you use to encourage people? Are they the same as the type you might use to, I don't know, encourage someone to quit smoking or to eat better to improve their health? They are indeed. You know, one of the most important drivers of our behavior is what we're seeing among the folks who we tend to surround ourselves with. We think about social norms, the kinds of behaviors that other people like us are doing as being really, really important predictors of our own behavior. And so one of the most important things we can do is to share with others that we're getting vaccinated. And it's pretty simple. It's not rocket science, right? One of the recommendations I make to populations of all types is that if you want to see other

folks in your community vaccinated, share that you've been vaccinated and share that those outcomes are positive. One of the most important drivers of hesitancy in all populations is concern about side effects, concern about the efficacy of the vaccine, and concern about the speed with which the vaccine was developed and tested. And so if we can correct some of those misconceptions, share our own stories. helped to disabuse folks of those uncertainties, we can go a long way in promoting the kind of behavior change that we need to get people vaccinated.

You mentioned earlier that traditionally, black and Hispanic groups are slightly more hesitant to get vaccinated than whites. Has that held up during this COVID crisis? Are we seeing more hesitancy amongst the black and Latino community? We did at the beginning of the crisis. And certainly when vaccines initially became available, we certainly, we saw a high level of hesitancy in populations that have been traditionally hesitant. In fact, many of us in the public health community were concerned on the basis of what we've

seen previously about hesitancy in these communities. But I'm really pleased to say that over the months, as the vaccine has become more available and as municipalities have gotten better about facilitating access to the vaccine, we certainly have seen that hesitancy drop, and it's dropped rather precipitously. At this point, our traditionally hesitant populations, racial and minority groups are not the most hesitant populations of the U.S. I remain concerned about hesitancy in these populations, however, because of their disproportionate risk of experiencing COVID at high levels of severity and, of course, for incurring COVID-related mortality. So even though they are not the most affected by hesitancy, from a public health perspective, they remain a really important groups for us to be focusing on. What more can you tell us about the rural white population that is showing to be more hesitant?

Well, you know, in rural populations, we're facing challenges that are not unlike those that we see in other populations. In fact, most of the data suggests that the drivers are very similar, concerns about side effects, concerns about efficacy, and concerns about the ways that the vaccine was developed and the speed of testing. What might be a little bit different in some rural populations is that some of those concerns are undergirded by political forces. that make our ability to intervene much more challenging. And so, you know, I remain very, very concerned about the impact of our politically fractious environment, in ways in which it's affected hesitancy. It does make that intervention activity much, much more challenging, really doing whatever we can to correct the misconceptions about the vaccine.

You know, one of the things that I think we have to do in this space is we have to have empathy for folks who are hesitant. That is absolutely our first principle here, because in the same way that it, takes people multiple tries to stop smoking or multiple attempts to lose weight or start a physical activity routine. It's going to take us multiple presentations, multiple attempts to move people along that continuum towards acceptance of the vaccine. How concerned are you and how concerned are other public health officials about what I mentioned before, this grand opening of so much of the country? As states open up around the holidays, does it work against the effort to get people

vaccinated because a lot of people are just walking around saying it's normal. The pandemic's over. Why do we even need to bother? Strictly from a public health perspective, absolutely. It is concerning. We're moving into a new posture where many people believe that the pandemic is ending. And so many of us, I think, in the public health community are concerned about what we imagine to be a reasonably arbitrary movement towards opening out. That's speaking strictly from a public health perspective. Nevertheless, our foremost priority at this moment is to continue to promote vaccinations as the most expedient way for us to move forward and truly get to a new normal. It's really our only option. What sort of incentives are available to people?

Because we've heard everything from, you know, free crispy cream donuts to a lottery that's taking place in Ohio. You could win a million dollars. Maybe you could talk about those kind of strategies or other types of incentive strategies that you think might be more effective. I have to tell you, I'm actually reasonably bullish on these types of incentive strategy. You know, what we know about incentives is that they do a reasonably good job of helping to motivate people to change behaviors in a relatively time-limited kind of fashion. Incentives aren't so great for helping people to lose weight over, you know, the 12 or 18 months that it may take to lose some weight.

But in making a decision to accept a vaccine, they can work in that way. And so I think the kind of experimentation that we're beginning to see with states and different municipalities in this space is really a good thing. I think the lotteries that we've seen in some Midwestern states, they have some appeal. And in fact, I think we've seen some uptake of vaccinations in some of the states that have begun to offer some of those. In certain rural populations, those that may have some political concerns about the ways in which government involvement in vaccination efforts have been unfurled, that these kinds of lottery types of strategies might actually be an extraordinarily helpful kind of strategy. We know that the lottery is actually

much more embraced in many rural populations than our other types of government-led strategies. And so, you know, anything we can do, I think, and at this point, is useful. And so, you know, I think we encourage this kind of experimentation. What I think we have to be careful about, though, is not trivializing the value of the vaccine as our best mechanism for ending this kind of public health crisis that we're experiencing. Is there a goal number in your mind of how many Americans or what percentage of a percentage of Americans, we need to get vaccinated to really take this next step toward effectively ending the pandemic? You know, my epidemiologist colleagues will debate this number for time and more,

and probably many years after this is all long gone. We'll still be debating this. I think in many respects, as many Americans as we can get is really the right number. I fear us imposing sort of arbitrary thresholds or even evidence-informed thresholds that that may change over time, that really our primary goal just needs to be getting as many folks as possible vaccinated. At this point, we should be shooting for 100%. You talked about empathy as something that we absolutely need. We probably just need more empathy in society to begin with. But if that's one of the tools, walk us through as a last thing here, doctor, what do you tell people, whether it's a family member, a neighbor, someone you just meet on the street, how do you

do you talk to them about this to try to get them to accept the idea that maybe this is something that's really good for you to do? At an individual level, I think the most important thing we can do is to share our personal experiences and to share our stories. And so I like to recommend for folks who have been vaccinated, if you encounter someone who's not been vaccinated, I mean, you have an opportunity to share your story. You should do that. But you should do it in a very empathetic and person-centered way. That is to say, you should talk about why you made the decision to get vaccinated and how you think about side effects and how you've been able to balance the evidence and some of these issues related to the speed of the testing and those kinds of things.

We don't want to sort of impose our decision-making on others, but sharing your own story can be an extraordinarily effective strategy. Dr. Gary Bennett is a professor of psychology and global health at Duke University. Dr. Bennett, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you, John. And now, of course, we have the opportunity to vaccinate even more people now that the CDC is approved the Pfizer vaccine for children 12 years and older. But many American parents don't want their children vaccinated at all, including for measles or the flu. So how could that complicate this

vaccination effort? One recent survey from this past April showed that over 30% of parents would wait to get their child vaccinated, nearly double the percentage of adults who were hesitant. Here to break down more about the numbers concerning vaccine hesitancy among parents is Matthew Simonson. He's a political scientist studying. public opinion and the pandemic. He's lead author of Vaccinating America's Youth from the COVID-States Project. Matthew, welcome to Science Friday. Thanks for being here. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be on this show. Your survey asked parents a hypothetical question. If a COVID vaccine were available, would you vaccinate your child? What did parents say? So we find that about a third of young mothers

say absolutely no way. We gave parents five choices from extremely likely to extremely unlikely, and 31% of younger mothers, that is mothers 35 are younger, say they are extremely unlikely to vaccinate their children. Older mothers, 25%. Younger father is around 14%. Older fathers around 10%. So just a huge contrast when it comes to gender and age. A young mother, about one in three chance of saying, no way when my kid get vaccinated. An older father, a one in 10 chance. So, Matthew, you say mothers are much more opposed. What do we know about who makes the decisions about whether or not a child gets vaccinated? So the best data we have on this from countries similar to the United States are two studies from New Zealand.

There is a study in 2016 that surveyed parents during pregnancy and asked them, how likely are you to follow the schedule for routine childhood vaccinations? And they found that while the mothers planned to vaccinate their kids or not vaccinate them lined up pretty, well what they did later on, the father's opinions didn't matter so much, had only a weak effect. And then a study from 2020 found that the father's opinions had no effect. And it was really all about what the mother had in mind. And so to the extent the United States is similar to New Zealand and its culture and its gender norms and its parenting, there seems like a reasonable expectation that the mother's plans for vaccinating or not vaccinating the kids will really outweigh the fathers. I'm John Dankoski, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios.

So how do all these findings compare to vaccine hesitancy for the flu or measles, say, amongst parents? Traditionally, we're worried when vaccine resistance towards, say, measles or routine childhood vaccinations creeps up into the low single digits. You know, you know, 5% of parents refusing to vaccinate their kids is somewhat alarming to us. So the fact that, that now we have 30%, you know, 31% of young mothers saying they won't vaccinate their kids against COVID is extremely concerning. Do you think that the numbers are changing at all when it comes to that childhood vaccination number? If it's concerning that we have, you know, close to double digits of people saying, I don't want my kids to get a measles vaccine, do you think that the COVID vaccine

question is actually shifting those numbers in any way? People just not wanting to get vaccinated at for anything? I don't necessarily think there'll be that sort of spillover. We added a free response text box for people to type in their reasons for wanting to get vaccinated or not get vaccinated. And the most common reasons had to do with the newness of the vaccine, the fact that I thought it hadn't been tested, it certainly has been tested quite rigorously. Some people, you know, picked up on the fact that the vaccine currently has a emergency use authorization instead of the, routine stamp of approval that vaccines get. And so if that is the predominant concern, if it's the newness and the approval process that parents are concerned about, it shouldn't spill

over into other vaccines. However, it's possible, though, that vaccine resistance was somewhat stigmatized in society at large. And now that parents who had some doubts are saying, oh, there's other people like me, it's not that rare. It's not that, you know, unacceptable to question vaccines, this could really have a more pernicious effect where the idea of rejecting vaccines becomes more normalized in our society. What do kids think? What do we know about kids' own opinions about this? So we looked at the attitudes of the youngest adults that we could survey without parental consent, that is the 80 and 19-year-olds. And we found among this, you know, this youngest, you know, barely out of the nest or in some cases still seniors in high school living

in their parents' house among this group of young adults, that they were far less hesitant than their mothers to get vaccinated, still a bit more hesitant than their dads. So this is quite hopeful, I would say, the fact that vaccine resistance is about 20% among that 18 to 21-year-old age group, still higher than we would like. But I think if peer pressure is having a negative effect on parents, it's probably having a positive effect on kids in this case. So whereas mothers maybe talking to other mothers who have been targeted by pernicious vaccine denial and vaccine misinformation sources and are being told, oh, you're a bad parent. If you let your key get vaccinated, you're being irresponsible and really attacking mother's self-worth by saying that she's a bad

parent. With kids, the peer pressure probably goes the opposite way. Kids want to socialize. They want to go to birthday parties. They want to go to summer camp. And so they're probably going to be exerting pressure on each other to beg their parents to let them get vaccinated. And so in some sense, kids might be their own best hope. If kids can use their amazing talents of persuasion and lobbying that are normally used for unhealthy ends like a candy bar to beg their parents to let them get vaccinated, then it really could be kids showing us the way out of this vaccine hesitancy crisis. Matthew Simonson is a political scientist studying public opinion and the pandemic.

He's lead author of Vaccinating America's Youth from the COVID-States Project. Matthew, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much, Sean. We've got to take a break. When we come back, we'll take a look at the drought in the Colorado River Basin and how states are preparing for the first ever water shortage. This is Science Friday. I'm John Dankowski, and now it's time to check in on the state of science. This is KERNO, St. Louis Public Radio. KKU.I.O.

Local science stories of national significance. The southwestern U.S. has been dealing with drought conditions for years, and that's had a big impact on the Colorado River Basin. The region's been looking warily at the reservoirs along this long river that winds its way from Colorado's Rocky Mountains all the way to Mexico, just shy of the Gulf of California. Water levels have been getting lower and lower, and for the first time ever a shortage seems almost certain.

This is prompting a lot of people to ask what's going to happen next. Joining me to shed a little bit more light on this is Luke Runyon. He's a reporter at KUNC based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Luke covers the Colorado River Basin. Welcome back to Science Friday, Luke. Yeah, happy to be here. So Colorado is obviously the name of this water system, but for people who don't know the Colorado River,

maybe just give us a little geography lesson. What states, what tribal nations does this cut through? So seven U.S. states make up the Colorado River Basin, and it's split into two watersheds. So the upper watershed, you have the headwater states. Those are Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah. The lower basin is made up of Arizona, Nevada, and California. The river also crosses over the U.S.-Mexico border. And two Mexican states, Baja, California, and Sonora, they both use water. from the Colorado River. There is also 29 federally recognized tribes in the basin, of which 10 of those tribes hold a significant amount of water rights from the river, and that group includes

the Navajo Nation, the Southern Ute tribe, the Kachan Indian tribe, all told about 40 million people in the region depend on the Colorado River and its tributaries, not to mention the fish and the birds and the other wildlife that depend on its water as well. Yeah, so a lot of people, a lot of wildlife and many, many jurisdictions too. Give us an idea, if you would, just how low the supply is in the basin's reservoirs right now. Sure. So much of the attention in the basin goes towards the river's largest reservoirs, which also happened to be the biggest reservoirs in the entire United States.

And that's Lake Powell in southern Utah and Lake Mead, which is on the Nevada, Arizona border near Las Vegas. They're already low because the entire watershed has been experiencing above average temperatures and below average river flows since the year 2000. And there's already a supply demand imbalance on the Colorado River, and the supply is shrinking faster than officials are able to shrink the demands that we have on the river. And that's left Lake Powell at 34% of its capacity. By the end of the summer, it's projected to be even lower at 29% of its capacity, which is a record low. And Lake Mead is currently at 37% capacity.

It's also headed toward a record low later this year. So it's not just the reservoirs, though, where you see these dramatic pictures of just how low the water is. It's also in the groundwater, something that you can't see. Explain that a little bit for us, Luke, and just how dire the situation is for the groundwater in the region. Yeah, so this is something that is harder for us to visualize because, you know, we're so used to looking at reservoirs and rivers and you're able to say, oh, the river's high or the river is low. You can't do that with groundwater, but it plays a huge role in the Colorado River Basin. This year, because things have been so dry, you know, some of the states in the Colorado River watershed have had the driest year on record over the last year. and that's left the soil incredibly parched.

And so when you have snow that's melting off, it gets soaked up into the ground before it flows into a river or flows into a reservoir. And that sponge is very dry right now and it's sucking up all of that water before it can be used as water supply. So, you know, with so many stories like this, we say this is probably due to climate change. So Luke, I don't know. is this all just because of climate change? Yeah, and this is a question that has been of intense interest to climate scientists. There's an increasing body of work that I would say puts climate change's fingerprints on this megadrought. And that's a word that you're hearing a lot more is megadrought, not just this temporary state of drought.

And there is some evidence that this dry period would have happened without our greenhouse gas emissions. but the warming temperatures that we're seeing make it considerably worse than it would have been. And really what we're seeing in the basin is that warming of just a couple degrees has the potential to completely upend how the water cycle functions in the southwest. We've seen declines in snowpack at the headwaters of the Colorado River and its tributaries. We've seen record set when it comes to dwindling soil moisture. we've seen evaporation increase from reservoirs and streams at higher temperatures. And as we warm even further, it makes it that much harder for our infrastructure, our water

storage to recover. When you use the term mega drought, that sounds like a newer term, what about the idea of a water shortage? I said at the top that we don't have an official water shortage. What would constitute that? So in the Colorado River Basin, a lot of the managers, of the river is tied to the level of its two largest reservoirs. So when Lake Mead declines, certain policy triggers are put in place. And right now, people are watching the level of Lake Mead

very intensely because when it dips below a critical threshold, people have to start taking less water from the river. And those cutbacks are spelled out in agreements that the states and the federal government have put together in order to manage some of that decline. And that's really what we're watching right now is how low is Lake Mead going to go? And what does that mean for the users on the river? Well, given all these users, all these various jurisdictions, are there competitions for what water is remaining? I mean, what sort of disputes are coming to the forefront because of this? Well, Arizona is in the line for the steepest cuts from the Colorado River. And that's because some of these past agreements have put that state in the most vulnerable position for

cutbacks. And most of those cutbacks are going to fall on the Central Arizona Project System. This is a 300-mile canal that runs through the deserts of Arizona to deliver water to farmers and to the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. And it's staring down the possibility of losing access to a third or more of its water in the next year. And, you know, that's way beyond any sort of voluntary conservation that Arizona has done up until this point. And, you know, those are cutbacks that users are actually going to feel and that municipal leaders, farmers, tribal users in Arizona are having to plan for right now. How are the tribes preparing differently maybe than the states are?

Well, this is kind of a narrative or storyline in the basin that has got. gotten a lot more attention recently is how have tribal users been excluded from agreements in the past and how can certain policy agreements, policy negotiations be structured in order to allow tribal nations to come to the table and negotiate for future policies? You're hearing a lot more now, especially because the Interior Secretary, Deb Holland, is herself, a member of a Native American tribe and has put a lot of emphasis on bringing tribes to the table, making tribal consultation a big part of the Biden administration's priorities. So I'm guessing over the next, you know, several years as policies are negotiated, you're going to hear a lot more about how

tribes are being involved in that process. So obviously people are preparing for worse times. What does the forecast look like? Are our experts looking at this saying it's just going to get worse in the Colorado River Basin? Well, I don't have a crystal ball, but I, and I think it's worth noting that things in the Colorado River Basin can be highly variable year to year. And, you know, a few good snow years can change people's opinions quite a bit. But there is still this fundamental supply demand imbalance in the Colorado River Basin. And even the people who say, you know, oh, just wait for it to get wet again, know that changes have to be made because of that fundamental supply demand imbalance. And it takes several years of good weather in order to bring

the system out of drought. It's not just like you get a miracle year and you're out of it. It takes sustained changes in order for these systems to recover. Luke Runyon is a reporter based at KUNC in Fort Collins, Colorado. He covers the Colorado River Basin. Luke will continue to follow your reporting. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. We're moving now to the other side of the country, to New Hampshire, where researchers, hobbyists, and chefs are experimenting with something new for your breakfast table. Instead of reaching for some maple syrup for your pancakes, how about some birch syrup? Some beach syrup? How about Sycamore? This is all in an effort to be more sustainable to stop relying on just one type of tree for all of our syrupy needs.

Joining me today is my guest, Annie Ropeak. She reports on the climate, energy, and environment for New Hampshire Public Radio. Annie, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for joining us. Hi, John. Thanks for having me. So in your state, I know that maple syrup's a very big deal. So why are people looking into all these alternatives?

Well, they want to be clear. They are not looking to abandon maple trees, but they're looking to branch out. I mean, and the puns abound in this story, so, you know, forgive me in advance. They are looking to start using new kinds of trees to mix in with their maple rotation to kind of reduce some stress on the maple trees, give them some options if the worst were to happen to their maple trees, and maybe create some new sort of niche markets in the syrup world to sell some new and interesting flavors to customers, hopefully. I know that there are a lot of types of trees that are really in trouble in the Northeast. Does this mean that maple trees and maple syrup might be in trouble?

So not necessarily. And it depends on who you ask. There's a lot of unanswered questions about how climate change will affect maple trees. For example, researchers are only just starting to look at the effects of drought on trees in the Northeast. There's not a ton of research about drought up here. There's not even a great understanding of exactly how climate change might increase drought here. But we know that it will bring more volatility. So more spikes in temperature, more, you know, unseasonable warmth or late-seasoning.

in cold snaps, big storms, that kind of thing. And in one way, this could be actually good for maple trees and all kinds of syrup because they rely on freeze-thaw cycles to run their sap. So more of those sort of winter whiplash temperatures, as we call them, could increase sap yields. But on the other hand, any kind of stress to a tree is going to make it produce less of everything that it's supposed to produce. And so, for example, in Vermont this past season, they saw a low sugar content and kind of a short season because things were so warm. And then there are just concerns about pests. You know, we haven't seen a disaster in the maple world

for something like an emerald ash borer or chestnut blight that could wipe out all of the maple trees. But if that were to happen, some sort of invasive pest that would target maples, that would be disastrous. And so part of this study and this sort of new endeavor in the syrup world is to just make some fail safes if any of that were to come to pass. I'm John Dinkoski, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. And we're talking about alternative maple syrups with NHPR reporter Annie Ropeak.

I want to play a clip from your story, Annie, from Heidi S. B. Orson. She's a forestry professor at the University of New Hampshire. It's kind of remarkable that our sugar maple syrup industry has been so sustainable overall, considering that it's essentially relied on just this one single species. Andy, it is kind of remarkable that the maple tree has been used in this way basically by itself for such a long time. Yeah, it's a monoculture, you know, and monocultures are at risk for disruption, like all of the issues that we just talked about. You know, I used to report in the Midwest in Indiana on things like corn and soybeans, which are, you know, famous monocultures. And they have all kinds of ecological ramifications, things you need to do with crop rotations and things like that to kind of account for the fact that you're just growing.

one single species over huge areas, which is not how nature usually likes to operate. So, you know, maple syrup is a little different. These are still natural forests, but they're managed to encourage maple production. That would be what we would call the sugar bush. So a plot of forests that's been maybe culled a little bit to have mostly maples and not so much of everything else. And, you know, that just makes it more at risk of one big maple-centric disruption. And so some of the trees that they're looking at trying to get some of these niche syrups from are the kind that really like to grow in a sugar bush and are typically ignored or cut back. And researchers are interested in seeing whether that might want to change.

All right. Well, this is the important question, Andy. None of this actually works if this stuff doesn't taste good. So what are some of these alternative serps taste like? It's a great question because I know that is the question on everyone's minds. So some of them taste a lot like maples. Like, frankly, pretty indistinguishable from maples. Beach syrup, for example, tastes a lot like maple syrup. It's a little milder. You know, it can be sort of lighter in color. But frankly, if you hadn't told me when I tasted it that it wasn't maple syrup, I wouldn't have known the difference. Birch syrup, on the other hand, which listeners in places like Alaska or out West might be familiar with already. It's a little more common there because they don't have as many maple trees.

Birch syrup is a lot different. It almost was like molasses or kind of a balsamic-y, like savory flavor. I thought it seemed like it would be better for cooking. and that was what the researcher I was talking to said. He likes to do with it. He uses it in marinades on meat and fish. He puts it in salad dressing. He also said he likes to put it on his ice cream. These are all good options. I kind of want to try some of these.

So how does the actual sugaring process work for these serps? Is this basically the same as making maple syrup? It's close, but just different enough to be really tricky. And that's what the study at the University of New Hampshire that I reported on is looking at. They want to know sort of what are the little tricks that are a little bit different from maple that will make people most successful when they try these other kinds of syrup. So some of these, for example, they don't like a metal bucket. They will pick up the flavor of metal. And so you're supposed to use plastic or they burn more easily than maple syrup. So

they scorch at lower temperatures that would be friendly to maple. And, you know, the research, as I've been talking to, say, if people are just trying this kind of as hobbyists or as a maple producer just seeing what they can do with these extra trees, they might not think it, works. They might think that these trees don't work for sugar, which is not the case that you just have to kind of fine tune the process and know how to do it a little bit differently from maple syrup, the different processes, temperatures, times that will make them successful, which is what the UNH study is trying to do is kind of get some best practices together to help more people get into this. Do you think it's realistic that we could see any of these syrups on the market, like

available for us at a breakfast table anytime soon? So they are on the market already in really small sort of novelty quantities. And the folks I've been talking to say that's probably how it's going to stay. It's a little more expensive to do these just because they do require some different equipment sometimes. And, you know, it is completely in addition to any maple sugaring or already doing. But, you know, you could see it maybe more readily available at your farmer's market or in fancy restaurants and that kind of thing locally. Any Roe Peak reports on the climate, energy, environment, and sometimes pancakes for New Hampshire Public Radio's By the Grease Project. Any, thanks so much for joining me. I appreciate it.

Thank you, John. Charles Bergquist is our director. Our producers are Christy Taylor. Katie Feather and Kathleen Davis. Our senior producer is Alexa Lim. BJ Leatherman composed our theme music. If you missed any part of the program, or you'd like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts. Or ask your smart speaker to just play Science Friday.

I'm John Dankosky.