- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program talking about environmental issues with Ed Potosnak, Executive Director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters.

Ed, good to have you with us.

- Great to be here, Steve.

Thanks for having me.

- We should disclose that we're taping on April 22nd.

What's that day, Ed?

- That's Earth Day.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.

- Happy Earth Day.

The New Jersey League of Conservation Voters is gonna become, what?

What's the acronym?

- New Jersey LCV.

- New Jersey LCV.

But important work to be done.

Hey, 2025 New Jersey and the nation, where are we environmentally?

- Well, it's a real tough time at the federal level, but luckily states can do more and under Governor Murphy's leadership and the legislature as well as great local leaders at the county and local level, Republicans and Democrats, they're doing their best to protect our open spaces in the most dense populated state.

Our safe, you know, our drinking water so we can have reliable, clean drinking water for our businesses and our homes, and also our air to get pollution out of it.

You know, we've got more toxic Superfund sites in New Jersey and we've gotta, you know, clean those up and make sure that legacy of pollution is reduced for our children and grandchildren.

And I think in our state we've got a lot of opportunity.

- Yeah, so let's connect environment to energy.

So when the president and others in the administration and others around the country use the expression Bill, excuse me, drill, baby drill, they're talking fracking.

Without getting into the science and the technology of it that you'd have to be a scientist or someone who understands environmental issues really well, what the heck is fracking?

And should we be drilling more to find more energy?

- Well, first we shouldn't be drilling more to find more energy because it's more expensive.

Right now, clean energy is the cheapest energy.

It's the fastest to get online.

It's also healthier and it helps reduce asthma, cancer and heart disease, because fracking is injecting liquids into the earth to get the gases to bubble up or oil.

And they put unknown chemicals in there and it enters into our environment.

And that's why in New Jersey, our 21 counties, we some see some of the worst air pollution in the country.

All of them are getting barely passing or failing grades on the American Lung Association Healthcare, you know, scorecard.

So I think we could do better.

Pennsylvania is a big fracking state.

We get their air, blows right over our state.

We've gotta move away from that to clean energy, which will protect our health.

- Yeah, but you know, Ed, on the other side of that, the governor talks about 100% clean energy over X number of years.

What's the goal again in the energy master plan in New Jersey?

- Yeah, a hundred percent clean energy by 2035.

- Okay, so does that have to be readjusted?

Again, there'll be a new governor in January, 2026, but the president says, others say in the administration, hey listen, this wind energy thing, forget it.

We're not gonna provide any federal money.

New Jersey has had a terrible track record by any reasonable standard when it comes to wind, if you will.

If wind is dead, wind energy, you tell me what those alternative cleaner energy sources are, Ed.

- Yeah, well right now solar is the cheapest form of energy.

And right behind it, onshore wind is the second cheapest form of energy.

People should know, right now, the oil and gas industry is receiving $22 billion a year in America in subsidies.

And so while they're looking to cut funding at the federal level, they haven't touched that subsidy.

They're making record profits and producing more expensive energy in New Jersey on June 1st, folks are gonna see a big increase in their electricity bill.

And that's because the fossil fuel oil and gas and coal paradigm that's making our current energy is actually more expensive and it's shooting up through the roof.

And there's one more little statistic I want to throw in there by NRDC, which is, - NRDC, you gotta watch the acronyms, Ed NRDC is?

- Yeah, the Natural Resources Defense Council.

And they looked at the last auction for our energy prices.

And if 30% of the clean energy projects waiting to be hooked up were connected, our rates in June that are going about 20% across the state would go, would be 63% cheaper.

And that's real money in people's pockets.

So it actually saves money to have solar and other clean energy technologies.

- Okay, talk about water.

What is the condition of New Jersey's drinking water right now?

And how and what standard or metric are you using to determine that condition?

- Yeah, so drinking water is a really important thing that we have safe, reliable, affordable drinking water.

It's important for our businesses.

You know, the pharmaceutical industry.

Manufacturing is very dependent on that.

And of course, for our own health, for our families, and our children, our water coming out of our tap is highly regulated by the Department of Environmental Protection.

So, you know, we can count on its safety.

But overall, 97% of New Jersey's waterways don't meet federal standards for recreational use.

That means swimming, fishing, that's in New Jersey.

So we've gotta do a better job cleaning up our pavement and concrete.

Get those contaminants from running off into our rivers and streams.

- Ed, let me ask you something.

- Yeah.

- New Jersey does elect, as I said, new governor in January.

Well, new governor will take office in January, 2026.

The Trump administration's policies are very clear as it relates to the things you're talking about.

They would not look kindly, I imagine, on the politics or the policies of New Jersey LCV.

Is that fair to say so far?

- I don't know why that would be the case.

- Hold on a second?

Ed, Ed, Ed, let's be candid with each other.

The Trump administration's policies environmentally do not match up with what you've been espousing for the last six minutes.

I mean, you know that, right?

- Even though there's no doubt that they don't match up.

But the question really is why, why do, as an administration, - Because they have a different view?

Because they think it's too expensive.

Because they think that radical environmentalists on the left are making business unaffordable because the standards are too high for drinking water, for air quality.

And they have a very different approach.

You know that.

- Yeah, I've got family members that have had cancer.

We see higher incidence of that.

You know, if you're in Newark, one in four children have asthma.

Over the course of of New Jersey, our air quality is, is very low.

We're in the most densely populated state.

We've got a responsibility for our children and grandchildren.

So I ask the question, why hand over more toxic air, water, and land to those future generations?

I think it's misguided.

I think it's shortsighted and it's actually more expensive after the pollution's created to clean it up, and we know that.

- Ed, but here's the other part of it.

Businesses, many businesses are arguing that the environmental regulations in the state of New Jersey, in certain cases, make it more expensive and less affordable to do business in the state.

You say what to those business leaders?

- Cleanup is more expensive.

And why are we polluting our environment that we're dependent on?

And like I said, for the pharmaceutical industry, clean drinking water is critical for that manufacturing.

We see flooding all across our states because of the impervious surface, which means what we've built, 17% of the state is covered in concrete pavement or housing or some sort of building, and that runoff goes polluted into our waterways and we have to pay to clean it up.

It costs more to clean it up than prevent it from getting into our waterways in a polluted state.

- Before I let you go Ed, New Jersey, this new governor that comes in, the new election that takes place in November of 2025, the number one environmental issue for the next governor of New Jersey will be?

30 seconds.

- Responsible for ensuring and implementing, you know, savings for families.

That is clean energy, protecting our health by cleaning up our water and safeguarding our clean drinking water supply and preserving land, forest farms, open spaces, and parks in the most densely populated state.

And of course, with the semi quincentennial coming up, celebrating our historic roots in the revolutionary period and beyond.

- Nothing easy about that.

Important stuff.

Ed Potosnak, Executive Director of New Jersey LCV.

This is Earth Day.

Every day should be Earth Day.

- That's right.

- Hey, thank you Ed.

Appreciate you joining us.

- Thanks for having me, have a great day.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Kate O'Connor, who is the Director of Public Health and Safety at the Brain Injury Alliance of New Jersey.

Kate, good to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Website's up.

Describe the organization.

- The Brain Injury Alliance of New Jersey is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to improving the quality of life for anyone who's impacted by a brain injury.

And we do this through providing support, advocacy and information, while also promoting brain injury prevention.

- This work is important professionally, but also personally for you.

Talk about the personal connection.

- Yes.

Deeply, deeply personal to me.

My brother, Jimmy, sustained a severe brain injury at the age of 25 in 2012.

He was in multiple rehab centers, essentially fighting for his life.

And this experience watching him go through, a pedestrian crash and a brain injury, kind of led me to find the Brain Injury Alliance, and then I've been working there the last seven years.

- Talk about the connection between traumatic brain injuries and driver safety.

- Yeah, a lot of people don't really think of that, you know, as a big connection, but in our field, it's something that we deal with every single day.

So, in New Jersey, we have a really high rate of people getting hit by cars, speeding, car crashes.

And some of the results of that are people who live with traumatic brain injuries as a result of these crashes.

So, we always say the the Brain Injury Alliance, that not everyone dies, right?

There's this whole world of people who are living in New Jersey with life-altering injuries because of a crash.

- You know, it's so interesting when you think about this, and we know the folks at NJM who have been very supportive of this initiative, and supporters of public broadcasting as well.

And one of the things that we've talked to about them, and we picked up in preparing for this interview, is you connect with young people in high school, but particularly these Champion Schools.

Who are these Champion Schools and how did they become Champions?

- So, the Champion School Program was developed in 2010.

And this all came about because we had focus groups with teenagers and we talked to them about safe driving.

And from those focus groups, we learned that teenagers don't want to hear the message from their parent, their teacher.

They want to hear it from their friends.

So, we put the power in their hands.

And we developed the "U Got Brains" Champion Schools Program.

- Hold on one sec.

"U Got Brains."

Tell everyone what that is.

- Yes, so "U Got Brains," it just what it sounds like, right?

You have the brains and the power to make decisions regarding safe driving, safe walking, safe biking.

So, we put the power in their hands to create campaigns.

- What kind of response have you seen?

- Huge.

This is our 15th year anniversary, so it's a very big year for us.

We have worked with well over 250 schools across the state.

Close to a million students we've estimated have been impacted just from the student body alone.

We work with private, public, technical high schools, and we've seen campaigns from everything from seatbelt safety, to distracted driving, impaired driving.

And the students really create such amazing, amazing campaigns to influence their peers.

- What progress are we making with texting and driving?

- Texting and driving is always evolving, especially with the technology that's in cars now and allows people to read texts, voice texts and all of that.

The numbers are still kind of going up with distracted driving.

And young driver crashes kind of ebbs and flows, but they've kind of stayed around the same.

A lot of our students do focus on distracted driving as part of their campaign.

And students are very honest about this.

They know that their friends are texting and driving.

They know that their friends are searching for new playlists.

They're Snapchatting, Instagramming, all of those things.

So, they know it's a problem and we're just trying to get ahead of it and talk to as many teens as we can.

- Talk about the college program.

- So, the college program was modeled after the "U Got Brains" Champion School Program.

We had this amazing program where we would talk to all these high schools and then we would kind of lose them right when they went to college.

- That's right.

- So in a very similar way, we are working with state colleges where we provide them with a stipend to create a transportation safety campaign on campus.

We call this campaign the "College Roads and Safety Habits," or CRASH Project, it's known as.

And very similarly, the students create whatever is important to them.

So, Rutgers University in New Brunswick last year focused on scooter safety because they have a high percentage of people running, you know, the e-scooters around campus.

Montclair State University this year was a first year school with us and they focused on pedestrian safety because it's a very walkable campus.

So, it's really up to them what they want, you know, to focus on.

- Kate, I'm curious about this.

I'm a student of leadership, and, obviously, you're identifying high school leaders, college leaders.

How do these leaders, how do you identify them?

How do you know who they are?

- So, for the high school, it's a little bit easier because we partner with the driver's ed classes oftentimes.

We don't have to.

It can be the football team if they want to do it.

But that's usually how the teachers help kind of select the students for the program.

The college program's different, right?

We don't have teachers guiding them.

This is all put onto the students.

So, we have outreach to the public health departments, criminal justice departments, speech pathology departments, and kind of see who's interested.

And then from there they develop their group.

- How rewarding is this work for you and your colleagues?

- Very much so.

I always say I can't imagine working in a field where I wasn't at least working towards a greater good of helping people and trying to save lives.

A lot of us who work at the Brain Injury Alliance, whether we have a personal experience ourselves or we've just become passionate through our work, it's more than just a job.

We really care about keeping people safe.

And I always joke that you're never not an advocate.

So you can begin, at the hairdresser and talking about this.

We advocate for safety all the time.

- You're always advocating?

- Yes, for sure.

- How receptive are most people?

- Transportation safety is one of those topics, it's unique in the sense that it affects everyone, right?

Everyone walks, bikes, drives, does something, but it's a topic that no one really talks about in the safety aspect, right?

We hear maybe "don't drink and drive," but most people aren't talked to about distracted driving, or using crosswalks, or riding their bike on their right.

So once you bring it up to them, everyone has a lot to say because they can relate.

- This is Kate O'Connor, Director of Public Health and Safety at the Brain Injury Alliance of New Jersey.

Kate, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- All right folks, everything you wanted and needed to know about vaccines, which is an ongoing public awareness initiative we're involved in, and you can find out from talking to people like Dr. Stephanie Navarro Silvera, who is an epidemiologist and Professor of Public Health at the Montclair State University.

Doctor, good to see you.

- Good to see you.

Thank you for having me.

- Now, the Department of Health in New Jersey, their website is up right now.

They have a great section on vaccines.

We're doing this initiative in cooperation with them.

Question.

What is the most important piece of information about vaccines today that needs to counteract some confusion out there in the public about vaccines?

I'm sure there are many things, but what's the most pressing right now?

- I think that the key thing that we all need to know is that vaccines save lives, right?

There are a lot of issues.

There are a lot of reasons why people might be hesitant to get a vaccine, but at the end of the day, they are one of the best public health tools we have to keep people living long, healthy, productive lives.

- Okay, so confusion.

Fair to say, confusion and resistance, doctor?

- Absolutely.

And I think that when we think about confusion and resistance, we need to really understand the sources of the confusion and the resistance.

Because it's different for different groups of people.

- Okay, let's break it down.

How the heck, Dr. Silvera, have we gotten to the point where if you look at public opinion research, which you do as well, as I do and so many others in media.

How the heck is it that public resistance, or resistance and hesitancy around vaccines is somehow correlated to people's political ideologies and the media they consume?

- So I've done research on this with some colleagues here at Montclair State University.

And we found very strongly the people who identify as very religious, or identify with a religion, were less likely to trust vaccines, to trust government sources.

We also looked at, we asked, "Where do you get trustworthy information?"

And one of the things we were struck by is that where people got their information really drove how they felt about vaccines, as well as the number of people who simply said, "There are no trustworthy sources."

And I think knowing that, is where we as public health professionals need to work, because we need to rebuild trust.

- Okay, so, and again, why the heck you think we're doing this "Vaccines: What You Need to Know," because of everything Dr. Silvera just said.

I'm reading from the New York Times, which some people might say, "Oh, it's the New York Times."

Well, these are facts, okay?

This has to do with Robert F. Kennedy, who is a, obviously a leader in the Trump administration as relates to policy.

According to Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, you know her, she's an expert.

And when it comes to public communication up at the Annenberg School, she said that, "RFK Jr. is de-certifying other voices of authority on vaccines."

Because she argues, and others argue, that RFK Jr. is continuing to say, "We need to test and study vaccines so that people can make an informed choice."

Now, on the surface, who would argue with that?

But there's more to it than that doctor, isn't there?

- Absolutely.

I think first of all, who are the people doing the research?

There have been decades-long research on multiple vaccines.

Vaccines have been shown to be very safe and very effective.

And I think that when you start to allow voices who come in with an agenda to disprove the efficacy, I think that's concerning.

As a researcher, we are by nature, skeptical people.

We wanna go in and try to disprove a hypothesis.

We wanna know what the reality is underlying that.

And if you're coming in, however, with the agenda, I would say, to find fault, to highlight, and to over blow what some of the risk factors are, there are risks with vaccines.

There's risks with everything, right?

But we have to look at the risk/benefit balance.

And I'm afraid that's not what's happening anymore.

- So parents right now watching, new parents, God willing, new baby.

That MMR vaccines, measles, mumps, rubella, eh, I've heard things.

Now let's talk about measles.

Let's talk about outbreaks in the country.

We're taping on the 22nd of April, this will be seen later.

We hope and pray that the numbers don't go up, and these are people we're talking about, and some children are dying.

Along those lines, Dr. Silvera, what do parents need to know about the MMR vaccine?

- So I think the key thing is that the MMR vaccine is a very safe and effective vaccine.

It is one of the most effective vaccines we have on the market.

Two doses gives you about 97% protection.

That is far higher than many, many other vaccines that we have.

And here's the other part of measles that we need to know.

It is highly infectious, and the symptoms can be very severe.

We're talking about not just death, but lifelong complications due to encephalitis, blindness, other issues.

On the flip side, the argument against getting the MMR has been to me very fraught with this, the pathologizing of autism, right?

So the fear that people are trying to stroke about the MMR is that your child will have autism.

First of all, there is no evidence that the vaccine causes autism.

That has been debunked many times over.

But also, autism is a neurodivergence, it is not a pathology.

And people with autism live very capable, successful lives, contrary to what RFK Jr. has been saying in the recent news.

- Look at the website for the Department of Health, and the state will come up.

They have a section on vaccines.

Check it out.

Question.

For people who are resistant, for people who are concerned, they have every right to pursue information, vetted credible information.

But here's the thing I keep struggling with.

Is it purely, as RFK Jr. and others, this is not about RFK, it's about a much bigger issue.

It's a personal choice, Dr. Silvera.

I will make that choice myself.

And then I ask, "Wait a minute.

But if my mother who's watching every week, who's, as we do this, turning 90, yes, I disclosed your age, mom.

If someone is around my mom or someone who's older, and immunocompromised, is it purely a personal decision, Dr. Silvera, as to whether I take a vaccine or not?

Or someone takes a vaccine or not?"

Are they not impacting others?

- Yes, and they're impacting others in many, many ways, right?

So there are some people who, for other medical conditions, medical reasons, cannot get vaccinated.

So you're putting those people at risk.

There's also the risk that you are, if we have these big outbreaks of measles, which require a lot of care, there is no treatment.

We can reduce your symptoms, but we cannot cure it.

You're putting a lot of drain on our healthcare systems, right?

Vaccination, I think if, let's take it out of measles in particular, but vaccination plays a pivotal role in our economy, right?

So if we care about the economy, vaccines play a role in that.

It decreases healthcare costs, it increases workforce productivity.

It reduces the burden of disease on society.

So the more we can keep people safe and healthy before they get sick, the better it is for everyone in immediate ways, such as your mom, that's turning 90.

I'll disclose, my mom is in her 80s, and very active.

But it's protecting those individuals, but it's also just good for society.

We live in a place where we're very individualistic, but we do live within communities, and we need to care about community.

- That is Dr. Stephanie Navarro Silvera, who is an epidemiologist and Professor of Public Health at Montclair State University.

We'll continue our conversation as part of our series, "Vaccines: What You Need to Know."

See you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

Wells Fargo.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

NJM Insurance Group.

PSEG Foundation.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

The Fidelco Group.

And by Newark Board of Education.

Promotional support provided by BestofNJ.com.

And by NJ.Com.

Hey, kids, PBS Kids and Delta Dental want you to have a healthy smile.

So here are some tips for you to remember.

Number one, eat plenty of crunchy fruits and vegetables.

Number two, brush your teeth after eating sugary snacks or drinking sodas.

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When your teeth are happy, all of you is happy.

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