Benji Jones
Appearances
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Okay. Great question. So I think in some ways the plastic problem is worse because plastic stays around forever, like decades, centuries, really hard to get rid of once it's in the environment. PFAS, same story. But... But? But, and this is my rare bout of hope, which is that we learned from acid rain, from the ozone hole, that...
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
When we as a species, humans, governments, want to solve a problem, want to solve an environmental problem, we do it. There was public outcry around acid rain. We fixed it, largely. And so I think that is a lesson in, like, this is a question about will. Do we have the will to get rid of plastics and do we have the regulations in place to do so?
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And that is the other kind of important takeaway, which is that when you have major industries that are benefiting from this incredible amount of plastic flowing into the environment, We need to often create regulations that are tamping down on that supply of plastic. Do we have any of those?
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Well, I don't think folks who follow the plastic conversation closely are very hopeful about the current administration. Hmm. As you may have seen, Trump is trying to bring back plastic straws.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
He seems to be passionately against paper straws, which like, okay, there's some merit to that.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
It is true. I mean, no one wants that dissolving paper straw.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Anyway, so like, right. Are we going to see regulations in this administration to start limiting plastic when the president is so pro oil and gas, which is the same industry as the plastic industry? We will drill, baby, drill. I think probably not. I will say though, and this is something fairly hopeful, there is a global effort right now to create a plastic treaty involving over 100 countries.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
So countries around the world are trying to create a global agreement to reduce plastic waste. That could include things like a cap on the production of plastic, bans on certain types of single-use plastics, and also best practices for companies that are producing plastic for end of life, so like better recycling and so forth. So there are efforts at the global scale to fix the plastic problem.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Sean, it's in the name, micro. It's just that easy. No, yeah, basically it is really tiny bits of plastic. Technically speaking, we're talking about plastic pieces that are less than five millimeters long on their longest side.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
They're ongoing. There's like some roadblocks, but it's happening. And so I think that is something that is worth celebrating should it come to pass.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a situation where, like, we need to focus on getting rid of the plastics that are not as essential. Like, we can acknowledge the fact that tires are useful. I mean, we can probably make tires that are not, like, wearing away and filling the air with microplastics. But, like, in general, tire is good.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
I think, like, getting plastic cutlery with takeout every time, probably pretty easy to get rid of. Like, we don't really need plastic straws. Like, use seaweed or whatever the fuck to make straws not disintegrate. It's fine. Like, we are innovative. We don't need to be. This is not a problem.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
So, I think being clear about what the, like, priority plastics are that we should get rid of is a way to, like, make this problem not seem so overwhelming.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's totally fair to not care about this. Like, I am writing about the climate crisis, extinction crisis, like, every week. And so I get it. Like, I don't want another problem in my life. But There are also fairly simple things we can do as individuals on a day-to-day level that help us reduce our own exposure. I don't want to get sick.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
I don't want to have chronic illness, so I'm going to filter my water, for example. That is what I like about this topic, which is that there are things you can do. And so, like, the headline is limit plastic that you're exposed to, obviously. Plastic Tupperware, don't use it. Use glass, especially if you microwave in it. Dust is full of microplastics, so clean up after yourself. Use vacuums, etc.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
So it's like half a centimeter, not necessarily invisible, but you can get much, much, much smaller and into another category called nanoplastics, which are less than one micrometer, which is a millionth of a meter or a thousandth of a millimeter. So they can get very, very, very small. Basically everywhere scientists look on this planet, in our bodies, in animal bodies, we find microplastics.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Avoid polyester and nylon clothing. If you can afford, like, cotton, it's more comfortable, I think. Some people avoid sea salt because it comes from the sea and there's, like, plastic in the sea.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah, like that is like performative if you're not eating sea salt. Like, yeah. I mean, this is like the whole question about using plastic cutting boards too. Like, you're not ingesting like a credit card's worth of plastic by using a plastic cutting board.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
So they are truly, absolutely everywhere. And these are like plastic fibers, so like the fibers that make up your nylon or polyester jackets or t-shirts. They could be broken down pieces of water bottles that have been crushed on highways. They could be nurdles, which are like these little pellets that are used to make other things out of plastic.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
They're like the virgin material used to make plastic. So they're like they're just all over the place.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah, so, like, on the one hand, microplastics are absolutely everywhere, so, like, the fact that it's in the rain is maybe not as surprising, but to me, when I was learning about plastic rain, that there is plastic in our rain, it was really shocking to me because it suggests that, like, Plastic is part of our ecosystems. It is like as fundamental at this point as like microbes and bacteria.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
It's just like part of the world that we live in, part of the fiber of the planet. And that to me is quite scary and like another level.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
More often than not, you can't see it. So these are really, really small particles of plastic. And that's because in order for microplastics to get into the rain, they have to be transported by the air. They have to be in the air. And so all these sort of invisible pieces of plastic are in the rain falling down.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And there are a handful of studies that have found plastic in rainfall all over the world and in some like kind of scary quantities too. Hmm. Like how much? Yeah. Yeah, so the study that I was like, okay, I need to write about this, was a study of rain and dust falling on national parks and wilderness areas in the West. These are like Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And these researchers found that... The amount of plastic that was falling on these national parks and wilderness areas every year is equivalent to like 120 to 300 million plastic water bottles every year.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
So like you see trash when you're hiking through the wilderness, but like there's actually trash like falling from the sky and it is probably more than the physical pieces that you can actually see. It's just like everywhere.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah, it's really everywhere. I mean, Sean, it's in the French Pyrenees. It's in snowfall in the Alps. It is just because there is microplastic in the air, it's able to get all over the world. And so I saw studies in China, India, Europe. There are microplastics in the ocean, like tens if not hundreds of trillions of plastic particles. Beach sand all around the world.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Seafood, which is like, again, it's in the ocean, so it's in our fish... It's in our homes, it's in the carpets, plastic fibers, etc. It's in snow in Antarctica, it's in sea ice, it's at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. One of my favorite studies, but also kind of sad, scientists looked at dolphin breaths, like the size of dolphins, and found microplastics in the breath of these dolphins.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And then it's also everywhere that we've looked in the human body. So it's in our blood, it's in our kidneys, it's in our semen, the placenta. And in the human body, we're finding microplastics that are so small, these nanoplastics, that they're actually able to cross the blood-brain barrier.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
I mean, one of the big news stories of this year was that scientists found a plastic spoon's worth of microplastics in the human brain, like in an average brain by weight, which is like terrifying. to think about.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
This study found that like 99.5% of our brain is brain and the rest is plastic. So like 0.5% of our brain is plastic, which is another way to think about the spoon and scary. And it's also like more plastic currently than it was in the past. So like that indicates that with the rise of plastic in the environment, we're seeing a rise of plastic in our heads. So that's great.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
So there's a lot of trash on the side of roads that gets run over by car after car and then it gets ground up into little pieces. They become airborne and then they get transported everywhere and rained out. You can also have plastic in the ocean getting all the way inland and being rained out on land. We know there is a lot of plastic in the ocean. including a lot of microplastics.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And even when like bubbles on the surface are popping, they're like flinging microplastics into the air. And also when waves are crashing on the shore, they're causing the microplastics to like become airborne. So the oceans are a big source. The highways are a big source. Also tires are a big producer of microplastics as they wear down. So like
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
just the tires degrading over time can put microplastics into the air. And it's not just plastic that's in our rain, it's actually other chemicals like PFAS. So a bunch of studies have also found these forever chemicals in the rain too. So our rain is like quite dirty.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah, this is like the most important question in my mind is like, is there an actual risk to being exposed to all this plastic that it has many benefits, right? Like we benefit from plastic. We're talking on devices made of plastic right now. It's light, it makes cars less polluting, et cetera.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Scientists are learning that microplastics in our bodies, which could get there because of what we're drinking and what we're eating, are linked to a number of health concerns, like cardiovascular disease, mental issues like dementia. So there is actually quite a long list of health problems that are linked to exposure to microplastics.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Part of that is... just the physical bit of plastic being in your body. It's like this foreign substance that your body is trying to get rid of. And so it's going to have an inflammatory response, which can be bad over time. But also there are a lot of chemicals. There are like hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals used in plastics.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And those chemicals like phthalates, which make plastic bendy, are also associated with other issues like hormone disruption and fertility issues. So Yeah, I would say it is pretty fair to say that there are health problems linked to all this exposure. That personally makes me worried. Personally, but you're also worried for, like, your fellow human. Oh, I don't care about anybody else.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah, I am worried. And, like, we do have chronic illness problems in the U.S. in... countries all over the world, like we know that chronic disease is getting worse over time in terms of like how many people have it. And I think that we should be looking at things like the spread of microplastics. Well, Benji, is there anything we can do about it? Yeah.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
So, I mean, it's really easy to just feel kind of hopeless. And I do at times personally, but I like to look back at history and other environmental problems that we actually solved. So there are examples of problems. So like the ozone layer, that big giant hole in the ozone that was letting all this harmful solar radiation in. We like are on track to close that through regulations.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And then more relevant to this conversation is acid rain. So like in the 60s, 70s and 80s, acid rain was a huge environmental problem talked about by like congressmen, the public, et cetera. And we pretty much fixed that. I mean, it's not... fixed everywhere, but you don't really hear about acid rain anymore, and that's because it doesn't really exist, especially in the developed world.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say we have mostly fixed acid rain.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Okay, so acid rain, rain that is slightly acidic, like several times more acidic than regular rain. Probably not like... pure lemon juice, but maybe like lemonade or something slightly diluted. The rain was largely acidic because of a handful of gases, so sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which is nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
These were gases largely emitted by coal power plants and the tailpipes of cars.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
And as all this acidic rain was falling, we started to see impacts from that. So like, I don't know, maybe you've seen the photos of statues that look like they're kind of melted. But we also saw like forests starting to collapse, fish die in lakes in the Adirondacks. So it was like a human problem and an environmental problem. And then we did something about it? Yes, we did. The U.S.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
in 1990 passed amendments to the Clean Air Act, which is like the seminal regulation in the U.S. to clean up the air that started to limit the amount of sulfur dioxide that coal power plants were able to produce. This bill will cut emissions that cause acid rain in half. and permanently cap them at these new levels. And also around the same time, catalytic converters were becoming a big thing.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
Those reduce emissions in tailpipes. And so you started to see these regulations limiting the amount of pollution coming from these important sources like coal and cars. And as a result, we saw acid rain start to decline. Huh.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
I didn't come across anyone being like, congratulations, we fixed this. I think like when regulations work, they don't maybe get the attention they deserve.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
But I should also just say, so, like, some places like China... Oh, no, are you going to copy on it? Oh, always. Come on. Okay, great. There are some places around the world that still have a lot of coal energy, like China and India, and you will still see acid rain there.
Today, Explained
Plastic rain, plastic rain
I actually saw, like, a headline about the Taj Mahal being, like, affected by acid rain, like, eroding the surface of the Taj Mahal. So, like, some parts of the world still deal with, like, slightly acidic rain because they have emissions from these... fossil fuels, but in general, especially in wealthier parts of the world, we are not getting rained on by acid, which is great.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I was not at all pleased. But sadly, I was not surprised because he has had a habit of of saying things that I feel are very ignorant and uneducated, or sorry, uninformed is the better word there. So I was not at all pleased, and I felt it was necessary for me to respond. I mean, I've been alive for 37 years, so I believe I have quite some experience.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I have many, many years of experience with this matter. So I definitely feel that I am well qualified to speak about this.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Yes, exactly. And I've been in situations where in the past, my social skills were not as developed as they are now. So through experience, I developed my social skills to the point where they are now.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
James, what about you? Oh, yes. Of course, everyone has limits. That is correct. And I will confess that some of my limits, not all of them, but some of my limits may perhaps be related to my autism. But I have been able to, I believe to say overcome those limits is not proper terminology, is not a proper way to word it.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
But I have been able to minimize those limitations, to live with them or to, no, I'm sorry, to work with them, to work around them. Yes, yes. And I certainly must say that the idea that people with autism are incapable of driving vehicles, paying bills or living independently is completely false. I have, I've had my driver's license for 20 years since I was 17.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I pay, I paid practically all of my own expenses. And, um, I, I, I, I work a 40 hour per week job with benefits. I've, I've held steadily since 2017. And, um, Other than the fact that I still live with my parents, I believe myself to be quite independent, self-sufficient. And the fact that I still live with my parents is due to factors that are beyond my control.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Because houses are extremely expensive right now. And that, of course, is obviously not something I can control. But that obviously is probably not something we'll be discussing right here. Yes.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I believe my mother has said it took me slightly longer to be capable of speech than it does most children, most infants. But my mother mentioned, though, that I was able to speak in complete sentences immediately rather than one or two words at a time, as is the case for most children.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I suppose. You may ask whether or not we answer this matter entirely.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Tell me why. For anyone who has studied history, those are very ominous words indeed. Autism is a psychological, no, a neurological condition. The reason that more people are diagnosed with autism is because doctors... And psychologists have become more adept at identifying, at diagnosing autism.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Plus, of course, people who have autism are not as afraid to hide their condition, to hide their symptoms as they may have been in ages past. And of course, society is much more accepting of autism in recent years as well.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Okay, I'll be diplomatic and say I wish Mr. Keddie would resign from his position, let someone who is actually competent take that role. That's a lot more diplomatic than what I was originally planning to say. So the Secretary of Health and Human Services needs to be someone who actually understands these various issues, understands matters of this nature. Yes...
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
We need to provide support, support mechanisms for people who have autism or similar neurological conditions. People who have autism or similar conditions need special programs that are tailored for them. Every student needs to have their own customized, their own personalized plan, curriculum.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
I've always enjoyed working with computers and electronics, always been very passionate about that.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Oh, yes. Well, I admit I was having difficulty with my search for love before I heard of the series. Actually, Love on the Spectrum has changed my life in so many ways. Yes, I've met new people. I've made new friends. And yes, I finally have found true love. I cannot say enough positive, wonderful things about Shelley. She's so amazing.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
But yes, I said I could spend all day talking about her, but I know I can't distract us from the purpose of our meeting. But other than that, obviously, yes, my life has definitely improved quite significantly without a question.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
Shelly and I have so much in common. Yes, we have very similar preferences in movies, music, and other hobbies and entertainment. But what is it? Well, she also is fond of outdoor activities and hiking. But at the same time, we complement each other. We are not exact duplicates of each other. She and I each inspire the other. to grow and improve.
Today, Explained
No love (on the spectrum) for RFK Jr.
We each inspire the arts to be the best that we can be.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And then another big part of this is that it's cheap. So wind energy is one of the cheapest energy sources, if not the cheapest. And then the last thing I'll say is that farmers really benefit from it. So farmers have a lot of land in Iowa. They're a pretty powerful voting bloc. And putting turbines on their property is a way for them to make some extra income alongside their farms.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, I talked to this guy named Dave Johnson who lives just over the border in Minnesota, actually, but he has a livestock farm in northern Iowa.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Dave leases some of his land to an energy company that installed four turbines on his property. And then his son, who's nearby, also has turbines on his farm, and so does his neighbor. So this, like, little community in northern Iowa, a bunch of farmers with their wind turbines, and he speaks really, really highly of wind energy.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
He has a lot of hogs and cattle, but he installed turbines as a way to generate like supplementary income. So the price of livestock can change over time, but wind energy tends to be more stable. So it's actually a boon to him to have turbines on his land.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Exactly. Exactly. And he told me that it's not just him that's benefiting, but the whole state of Iowa benefits from having the wind turbines on his land.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, I mean, so this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to him, because like many Iowans, he says that he is Republican and he supports Trump. But it's not because of Trump's views on energy.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And Dave also told me that he's not really worried about what Trump has said negatively about wind energy. He kind of disregards it as like, oh yeah, he just runs his mouth. Don't worry about it. Let's see what he actually does.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, it's actually like pretty common. So Texas is another great example. It actually produces more wind power than any other state in the country. It actually accounts for about a fourth or actually over a fourth of all wind energy produced in the U.S. It's coming from Texas, which of course is a Republican state. Same with Oklahoma and your home state of Kansas.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And then Florida is another example. It's a big solar state, so we're not just talking about wind. So you have a lot of red states that are producing renewables.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, exactly. If I had to guess, I would say we will see a slowdown in the growth of wind as an industry, but ultimately it's not going to go away. It's not going to stop. Projections suggest that by like 2050, out into the future, we are going to see a much larger percent of energy in this country around the world coming from renewables, coming from wind.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Because again, what really matters here, and this is such an important takeaway, wind energy is cheap, if not the cheapest source of new energy relative to all other sources. And because it's cheap, it's going to do pretty well. I mean, the only reason Iowa has become such a big wind state is that it was economically smart for the state.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
I am from Iowa. I'm from a small town in the, like, nose in the southeast corner. And whenever I go home to visit my parents who are still there, I'm seeing these open expanses of farmland, and then in the distance, a bunch of windmills, wind turbines.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And actually, when I looked into this a few years ago, I found out that Iowa gets a larger share of its energy from wind power than any other state in the country.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
So it's like this massive wind powerhouse And that fact is interesting to me because Iowa is also a Republican stronghold. It's voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, most recently in 2024. Trump won in a landslide. And Trump and wind power tend to be at odds.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Trump, I would say, is like the most anti-wind energy president in history.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
He like really hates wind energy and this dates back to at least 2012 when he kind of got into a fight with a town in Scotland over putting up wind turbines in the site of his golf course that he was opening.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
He's, over the years, just been very, very outspoken against wind, calling turbines monstrosities, telling people that they kill whales, which we don't think they do.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
There's no evidence of that. So yeah, very anti-wind. And he's putting real actions behind that anti-wind stance. So literally on his first day in office, he signed an executive order that effectively suspends new federal offshore wind leases. and also temporarily suspends new and renewed approvals, federal approvals for both offshore and onshore wind projects.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
So he's already trying to get in the way of this industry. And this is a bigger issue right now for offshore wind. And we're already starting to see some companies in the wind industry, getting cold feet, pulling projects. There's also concerns around tariffs. So a lot of the parts for wind turbines are imported. Iowa has manufacturing facilities for turbines.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Some of those parts are definitely going to be coming from out of the country. And so we could see an increase in the cost of turbines, probably in like the single digits. There's also this question of whether the tax credits for wind power. So you can get tax credits for wind energy right now.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
There's a question about whether Congress under Republican control might do away with those tax credits, which would make wind more expensive. So there's kind of like a lot of I hate headwinds. Everyone makes that pun. I hate it. But there are serious like roadblocks for wind industry at the hands of Trump.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
The short answer is that it's not clear yet. And so you could see, for example, the cost of turbines going up, which could be reflected in energy bills across the state. Iowa has fairly cheap electricity bills, and that's something that is important, especially to companies that are coming there and building data centers and so forth. So we could see a change in the cost of energy.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
You could see a slowdown in the buildout of wind farms. That's another issue. But ultimately, it's going to be like a time will tell how bad Trump's policies are going to hit the state.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
So it's very windy. That's a key here. Very windy. There are no major fossil fuel industries in Iowa. So there aren't competing industries that are lobbying for their own energy sources. So that was another part of it. I think one of the most interesting reasons is that Iowa was the first state in the country to pass what's called the Renewable Portfolio Standard. This was in 1983.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And it required the state's investor-owned utilities to contract out or own a certain minimum of renewable energy. So it's basically like you need to be producing at least this much by this date. And it was the first state to have that kind of regulation in place. And so there was this policy incentive as well.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And also, one of Iowa's senators, Chuck Grassley, the oldest senator in Congress, was really responsible for getting tax credits in place for wind energy at the federal level. And he's actually considered the father of wind energy in Iowa because of his role in getting tax incentives in place for energy. So that was also really, really key.