John Glenn Hill

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So you actually talked to some farmers who are benefiting from clean energy. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, I'm very jealous of your access to green chili. I want to play you these questions we got from a listener named Sophie.

When it comes to politics, where's Dave's head at?

Are there other states that are in a similar situation? As Iowa, you know, these red states that are invested in clean energy?

Where do you expect to see the clean energy industry go from here?

You and the stock market.

Vox's Benji Jones. After this next break, we'll hear some ideas about what we all can do to keep climate progress moving forward in the coming years.

We're back and it's Explain It To Me. Before the break, we heard from Benji Jones about wind energy in Iowa and how Trump's policies might impact renewable energy, even in states that he won. I wanted to talk to Paige again to find out what steps those of us who aren't wind farmers can take right now.

Have you found ways to make changes in your own life?

Yeah, I'm curious, what are you and the rest of the Vox climate team watching out for in terms of climate progress right now?

The Vox climate team's been reporting on the unexpected places where climate progress is continuing, and you can read those stories at Vox.com. While you're there, consider joining our membership program to get access to ad-free Vox podcasts, including Explain It To Me. Sign up at Vox.com slash members. This episode was produced by Avishai Artsy.

It was edited by our executive producer, Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, and engineered by Matthew Billy. Carla Javier is our supervising producer. I'm your host, Jonquan Hill. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye!

Okay, I want to get into the Trump of it all. What is the president doing to kind of stymie that climate progress?

You mentioned that outside the U.S., other countries are moving ahead on clean energy. Can you talk about that a little bit? Who's doing what?

Yeah, I was about to say, like, that's not a Tesla. Did not know there was another big game in town.

OK, we've talked about globally. We've talked about the federal level. Outside of the federal level, can we expect to see a lot of action happening on that state and local level?

Paige Vega, climate editor for Vox.com. We'll catch up with her again later, but first a break. When we come back, we're going to hear from our colleague Vinci about one red state that's making big moves on energy.

Hi, I'm John Glenn Hill, and we get a lot of calls to the Explain It To Me hotline. And quite a few have been from listeners wondering, what's going on with climate change? We know that President Donald Trump is a climate skeptic. And he's been doing a lot in his three months back in office to slow down the climate progress that's been made. So where does that leave us now?

We're back. It's Explain It To Me. So what does the clean energy transition look like in a state that's solidly Republican? Let's ask our colleague Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at Vox. OK, so you focus this story you wrote on Iowa. Why Iowa? Why Iowa?

To answer this question, I brought in a colleague, someone whose job it is to think about the changing climate and who knows how to cover it in a way that doesn't make us want to throw up our hands in despair.

OK, so Trump has this ongoing beef with wind and wind turbines. How will these policies impact Iowa?

How did Iowa become a wind energy state?