The Most Important Question

The Plastic Crisis Isn't On You, Actually

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Plastic. It is the miracle material that has quietly become the infrastructure of modern life over the past 63 years and the almost undefeated business model that's continuing climate change and keeping fossil fuel companies alive and reshaping our bodies, our oceans, and our politics.

Yeah, plastic keeps food fresh and hospitals running, and cars and planes lighter, and it's also in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the supply chains that keep churning out more of it while they tell us recycling will handle it.

Meanwhile, cities and states are actually trying to rein it in, companies are pledging circularity, and regular people are left staring at their blue bin thinking, does this matter? Does any of this work?

So what can I do about plastic?

My returning guest is Beth Gardiner, a journalist and author of the new book Plastic Inc. Beth pulls back the curtain on how plastic became so pervasive, why the personal responsibility story has been so convenient for yet another industry, and what the real solutions actually look like, because that's why we're here.

So stick with us because at the end of this conversation, what can I do? Won't feel like a shrug. It'll feel like a plan.

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Have feedback? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

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Find every action recommended in The Most Important Question here: www.whatcanido.earth

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INI Book Club:

North Woods by Daniel Mason
Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Beth's book Plastic Inc https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9780593717103
Keep up with more of Beth's work here https://www.bethgardiner.com/

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

What's The Purpose of Your Wealth?

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 07:00:00 +0000

If our mission is to help people, everyone, answer the most important question, what can I do? Then at some point we need to talk to the people who help really wealthy people, help people.

So today's question, what can I do about high net worth philanthropy?

And look, hey, maybe you're among the vast majority who just heard that and you're like, well, this one doesn't apply to me, but hear me out. We have some of the worst billionaires of all time, but if billionaires are gonna continue to exist, we all need to have a good idea of how we can push them to distribute their resources more effectively and ASAP.

And I truly do believe that among high net worth individuals, there are some, especially younger folks that are dying to do exactly that. So whether that is you or definitely not you, or maybe you are adjacent to someone like that, I think there's something for everyone here.

My guest today is Sharon Schneider. Sharon is the Founder of Integrated Capital Strategies LLC, a consulting firm that helps founders and family offices create positive social change using an expanded toolbox of resources and strategies that spans the return spectrum from grants to market rate investments.

She's also the author of Handbook for An Integrated Life: A Practical Guide for Aligning Your Everyday Choices with Your Internal Compass, a number one new release on Amazon that helps individuals live into their values the same way her consulting helps business owners and family offices. Sharon previously served as the Executive Director of the Telluray Foundation, the Founding Director of the Walton Personal Philanthropy Group, and the co-founder and CEO of Moxi Jean, a for-profit social enterprise that was acquired by Schoola in 2015.

Sharon was named a Colorado Governor's Fellow in 2022 and in 2024 was named an Aspen Institute Finance Leader Fellow, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Again, I really do think there's something for everyone here. This is a really important conversation in a time of growing inequality. We gotta help more people.

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Have feedback? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Find every action recommended in The Most Important Question here: www.whatcanido.earth

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INI Book Club:

Handbook For An Integrated Life by Sharon Schneider
The Purpose of Capital by Jed Emerson
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Get in touch with Sharon at incapstrategies.com
Follow Sharon on LinkedIn
Modeling tool to plan your financial future https://projectionlab.com/
Read about how DAFs are actually being used here and here

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletters at importantnotimportant.com
Join us at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch!
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

We need your help

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Hi! It's Quinn. We have huge plans for 2026, and we need your help.

So we're running the biggest discount on an Important Membership that we've ever run, and will ever run, probably.

Right now it's $30/year. On January 1st, it'll be $50/year, and it's never going back.

So right now you can go to ImportantMembership.com and lock in $30/year forever, and we'll all be in a better place. You even get a free 30 day trial. Huzzah.

Here's a fun fact: 95% of people who joined are still Members. That's crazy. You will not regret it, and you even get stickers.

Members pay -- directly -- for our people, our software, our data, and when we can afford it -- which we really need to be able to afford more often -- marketing and advertising to get our work and the app in front of like 100 times more people.

You get bonus episodes from both of our podcasts, everything we make, like Life Finds A Way and The Science of Fiction, and all of it ad-free, and a place to track and share your actions with thousands of other people in What Can I Do? It's so great.

So that's it -- the price is going to basically double on January 1st, but you can lock in a Membership right now at $30/year, with a 30 day free trial.

Go to ImportantMembership.com right now, we take Apple Pay, it takes 10 seconds. Thank you.

Pods Fight Poverty: What Really Happens When You Just Give People Money?

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Hey friends, I want to talk about something big. Change the actual world big, because the world won't unfuck itself, as we all know.

We are joining podcasts across the planet for Pods Fight Poverty, a campaign directly supporting our good friends at Give Directly. Now, if you've been with us since episode 116, which feels like a thousand years ago, you'll remember when we asked one of the most deceptively simple, world altering questions ever.

Why is just giving people money the most effective way to help them change their lives and maybe even end global poverty altogether?

To crack that open I had Caroline Teti and Michael Faye on the show, two people who've spent years with Give Directly, knee deep in data and logistics and lived experience, my favorite combination of things, and guess what the answer turned out to be?

People are the experts on their own lives. You are. So why aren't they? Different people need different things on different days. So if you want them to get exactly what they need, you give them the resources to choose cash directly, and that's what Give Directly does.

No middlemen, no guessing, just trusting other humans with the dignity and agency we would expect and that they deserve. Yeah, wild idea. It works. It works better than almost anything else we've tried.

So here's the part where you come in. None of us can erase global poverty by ourselves. Again, that's our whole tagline. But literally, any one of us can lift one person out of poverty, today, right now. So for Pods Fight Poverty, if you can head to givedirectly.org/important and chip in.

That's givedirectly.org/important. And look to take it even further, my wife and I already personally contribute to Give Directly every year, every month actually, which is the best way to support a group like this, by the way.

And thousands of you all do too. I'm gonna step it up and will personally match the next $5,000 in donations when you use our link, which again is givedirectly.org/important. So let's do it.

And to get you in the spirit, we're gonna revisit our conversation right now with Teti and Michael. It's funny, it's hopeful, it's deeply nerdy, and it'll remind you why this work matters every single day. Thanks as always for giving a shit.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

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INI Book Club:

“The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova
“The Art of Reading Minds” by Henrik Fexeus
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Let's Talk About Menopause

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:00:00 +0000

What if talking about menopause out loud was as normal as talking about sports scores or school pickup?

Imagine it in movie plots, in your group chat, at the clinic, and on the campaign trail because when we name what's happening in our bodies, three things can follow: better care, better research, and better policy.

Normalizing the conversation around something that's gonna happen to half the population isn't oversharing. It's infrastructure. This is how we're gonna get appointments that move the needle for people. This is how we're gonna get workplace benefits that actually matter and research dollars that finally match the need, especially for those most impacted and least studied.

So what can I do to make menopause a public everyday conversation?

My guest today is Jennifer Gerson.

She's a journalist at the 19th, one of my favorite publications, and the author of their new menopause newsletter. Jennifer blends sharp reporting with practical scripts, and memes, how to talk to your doctor or your partner or your teen or someone in HR, and maybe your elected representatives too, because you know we love that.

So that this thing that's been so intensely private and understudied, on purpose, becomes public. And so progress compounds. This one can definitely change the conversation in your home and far, far beyond it.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

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INI Book Club:

The Day The Crayons Made Friends by Drew Daywalt
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Jennifer is listening to: the new Snocaps album, and all the Zombies soundtracks
Find a healthcare provider specializing in midlife women's health using resources at The Menopause Society
Subscribe to Jennifer's menopause newsletter at the 19th

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

The American Revolution's Unfinished Promise

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 07:00:00 +0000

If the American Revolution was, as Ken Burns put it, the biggest event since the birth of Christ, then there's probably never been a better time to explore and drastically expand on why it happened, who was involved, and what it set us up for than right now.

My guest today again is David Schmidt.

David is the producer and co-director, along with Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, of American Revolution, a six-part, 12-hour series premiering on PBS this November.

David is a childhood friend, but two decades after he and I played Nintendo in his basement, he began working with Florentine Films as a researcher and apprentice editor, beginning with The Roosevelts in 2014, where he also supervised the documentary's seven-episode script.

David's research on the Vietnam War in 2017 won him the Jane Mercer Footage Researcher of the Year Award, and he also worked closely on that project with writer Geoffrey C. Ward and helped coordinate post-production. With Burns, Schmidt also produced the two-part biography Benjamin Franklin in 2022 for PBS.

I can't wait for you to hear this discussion. I think it pairs really nicely with our conversation with Clint Smith and can't wait for you to see this piece.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

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INI Book Club:

This Here Is Love by Princess Joy L. Perry
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Watch the 12-part series, The American Revolution, on PBS https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-revolution
Read The American Revolution book by Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9780525658672
David is listening to: The American Revolution playlist, Hammond Song by The Roches, and The Shape of Water soundtrack

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

History vs Nostalgia

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 07:00:00 +0000

I've recorded hundreds of conversations with incredible people working on the front lines of the future. People who've asked the most important question: what can I do? Who found their answer and followed it.

But for today's conversation, we're going back to the front lines of the past because the past can tell us a whole hell of a lot about today and how tomorrow might go.

But only if we tell the full story of how we got here, about who got us here, about how my great-great-grandparents got here. And how my grandma got here fleeing the Nazis, and how millions of Africans were forcibly brought here, over 35,000 trips across the middle passage over almost 300 years.

The full story of the choices we made then, which was not so long ago, and continue to make now about wars and heritage and bondage and family and land and more.

And how, if we can break from the stories we've been told and continue to tell ourselves to choose history over nostalgia, to choose facts over memory and infinite disinformation on demand, we can make different choices.

My guest today is Clint Smith. Clint is the number one New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, he's the winner of the National Book Critic Circle Award for nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for book journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2021.

And now in 2025, the Young Reader's Edition has just come out and it is wonderful. Clint is also the author two books of poetry, the New York Times bestselling collection Above Ground, as well as Counting Dissent. Both poetry collections were winners of the Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, and both were finalists for NAACP Image Awards.

Clint is a staff writer at The Atlantic and he has received fellowships for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art for Justice Fund, Cave Canum, and the National Science Foundation. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, Poetry Magazine, the Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review, and elsewhere. Clint is a former National Poetry Slam Champion, and the recipient of the Jerome Jay Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

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INI Book Club:

How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
How The Word Is Passed Young Readers Edition by Clint Smith, Adapted by Sonja Cherry-Paul
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

How Germany Remembers the Holocaust (The Atlantic)
Monuments to the Unthinkable (The Atlantic)
What Is Colonial Williamsburg For? (The Atlantic)
Watch Clint's Crash Course on Black American History on YouTube
Read Clint's poetry in Above Ground and Counting Descent
Clint is listening to: Say Something by Karen Harding, and Craig David
Keep up with Clint's work https://www.clintsmithiii.com/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Running for Water (Because Shutoffs Are Immoral)

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 21:00:00 +0000

Chronically parched is not something anyone in this country or anywhere should ever have to feel, but here we are.

So how are towns and states making clean water more affordable, reliable, and less controversial? 'cause remember, it's fucking water.

Look, you might feel like you're giving it all you got but when you look around things are a little dark out there. So you, our listeners and readers and viewers and users, whatever, across the world, want and demand more examples of fight and progress you can see and touch and feel, taste, and in these conversations, in this special series, in our partnership with our best friends that Run For Something, we're gonna do that.

Each of these episodes features two guests both sourced from the Run For Something pipeline and graduating classes. First, I'll introduce one young elected official at the state or local level who has actually made real measurable progress on an issue facing more Americans than ever before, something that you'll notice.

And then in the same episode, I'll introduce a bright-eyed candidate who's currently running for a state legislature for mayor, for city council, or for school board, who is similarly hellbent on attacking the same issue in their own hometown or their state. And for all you know, one of these could be in yours or near yours, or just have lessons that apply to yours.

Today our topic: drinking water. You'd think it wouldn't be complicated or controversial, but remember folks, bad guys are real.

Introducing our incumbent, State Rep Laurie Pohutsky is a Michigan born millennial microbiologist serving her fourth term in the Michigan House of Representatives where she serves on the Oversight Committee and is the Chair of the Progressive Women's Coalition.

Laurie sponsored legislation that became Michigan's Clean Energy and Jobs Act of 2023. She's the co-sponsor of legislation to make polluters pay, which is always great, and to amend Michigan's Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, which focuses on environmental cleanup standards and procedures, which would be stellar since, as you know, the EPA has, basically been abolished.

Our candidate, Denzel McCampbell is a fine, young community advocate and native Detroiter, living and running for Detroit City Council District Seven. Denzel was born and raised in the east side and is a graduate of Michigan State University. He is dedicated to public service, to fighting day in and day out to increase access to democracy and representation for marginalized groups. He believes the Detroit city government should be a responsive government that uses its resources to ensure that every neighborhood is well resourced and that every resident is able to have the fundamentals.

Two amazing humans fighting for water, and fighting for everything else. Let's find out what it means for their hometowns, for Michigan, and for yours.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

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INI Book Club:

Lawless by Leah Litman
Whose Detroit? by Heather Ann Thompson
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Playlists: Everybody Scream by Florence + the Machine and Afro House 2025
Keep up with Laurie's work at lauriepohutskyformichigan.com
Support Denzel's campaign at denzelfordetroit.com
Support other young progressives at runforsomething.net or find a local office where you can run yourself at https://wherecanirun.org/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Running for School Meals (Because Learning Requires Eating)

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 18:00:00 +0000

I think we can all agree that kids shouldn't go hungry ever really, but especially at school.

You might feel right now like you are giving it everything you got, but when you look around, things feel kind of dark out there. So you, our listeners and readers and viewers across the country and across the world want, demand, need more examples of fight and real progress you can actually see and touch and feel and taste. And in these conversations, in partnership with our best friends at Run For Something, we're giving you exactly that. Each of these episodes features two guests both sourced from the Run For Something pipeline and graduating classes.

They are the next generation of American leaders. First, I'll introduce one young elected official at the state or local level who's made real measurable progress on an issue facing more Americans than ever before, like food, and then in the same episode, I'll introduce a bright-eyed candidate currently running for state legislature, mayor, city council, or like today's guest, school board, who's similarly hellbent on attacking the same issue in their own hometown or state.

And it matters because for all you know, it could be yours next.

So first up again, today, our topic: school lunches.

School breakfasts, after school meals for students and teachers and parents and caregivers and whoever needs it. Because without food teachers can't work. None of us can learn.

Our incumbent, Jessica Spillers is a mom, a social worker, and an advocate with 12 years of experience in community mental health, the criminal justice system, and the government sector. She currently serves on the school board in Manchester, New Hampshire, and was named the New Hampshire Young Democrat of the Year in May, 2024. Jessica recently announced enough is enough and decided to run for Mayor of Manchester.

Our candidate, Talia Rodriguez is running for the Buffalo Board of Education West District to be the first Latina on the board. She's a mom, a nonprofit development professional, and community advocate. She holds a law degree from the University of Buffalo and a Master's in Public Policy. She has extensive experience advancing educational equity, food justice, and bilingual programs. Talia is committed to uplifting diverse families, supporting student-centered policies and creating safe inclusive schools that meet the needs of all children.

I'm so excited to introduce you to these two amazing humans who are fighting for kids to have food. Let's find out what it means for their hometowns and for yours.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Creepy Pair of Underwear! by Aaron Reynolds
The Bible and The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Support Jessica's campaign for Manchester Mayor at spillersformayor.com
Support Talia's campaign for Buffalo School Board West District at talia4bps.com
Support other young progressives at runforsomething.net or find a local office where you can run yourself at https://wherecanirun.org/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Running for Gun Control (In The Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens)

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000

Maybe you feel like you're already giving it all you've got. You look around, and things are tough out there. You, our listeners and readers and viewers and users across the country and across the world, you're demanding more examples of fight and progress you can actually see and touch and feel, and in these conversations, in this series, in partnership with our very best friends at Run For Something, we're gonna give you exactly what you asked for.

Each of these episodes features two guests, both sourced from the Run For Something pipeline and graduating classes, the next generation of leaders. In each episode, first, I'll introduce one young elected official at the state or local level who's made real measurable progress on an issue facing more Americans than ever before.

And then in the same episode, I'll introduce a bright-eyed candidate currently running for a state legislature or Senate, governor, mayor, city council, or school board, who is similarly hellbent on attacking the same issue in their own hometown or state.

First up today, our topic: gun control.

As The Onion posts once a month, there's no way to prevent this, says the only nation where this regularly happens. But there are ways to prevent it.

Not just school shootings or homicides or suicides or even accidental shootings in the home when a gun and ammo aren't stored safely or even fucking stored at all. We just need people in office who aren't cowards because we know what works.

Our incumbent is Missouri State legislator, Ray Reed, endorsed by Run For Something in 2024. Ray was just in the news for a bold sit-in protest, refusing to leave the floor of the Missouri house for over a hundred hours after Republicans there attempted to convene a special session and push through redrawn legislative maps at the behest of Donald Trump.

Ray is a St. Louis native, and he brings a wealth of experience in Missouri politics, having collaborated with notable democratic leaders like former Governor Jay Nixon and Senator Claire McCaskill.

Next I'll talk to our candidate, Jazz Hampton. Jazz is running for Mayor of Minneapolis because he loves the city. It's not just where he lives. It is who he is. He is not only a lifelong Twin Cities resident, and a husband there, he's the father of three Minneapolis public school students. He has been an attorney there, an educator there, and a social justice entrepreneur.

He has freed the wrongfully convicted. He has worked on advanced, affordable housing, protected civil rights, and created safer communities. Now he's ready to bring fresh leadership and unite Minneapolis after a hell of a decade.

Two amazing humans fighting for gun control in very different places, in the only nation where this regularly happens. Let's find out what it means for their hometowns and yours.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

107 Days by Kamala Harris
Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Music recs: Jason Aldean and Star Line by Chance The Rapper
Follow and support Ray Reed's work @rayreedmo
Support Jazz's campaign at jazzformayor.com
Support other young progressives at runforsomething.net or find a local office where you can run yourself at https://wherecanirun.org/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Running for Transit (Because Your Commute Doesn't Have to Suck)

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Things are a little tough out there. So you, want, no need, more examples of fight and progress you can actually see and touch and feel. And in these series of conversations, in partnership with our best friends at Run for Something, we are giving you exactly what you asked for.

Each episode features two guests, both sourced from the Run for Something pipeline and graduating classes, the next generation of American leaders. First, I'll introduce one young elected official at the state or local level who's made real, measurable progress on an issue facing more Americans than ever before.

And then in the same conversation I'll introduce a bright-eyed candidate currently running for a state legislature, mayor, city council, or school board, who's similarly hell bent on attacking the very same issue in their own hometown or state.

And for all you know, it could be yours. Or yours next, because you and I will find out together what they're working on and why, where they've made progress, where they've struggled, and how their exact tactics and strategies can be transferred to other schools, towns, cities, and states across the country.

First up today our topic: transit. We need way more of it. We used to have more of it. We need it to be more reliable, and we need it to be more affordable.

Our incumbent, New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes was born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Following Superstorm Sandy Andrew co-founded Bay Ridge Cares, an organization that prepared 25,000 hot meals for victims after the storm, and as a member of the Rider's Alliance, he organized and formed the Concerned R-Train Riders to fight for better service and demand handicapped accessible subway stations in South Brooklyn. Andrew also worked with Bay Ridge Advocates for Keeping Everyone Safe or BRAKES and successfully pressured lawmakers to allow speed cameras in school zones, a fight he continues to wage all the way to Albany.

Our candidate, Miranda Schubert is a candidate for Tucson City Council, Ward 6. Miranda works full-time as an operations manager, on-air DJ, producer, and youth broadcasting camp counselor at KXCI Community Radio. She serves on two City of Tucson Commissions, is the founder of Tucson for Everyone, a local housing and transit advocacy group, and helped form the transit for all coalition there.

So you've got two amazing humans here fighting for more, more affordable, and safer transit, for more of our neighbors.

Let's go find out what it means for their hometowns and yours.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Power Broker and The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro
Saving Time by Jenny Odell
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Music recs: Bad Bunny Radio and Tucson 250+ Playlist
Read the New Yorker article about Families for Safe Streets https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/when-cars-kill-pedestrians
Follow Sen. Gounardes on Twitter or Instagram @agounardes
Support Miranda's campaign at mirandaforwardsix.com
Support other young progressives at runforsomething.net or find a local office where you can run youself at https://wherecanirun.org/

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Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Running for Housing (Because Someone Has To)

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In a moment when the news out of Washington can seem untenably rough, when the gerontocracy that got us here won't give up their hold on power, when billionaires own every single media channel, when everything from housing to childcare to elderly care and healthcare have been made unaffordable, if accessible at all, and the question, what can I do? Can feel more fruitless than ever, I come bearing good news.

Look to the young people. Look to our school boards, our cities, and in many cases to our states, our country remains a promise unfulfilled on purpose.

You need more examples of fight and progress you can actually see and touch and feel and beginning today in partnership with our best friends at Run For Something we are doing just that.

Each episode of this new series will feature two guests, both sourced from the Run for Something pipeline and graduating classes, the next generation of American leaders.

First, I'll introduce one young elected official at the state or local level who's made real measurable progress on an issue facing more Americans than ever before.

And then in the same conversation I'll introduce a bright-eyed candidate currently running for something like a state legislature, mayor, city council, or school board, who's similarly hellbent on attacking this same issue in their hometown or state. And for all you know, it could be yours. We'll find out together what they're working on and why.

So first up today, our topic: more and more affordable homes for more of our neighbors.

It’s a big one. It’s a complicated one. There are a million ways for us to chip away at being short 4 million affordable homes and good news, again, even if it doesn’t seem that way, there are a million incredible humans already doing the work in towns and states across the country. And I’m going to introduce you to two of them today.

The first is our incumbent. Willie Burnley Jr. is a Run For Something alum who currently sits on the Somerville, Massachusetts City Council and because he is an overachiever, he is actually also running for Mayor of Somerville. Willie has firsthand experience with displacement, and he’s a fierce advocate for tenant rights and affordable housing initiatives, and he has made some real progress in Somerville.

Next I’ll talk to our candidate. Kelsea Bond is a renter, community organizer, and union member running for Atlanta City Council. They’ve organized for everyone from Nabisco workers to Delta ramp workers, and they’re running on a platform to expand inclusionary zoning, abolish parking minimums, and among other stuff, to create an Office of the Tenant Advocate.

Two amazing humans fighting more and more affordable homes for more of their neighbors, for our neighbors. Let’s find out what it means for their hometowns and for yours.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9781101972670
Red Hot City by Daniel Immergluck https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9780520387645
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Get involved with Willie's campaign at https://www.willieforsomerville.com/
Get involved with Kelsea's campaign at https://kelseabond.com/
Support other young progressives at https://runforsomething.net/ or find a local office you can run for yourself at https://wherecanirun.org/
New York Times articles about Community Land Trusts https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/realestate/community-land-trusts-gentrification.html

Follow us:

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Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

(Re)Introducing The Science of Fiction

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000

This week we're rerunning our 2024 episode with Maddie Stone, writer of The Science of Fiction blog, to celebrate the fact that Maddie has joined our team and The Science of Fiction now lives at Important, Not Important.

The Science of Fiction explores the real-world science behind fictional monsters and alien planets, and stuff like that.

Quinn and Maddie get into the reasons why The Science of Fiction was a perfect fit for Important, Not Important, and then we get into their conversation from last year.

More on Maddie:

Maddie is a prolific science journalist. She is a doctor of earth and environmental sciences. She's the former science editor of the technology website Gizmodo, and the founding editor of Earther, Gizmodo's climate-focused vertical.

Maddie has edited articles for The Verge, Polygon, and Grist, and her original and award winning journalism has appeared in National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Grist, Vice, MIT Technology Room, Technology Review, and Drilled, and many other outlets we love and link to basically every day.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Not The End of The World by Hannah Ritchie
The Right to Repair by Aaron Perzanowski
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Subscribe to The Science of Fiction
Keep up with Maddie's writing, including her recent story holding Microsoft accountable to their sustainability pledges
Check out the Climate Reality Check report from Good Energy

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

The Answer is Always Run for Something

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Turns out it's our 200th episode. It has been a journey.

The show is now called The Most Important Question, and I can't think of a better answer than just fucking run for something. What can I do about anything? Run for something.

And so obviously the best guest to answer that question, is returning guest, Amanda Litman.

If you are new here, she is the co-founder and president of Run For Something, which recruits and supports young, diverse progressives running for down-ballot office, state and local. Since launching in 2017, a hundred years ago, Run For Something has elected more than 1500 leaders across nearly 50 states, mostly women and people of color.

She's also the president of Run for Something Civics, a 501C3 that works to end the gerontocracy. Shortly after launching Run for Something, Amanda wrote a book called Run for Something: A Real Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself, and she just published her second book called When We Are In Charge: The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership. It's wonderful.

It's hugely instructive whether you are young or old and very brittle like me. It doesn't pull any punches at all because it's by Amanda. Anyone in any profession, in the year of our Lord 2025, whether this is the last year or not, will get something out of it, whether you are a leader or not yet.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

When We're In Charge by Amanda Litman
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Run, donate, or volunteer for democracy https://runforsomething.net/
Subscribe to Run for Something's feel good updates https://rfsfeelgoodupdates.substack.com/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Making Your Climate Dollars Count When Government Won't

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Congress just jammed the brakes on America's clean energy boom, however short-lived it may have been.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law after a lot of debate in the House and the Senate and in public. It will wipe out most of the wind, solar, and EV tax credits. It's directing agencies to unwind renewable energy support, much less the mass electrification we need to do. These are changes the industry warns could kill new projects and spike electricity costs for homeowners and renters, and everyone.

So what can I do to keep climate progress moving when federal policy just banged right into reverse?

My guest today is Dr. Daniel Stein. He's the founder of Giving Green.

Dan's team pours over mountains of evidence to steer every donated dollar toward the highest impact climate solutions. Exactly the kind of agile systemic work we'll need now that this brief shining window of federal support just got gutted.

Stick around to learn how your strategic giving can still bend the carbon curve and how you can start actually multiplying your own impact today.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

We Are Eating The Earth by Michael Grunwald
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Find high-impact, strategic climate solutions to fund at Giving Green https://www.givinggreen.earth/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

When Foreign Aid Gets Zeroed Out Overnight

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Imagine waking up to discover that the United States has just pulled $35 billion out of foreign aid overnight, and that hundreds of HIV clinics, and child malnutrition programs, and poverty graduation trials will shut their doors within days and weeks.

Now imagine there's a rapid response team quietly sifting through every single grant, ranking them by lives saved per dollar and building lifeboat bridge grants before the lights go out.

That team exists. It's called Project Resource Optimization (PRO), and it's turning a disaster into a crash course in faster, smarter, truly lifesaving philanthropy.

So what can you do to keep the most effective aid on the planet from flatlining?

My guest today is Rob Rosenbaum, one of the co-leads of PRO.

Stick with us to learn how emergency triage, ruthless transparency on both sides of the market and a few well-placed dollars can keep millions of people from falling off a fiscal cliff and how you can help build the lifeboats.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Get money to lifesaving projects at https://proimpact.tools/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Taking Care of Business (Sustainably)

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Toilet paper. You use it. I use it. Sometimes, even my children use it. The point is, toilet paper is everywhere.

Almost everyone needs it, and so much of it still comes from actual forests, and yet 2 billion people don't have access to even basic sanitation, much less readily available and recycled toilet paper. That's about 40% of the global population.

289,000 children under five die every year from diarrheal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation. That's almost 800 children per day, or one child every two minutes. That's also completely fucking unacceptable.

So what can I do about toilet paper and sanitation, and can I do them at the same time?

My guest today is Bernie Wiley. Bernie's the Sustainability Director at Who Gives a Crap and, oh boy, do I love this company.

Who Gives A Crap makes toilet paper and paper towels and poop bags and more out of recycled paper and bamboo. And they give 50% of their profits to help build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world.

And because of Bernie's relentless focus, they consider every step of the supply chain along the way from water use to power use, all the way to last-mile delivery.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Ranger's Apprentice Collection by John Flanagan
Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Buy sustainable toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, and garbage bags from Who Gives A Crap for your home, your office, your school, everywhere! https://au.whogivesacrap.org/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

We Live In A World of Trees

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 07:00:00 +0000

You've heard people say it. It shouldn't have been called Earth. It should have been called Ocean, but it is simultaneously a planet of trees.

As Richard Powers put it in The Overstory: We live in a world of trees. Once something like 6 trillion trees, and humanity are the late arrivals. So how do we reconnect with trees to stop using them for toilet paper?

How do we learn more about why they're suffering and in some unexpected places surviving to know them, to care for them, and maybe even know ourselves a little bit better along the way?

My guest today is Marguerite Holloway.

Marguerite is the author of the wonderful new book Take To The Trees: A Story of Hope, Science, and Self-Discovery in America's Imperiled Forests. Marguerite is a professor at Columbia University's graduate school of journalism. She loves maps and is the author of The Measure of Manhattan.

She has written about science, including climate change, natural history and environmental issues, public health, physics, neuroscience, and women in science for publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Natural History, WIRED and Scientific American, where she was a long time writer and editor.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Take to the Trees by Marguerite Holloway
Foster by Claire Keegan
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Keep up with Marguerite's writing: https://www.margueriteholloway.com/
Check out the Women's Tree Climbing Workshop: https://www.womenstreeclimbingworkshop.com/
NYC Citizen Pruner Program: https://treesny.org/citizen-pruners-stewardship/

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Climate Solutions That Make Everything Better

Mon, 26 May 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Picture a city that beats brutal heat waves with cool tree-lined streets, slashes household energy bills, and cuts carbon pollution by as much as 80%, without waiting for these miracle technologies.

That future-positive vision is already taking shape in fast-growing places like Ahmedabad, India, where community-designed cooling plans and demand-side innovations are proving that climate action can double as a public health and equity upgrade.

It's co-benefits. You've heard it a thousand times. We're gonna talk about them more today.

What can you do to help your city deliver cleaner air, lower costs, and a safer climate?

My guest today is Dr. Minal Pathak, associate professor at Ahmedabad University and a former senior scientist with the IPCC who helped craft the landmark sixth assessment report.

We will explore how people-centered, data-smart solutions can transform just about any city into a climate-resilient wellbeing powerhouse and how you can start pushing your neighborhood, your spheres of influence, down that path today.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Dr. Pathak's work at Ahmedabad University https://ahduni.edu.in/academics/schools-centres/global-centre-for-environment-and-energy/people-1/minal-pathak/
Connect with Dr. Pathak on LinkedIn https://in.linkedin.com/in/minal-pathak-318827130
Read the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/
Read the Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan (replicated in 50+ cities)https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ahmedabad-heat-action-plan-2019-update.pdf

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

How Saving Salamanders Could Save Us All

Mon, 19 May 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In every flood scarred bend of an Appalachian river sits a chance to rebuild something stronger, cleaner water for people, and room for a 160 million-year salamander to thrive again.

Hurricane-shaped chaos is unveiling a surprising truth when we restore stream banks, fund green storm water projects, and protect keystone species like the Eastern Hellbender, we don't just rescue wildlife, we buffer towns and farms and drinking water intakes against the next big storm. The same fixes that help a snot otter bounce back can future-proof entire communities like yours and mine.

So what can I do to turn the washed-out creeks and budget cuts into a cleaner, more resilient future?

my guest today is Jackie Flynn Mogensen, senior reporter at Mother Jones.

Jackie embedded with conservation biologists after Hurricane Helene and uncovered how saving an ancient salamander could safeguard our waterways and our towns for decades to come.

Stick around and you'll discover practical ways to turn today's river wreckage into tomorrow's resilience.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet by Ben Goldfarb
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Jackie's Mother Jones Eastern Hellbenders article https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2025/04/endangered-species-salamander-hurricane-helene-eastern-hellbender-bog-turtle/
Learn how to build a rain garden https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/01/rain-garden-resources-water-flooding/
Follow Jackie and keep up with her reporting https://x.com/jackiefmogensen?lang=en
Rain Garden app https://coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/rain-garden.html

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: What's in a name?

Mon, 12 May 2025 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

There are a million legitimate reasons why standing up to bullies may require a pseudonym (and a cowl), or even anonymity.

As has been clear for centuries, and even more so in this moment of inescapable mass surveillance, some of us — by nature of our birth nation, skin color, ethnicity, sex, gender, religious beliefs, and/or who we love — are in far more clear and present danger than someone like me.

And yet — millions of people over decades and centuries have stood in broad daylight and put their names and their bodies, their finite time and resources to the test, on the line, to fight for a better future for themselves and the generations to come.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to defend digital privacy.
Volunteer with organizing initiatives through Tech Shift, to help build a fairer, more just technological future.
🌍️ Get educated about where your data is going online by using the Markup’s Blacklight tool.
🌍️ Be heard about unlocking global energy data so that researchers worldwide have access to it.
Invest in tech for good and use your capital to scale climate tech with Carbon Equity.

Get more:

Take action at www.whatcanido.earth
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Changing the Abortion Conversation

Mon, 05 May 2025 07:00:00 +0000

63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and yet here we are. So what can we do to make the language around abortion more positive?

My guest today is Sophie Nir.

Sophie is the CEO of the Abortion Positivity Project. The Abortion Positivity Project seeks to destigmatize abortion by more or less overhauling the framework by which we currently understand and discuss it.

They've developed a training curriculum on embracing abortion positive messaging in partnership with other nonprofit orgs and mission-aligned companies. Their goal is simple: educate everyone about abortion, expand the lens through which we all view abortion and ignite peer-to-peer conversations about reframing abortion discourse.

Sophie is the former executive director of Eleanor's Legacy, as well as the former finance director for New York State Attorney General Leticia James. She's the founder of Vaccine Vigilantes, which is a fucking incredible name, and a veteran of the campaigns of many prominent women elected officials.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

In Memoriam by Alice Winn
Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use To Win by Jessica Valenti
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Learn more about the Abortion Positivity Project: https://www.abortionpositivity.com/
Follow the Abortion Positivity Project on Instagram and Tik Tok
Get some abortion positive merch https://www.social-goods.com/collections/abortion-positivity-project

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

Table To Farm

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Sometimes you buy organic, sometimes you hit a restaurant that's plant-based, or at least you choose the veggie option.

Maybe the fish option at the market or the restaurant is marketed as being sustainable. Maybe you compost. It's all useful. But we've been doing it for a while and it's not moving the needle for climate, for restaurants, for farmers, for our health.

So anyone who gives a shit wants to know, what can I actually do to scale regenerative agriculture to benefit everyone?

My guest today is Anthony Myint.

Anthony is the executive director of Zero Foodprint, where he and his colleagues work to mobilize the restaurant industry and allies in the public and private sectors to support healthy soil as a solution to the climate crisis. Anthony's also a chef who won the 2019 Basque Culinary World Prize for his work with Zero Foodprint. He is known in the restaurant industry as the co-founder of Mission Street Food. The San Francisco Chronicle called it the most influential restaurant of the past decade, Mission Chinese Food, which the New York Times named the Restaurant of the Year in 2012. And The Perennial, which was Bon Appetit's most sustainable restaurant in the country.

Anthony is currently on the board of trustees for the James Beard Foundation, and I am so excited to share this conversation with you because food is such a huge part of everything and we're doing it wrong and we can do it so much better.

And sometimes, like Anthony and his crew have, you've gotta fail a bunch of times and then take an end around before you can really start to make a difference.

-----------

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New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Take action with Zero Foodprint https://www.zerofoodprint.org/take-action
Read Zero Foodprint's position paper on Collective Regeneration to Accelerate the Shift in Agriculture

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

History's "Viral" Lessons We Keep Ignoring

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 07:00:00 +0000

We've spent the last few years learning up close how a crisis like a global pandemic reveals and deepens all of our faults, inequalities, biases, and outright failures of empathy.

But here's the kicker: it's not the first time. Plagues and epidemics have always shown us who we really are. And they've left footprints, good and bad, on our institutions and the stories we tell ourselves.

So why do we keep missing the lessons?

My guest today is Edna Bonhomme, a historian, author, and public health expert who looks at disease in captivity through her own story of near-death illness, Haitian migration, and a lifetime of asking: Why does our world blame instead of heal?

Edna is the author of the new book, A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class and Captivity Shaped Us From Cholera to COVID-19.

If you've ever wondered how pandemics warp our social fabric and what it would take to heal old wounds and stop repeating the same mistakes, stick around.

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Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Edna's book A History of the World In Six Plagues
Keep up with Edna's other work
Support global and public health with Partners in Health and Doctors Without Borders
Support independent journalism at places like Democracy Now, The Intercept, and Jacobin Magazine (US), or Novara Media and the Guardian (UK)

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Find more ways to take action at whatcanido.earth
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hidden-economics-of-remarkable-women-hero/id1572532247

You Might Also Like: The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 07:00:00 +0000

The United States has long been the largest aid donor in the world, accounting for about 40 percent of humanitarian assistance globally last year, according to the United Nations. But that is quickly changing.

Most U.S. foreign aid is currently on hold. Thousands of projects are at risk of elimination. And nearly all staff from the U.S. Agency for International Development are on administrative leave.

How did we get to this moment? And what has been the impact of the foreign aid freeze so far, including on women and girls?

In this episode from The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, hear a conversation taped at Foreign Policy magazine’s Emerging Threats Forum, an official side event of the Munich Security Conference, about the economic and security implications of halting overseas development assistance.

Foreign Policy editor in chief Ravi Agrawal spoke with Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, the president and CEO of the One Campaign, and Umulkher (Umi) Harun Mohamed, a member of Kenya’s National Assembly.

The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women is a podcast from Foreign Policy, supported in part by the Gates Foundation and Northwestern University’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.

Follow and listen to more episodes:

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-----------

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Produced by Willow Beck
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Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: Give A Little

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

You’ve never had a better opportunity to improve one person’s life than you do right now.

I would argue, in fact, that there’s never been a better time to improve one person’s life than there is today.

Sounds crazy, right, considering all the destructive nonsense?

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Matriarch to help progressive working women run for office and win.
Volunteer with your local Surfrider chapter to protect your waterways and reduce plastic pollution.
Get educated about how you can start working on climate solutions by finding a climate job with Climate People.
🌎️ Be heard about building climate resilience in your community and have your city council join the Global Covenant for Mayors for Climate and Energy pledge.
Invest in the health of our soil, forests, and oceans by investing with ReGen.

Get more:

Take action at www.whatcanido.earth
Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Don't Move The Goalposts

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 07:00:00 +0000

One of the ways this Trump administration is different from the last is, relatively at least, how much more unconstitutional, how much more organized and comprehensive the attacks on our institutions, particularly the scaffolding we built for ourselves the most precious parts of of our societies: immigration, agriculture, the VA, NIH, the CDC, the NSF and humanitarian work around the globe.

Do some of these need reform? Of course, they do. Is this the way to do it? No, it is not.

These institutions, the ones we built over the last century that, again, however imperfect, baseline keep us fed and safe and on the other hand, help advance remarkable scientific progress.

They're at more risk than ever. Every single day. To combat this onslaught, we need groups who are actually prepared to fight back.

My guest today is Dr. Gretchen Goldman.

Dr. Goldman is the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Previously, she served almost two years in the Biden-Harris White House as the Assistant Director for Environmental Science, Engineering, Policy, and Justice in the Climate and Environment Division of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and later as the Climate Change Research and Technology Director at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

She is a prolific writer and speaker on science policy and her words and her voice have appeared in Science, Nature, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NPR, and the BBC, among others.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

-----------

INI Book Club:

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Donate, volunteer and be heard at ucs.org
Protect yourself and stand up for science using these Resources for Federal Sciences
Follow more of Gretchen's work

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

Going Quietly Is Not An Option

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0000

We didn't always call our work science for people who give a shit.

But ever since we did, we've welcomed at least two types of people to our flock. The first is people who are deeply invested in science, but are unsure how to tie it into measurable action on the human level. And the second is people already fighting for a healthier, more equitable society, but who are curious about the evolving science behind our complex systems.

They all want to know a version of the most important question, what can I do?

It's a big question right now. And today, after almost 200 conversations and on this, our newly rebranded show, we're going to confront that question as some of our most vital human and humane systems are being put in the shredder.

My guest today is Dr. Ticora Jones. Dr. Jones has spent the last two years leading the efforts to expand the vision for science in the science office at the NRDC, to support the scientific and evidence based nucleus for organizational strategy and advocacy.

Before joining the NRDC, Dr. Jones served nearly 15 years at USAID, a little agency you may have heard about recently, in a number of roles, including most recently as Agency Chief Scientist, Executive Director for Innovation, Technology, and Research, and Managing Director for Research.

As the Agency Chief Scientist, which is really a hell of a title, Jones chaired the Research and Development Council, which was responsible for revising and instituting science policy.

She advocated for process changes to better support scientific integrity and research generation and use. And she led efforts to expand USAID's interagency role with international science and technology cooperation for deeper strategic partnerships with the U.S. government.

As of this month, that is all in serious trouble.

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New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Support the NRDC's work
Follow Dr Jones
Find out more about what you can do at WhatCanIDo.Earth

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

No Country for Poor Men (or Women)

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 07:00:00 +0000

What can we do about land power?

It's the most important question and my guest today is Mike Albertus.

Mike is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He's the author of the new book, Land Power. Who has it? Who doesn't? And how that determines the fate of societies.

In the book, Mike examines how land became power, how it shapes power today still, and how who holds that power determines the fundamental social problems that societies grapple with.

Mike studies how countries allocate opportunity and well-being among their citizens and the consequences this has for society, why some countries are democratic and others are not, and why some societies fall into civil conflict.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
Caste and The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
Get our booklist for essential Civil War and Reconstruction books
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Mike's book Land Power
Subscribe to The Good Society
Follow Mike on Twitter and Bluesky
Get more of Mike's work on his website
Read about Bruce's Beach reparations in LA
Donate to the World Wildlife Fund, Tompkins Conservation and the Stand For Her Land Campaign

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: The Story of Not Right Now

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 15:00:00 +0000

This week:

Not. Right. Now.

I hope you enjoy our new show. It’s super, super informal, and fun, and full of profanity, and personal, and — I hope — something you or a parent in your life can identify with, and maybe get some relief from.

It’s intentionally and decidedly NOT an advice show.

It is a once-a-week parasocial commiseration session about trying to raise kids and continue to be a human and maybe even a partner amid…all of this.

Listen to Not Right Now here https://www.notrightnow.show/

Read Claire's intro to Not Right Now in her Evil Witches newsletter here https://www.evilwitches.com/p/out-now-a-witchy-project-in-pod-form

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Push Them Down

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Please enjoy the debut episode from our new show, Not Right Now.

Every week, Claire (Evil Witches) and Quinn (Important, Not Important) dive into the chaotic reality of raising tiny humans in these wild times.

From behavioral reflection forms and schoolyard diplomacy to the eternal question of "how many water bottles does one child need?", we explore the messy, hilarious, and occasionally terrifying truth about modern parenting.

Plus: why every parent should have friends who don't make you add "...but of course I love them!" to your rants, the special anxiety of raising boys who won't become supervillains, and the paradox of counting down to bedtime while simultaneously scrolling through baby photos.

A conversation for parents who know that both dreading dinner and cherishing every moment can be true at the same time.

A new show from Important, Not Important.

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Get all of our episodes at https://www.notrightnow.show/

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Produced and edited by Willow Beck
Music by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

Introducing: Not Right Now

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Not Right Now is a podcast for parents navigating the impossible task of raising kids while *gestures wildly at everything*.

Join Quinn Emmett (Important, Not Important) and Claire Zulkey (Evil Witches) for honest conversations about parenting in an era of climate change, artificial intelligence, social media anxiety, all while trying to get your kid to just please put on their shoes.

From discussing how to talk to kids about the news without traumatizing them (or yourself), to debating the right age for a phone, to admitting that sometimes the best parenting happens when you're hiding in the pantry eating handfuls of trail mix for dinner- Quinn and Claire bring humor, empathy, and real talk to the wild adventure of raising tiny humans in these chaotic times.

Because being a good parent doesn't mean having all the answers - it means figuring it out together, one "not right now" at a time.

Join us every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

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-----------

Links:

Follow Not Right Now on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notrightnowpodcast/
Email Not Right Now at questions@notrightnow.show

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: Have Mercy

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 20:00:00 +0000

This week:

I’m not religious. But I did (barely) successfully major in religious studies.

For better and often for worse, the history of faith and organized religion has been the backbone of human history, political science, culture, wars, sexual ethics, and more.

Subtle or not, religion and faith are most often the answer to why people do what they do, and to how we got here, even now as the west barrels towards majority secularism.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the Climate Justice Alliance to amplify grassroots leadership working towards a Just Transition.
🌏️ Volunteer with the Green Faith Alliance and get your faith group involved in climate action.
🌏️ Learn about how colonialism is a historical and ongoing driver of climate change and its impacts.
Be heard about science-based health care and tell your Senator to vote “No” on RFK Jr’s nomination.
Invest in a more equitable world by investing in the Black Farmer Fund to increase the representation and success of Black agricultural and food businesses.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: Build Something Useful

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

You're wasting your talent on bullshit while the world burns.

You — yes, you — can actually use your very unique set of skills for good. Even and especially at scale, even — yes — right now.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help get Zuckerberg’s grubby little paws off of your data.
Volunteer with Tech Shift and start creating technology that actually contributes to the betterment of humanity.
🌎️ Get educated about social media, deepfakes, misinformation, and all the other internet foes by taking this Media Literacy Crash Course.
Be heard about creating the appropriate safeguards for AI by urging your representatives to support the Algorithmic Accountability Act.
🌏️ Invest in tech that reduces emissions instead of dismantling democracy using Carbon Equity.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

We Need To Talk About Bird Flu

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 07:00:00 +0000

We (Quinn) has been avoiding this question for quite a while.

I even wrote a few thousand words about it a couple months ago and didn't publish it because it was a bit of a downer.

But that's kind of malpractice in a way because we promised we don't shy away from the hard stuff even if the goal is to help you understand what you can do about it.

Just like there's never really an optimal time in your life to get married, or have a baby, or get arrested, there's never a good time to talk about bird flu, which means it's always the right time to talk about bird flu, and especially when you've got the best of the best on the line.

What can I do about bird flu?

That's today's big question and my returning guest is the wonderful Dr. Nahid Bhadelia.

Dr. Bhadelia is the founding director of the BU Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. She's a board certified infectious diseases physician and an associate professor at the BU School of Medicine.

She served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Global COVID 19 Response for the White House COVID 19 Response Team in 2022 and 2023, where she coordinated the interagency programs for global COVID 19 vaccine donations from the United States.

Nahid was also the policy lead for Project NextGen, a 5 billion dollar health and human services program aimed at developing next generation vaccines and treatments for pandemic prone coronaviruses.

She also served as the interim testing coordinator for the White House mpox response team and is the Director and Co-founder of Biothreats Emergence Analysis and Communications Network, or BEACON, an open source outbreak surveillance program.

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New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

Links:

Keep up with Dr. Bhadelia's work at BU
Follow Dr. Bhadelia on Bluesky
Find air filters at Filterbuy.com
Learn more about what you can do to support public health

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 20:00:00 +0000

This week:

Be prepared — because these fires that are still burning are only the beginning. Start somewhere, start right in front of you, do what you can.

Here's What You Can Do:

LA isn’t the only place suffering this week, but it was home for a long time, so here’s vetted ways you can contribute right now, from near or afar.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: About 2025

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 17:00:00 +0000

This week:

It’s been a minute. Thanks for your patience. Please check out my 2025 preview, and if you’d be so kind, share it widely.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Everytown to support their efforts to end gun violence, community by community.
Volunteer with Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) to build the supports your community needs to respond to climate impacts.
Get educated about how you can run for a local office and make a huge, direct impact on peoples lives using Run For Something’s Local Office Guide. 2025 is your year, let’s go.
Be heard about incentivizing heat pump installations and bring our Heat Pump Targets script to your local government meetings.
Invest in affordable housing by becoming an investor with Enterprise, a non-profit working to increase housing supply and build community resilience.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
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Mentioned in this episode:

Bridging Misinformation Gaps with Local Journalism

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 07:00:00 +0000

What's the missing link in local journalism?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Lyndsey Gilpin.

Lyndsey is the Senior Manager of Community Engagement at Grist. Lyndsey was the founder and executive editor at Southerly, a nonprofit media organization that equipped people who face environmental injustices and are at most at risk of climate change effects with journalism and resources on natural disasters, pollution, food, energy, and more.

It was very groundbreaking, and now she's brought that to Grist. Lyndsey was recently a John S. Knight Community Impact Fellow at Stanford University, focusing on information access in rural southern communities of color, where she is from, based in Louisville.

And in an age of mass dis and misinformation it's more important than ever that we not only fund journalism and obviously read it, but local journalism and journalists and publishers, editors, photographers, documenters, and more that are of the communities they are based in, who have and continue to build trust in an ongoing, two way conversation to help people get information, to connect the last mile and make sure it goes back and forth.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

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INI Book Club:

The Quickening by Elizabeth Rush
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read more about Lyndsey's community engagement work at Grist
Keep up with Lyndsey's work
Support Grist's nonprofit journalism

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Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Take action at whatcanido.earth
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: Only 86,000 To Go. You in?

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

This entire (short!) episode is a call to action. It's time to do this thing...do the thing, but also take care of yourselves and your loved ones these next couple weeks.

It's a lot right now.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the groups that are on the ground every day organizing and fighting for a better, stronger democracy (go)
Volunteer for democracy by picking up the phone and knocking on doors with the people who have mobilizing voters down to a science. Time’s ticking but it’s not too late (go)
Learn about ways you can become a more active citizen (like running for a local office!) (go)
Be heard about the issues you care about the most, like reproductive rights or clean energy, and find candidates in your district that support those causes.
Invest in companies that are scaling climate solutions so we still have a planet where the privilege to vote is possible.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Take Action at whatcanido.earth
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Thinking In Systems To Save An Indivisible World

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Is multisolving the future? Is it today? Should we do more?

That's all today's big question and my guest is Dr. Elizabeth Sawin.

Dr. Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute, which is convenient for our conversation. She's an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well being, and economic vitality. She developed multisolving to describe such win win win solutions.

Beth writes and speaks about multisolving, climate change, and leadership in complex systems for both national and international audiences.

Since 2014, Beth has participated in the Council on the Uncertain Human Future, a continuing dialogue on issues of climate change and sustainability among a select group of humanities scholars, writers, artists, and climate scientists.

Beth is a biologist with a Ph.D. From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M. I. T. She co-founded Climate Interactive in 2010 and served as Climate Interactive's co-director from 2010 until 2022.

Beth’s work has influenced me quite a bit, as you can see in the app.

We've got co benefits all over the place, more on that soon and today. She's been on the list for a while here, and yet it took a couple recent hurricanes to actually get her on the show to talk about her journey, her mentors, her new book, and how we can most effectively deal with all of this.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Always Coming Home and The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Learn more about multisolving at the Multisolving Institute
Buy Dr. Sawin's book Multisolving: Creating Systems Change in a Fractured World
Check out the FLOWER App
Follow Dr Sawin on Bluesky and Twitter

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Poverty Is A Policy Choice

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 07:00:00 +0000

How do we make it easier for more Americans to reliably put food (in particular, hot food) on the table?

That's today’s big question, and my guest is Salaam Bhatti.

Salaam is the SNAP Director at the Food Research and Action Center, a 501c3 that uses advocacy and strategic partnerships to improve the health and well being of people struggling against poverty related hunger in the United States.

Before joining the Food Research and Action Center, Salam was the Public Benefits Attorney and Deputy Director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center where he specialized in public benefits law.

Salaam also served as the director of Virginia Hunger Solutions, where he supported the initiative's mission of eradicating hunger and enhancing the nutrition, health, and overall well being of children and families living in poverty throughout this great commonwealth.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Llama Llama and the Bully Goat by Anna Dewdney
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Salaam on TikTok and Twitter
Follow FRAC on Instagram and Twitter
Get involved with the FRAC Action Network
Donate to FRAC to help end hunger in America
Check out FRAC's Road to the Farm Bill resources
Call on Congress to protect and strengthen SNAP
Read the USDA Food Security report and FRAC's Statement of Poverty report
Read FRAC's brief with the National Women's Law Center

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Best of: Check Your Insurance Policy

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 07:00:00 +0000

We first ran this episode in May 2023, but following back-to-back hurricanes in Florida this month, it remains as relevant as ever.

You've got insurance, right? Are you sure?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Washington Post reporter Brianna Sacks.

Brianna's an extreme weather and disaster reporter for the Post, where she explores how climate change is transforming the United States through violent storms, intense heat, widespread wildfires, and other forms of extreme weather.

Brianna deploys to disaster zones, which are sometimes very close to home, and does enterprise reporting on the preparations for responses to and the aftermaths of catastrophic events.

We're having this conversation today because last month Brianna revealed how insurers have slashed Hurricane Ian payouts far below damage estimates, often up to 80%.

I cannot emphasize enough that the future includes an insurance landscape that is among the most important in our very brittle economy and society.

It underpins everything we rely on, so understanding not only your own insurance but how well your mortgage holder and the system at large are prepared for what's here and what's coming, is essential.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Training for the Uphill Athlete by Steve House, Scott Johnston, and Kilian Jornet
The Great Displacement by Jake Bittle
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Brianna on Twitter and Instagram
Read Brianna's piece on Hurricane Ian insurance cuts
Read more of her reporting at The Washington Post

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Best of: Fresh Banana Leaves

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 07:00:00 +0000

There’s no word for “conservation” in many Indigenous languages.

Some come close, but mean something more like “taking care of” or “looking after.”

And that’s probably because the very idea of conservation, to “prevention the wasteful use of a resource”, would have been, and continue to be, foreign to many of North America’s Indigenous peoples, who lived in an entirely different, co-dependent relationship with nature.

That is to say, to have had a relationship at all.

A relationship with the very same nature of which we’re inextricably part of, of which we rely on for clean air, food, and water – or it’s game over.

And now, if we’re not facing game over, we’re certainly up against the final boss.

We live on stolen lands that were tended for thousands of years by Indigenous and Native peoples have been dried out by mostly white settlers in what seems like the blink of an eye.

Land now covered in cities, in suburbs, in industrialized agriculture, desperately and even controversially conserved as national and state parks.

Waters onshore and offshore, full of plastic and fertilizer, once bountiful, now overfished.

The receipts are in and it’s not gone well for colonialists’ stewardship over the single habitable ecosystem as far as anyone can tell.

New voices are needed, new policies and practices are needed, and perhaps the most compelling ones come from our land’s longest-tenured human inhabitants.

And while, yes, I’m focused on actions we can take to build a vastly cleaner and better future for all people, you know I work hard to bring you the necessary context, to understand how we got here, why we got here, to understand the decisions and systems involved – all of which should only make us more effective at taking action.

My guest today is Dr. Jessica Hernandez.

Dr. Hernandez is an environmental scientist, founder of environmental non-profit Piña Soul, and the author of the new book, “Fresh Banana Leaves”, where she weaves together her family’s relationship with nature, as part of nature, her family’s history of being displaced over and over, through the lens of eco-colonialism, and how Indigenous-led restoration is the way forward.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word by Dr. Emil’ Keme
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Dr. Jessica Hernandez on Twitter
Jessica Hernandez website
Piña Soul

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: Why We Made An App

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 15:00:00 +0000

This week:

You’d think that -- considering we just spent two years building our new What Can I Do? app -- that I’d have a really good answer for why we were doing it in the first place.

But I didn’t. Not until about a week ago.

I knew, of course, the practical reasons why it needed to exist, and I had a good idea of what I wanted it to look and feel like.

I knew it was the natural evolution and a significant missing piece of our work.

But I had never really interrogated myself to understand why I was so hell-bent on building an app -- a tool -- that gathered all the action steps we’d researched over the years, and made them accessible to anyone across the world, anytime they wanted or needed them.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Introducing: What Can I Do?

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 07:00:00 +0000

It’s another big day in a very big month for us.

Our extremely tiny team has been busting our asses for almost two years to bring you something fucking extraordinary, something I’m just so proud of, and now it's here:

Our new app: "What Can I Do?"

A one stop shop for taking action on the issues you give a shit about.

Why?

Because the world won't unf**k itself.

Get it here: https://www.whatcanido.earth/

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Finding Joy In Climate Solutions

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 07:00:00 +0000

What if we get it right?

That's today's big question, and my returning guest is Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist. She is a policy expert, a writer, and a teacher working to help create the best possible climate future. She co-founded and leads the Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and is the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College.

Ayana authored the forthcoming book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, co-edited the best selling climate anthology, All We Can Save, and co-created and co-hosted the Spotify slash Gimlet podcast, How to Save a Planet. Lastly, she co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean, what an idea, into climate policy.

This is a special one for me.

Ayana was guest number seven or eight on the show a long time ago. She took a chance on us. And almost 200 episodes later, a pandemic later, a few degrees of warming later, a lot has changed.

But Ayana's passion for nature, her influence on U.S. and global policy and our one wonderful habitable planet has not.

I am such a huge fan of hers, and I am so thankful she came back to spend time with us.

If you have been trying to find your way into this whole thing, today just might be your day.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

What If We Get It Right by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
All We Can Save by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine Wilkinson
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Subscribe to Ayana's What If We Get It Right? newsletter
Find climate action resources to pair with What If We Get It Right?
Join and donate to the All We Can Save Project
Donate and check out the Resource Hub at Urban Ocean Lab
Keep up with more of Ayana's work

Follow us:

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Best of: A Conversation With A Future President of the United States

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 07:00:00 +0000

In this throwback episode from October 2020, Quinn & Brian discuss: Why state elections matter not just for your state but for the future of our planet.

Our guests are: Aimy Steele & Amanda Litman.

Aimy is a candidate for the North Carolina House of Representatives in District 82, a mother of five, a former Spanish teacher, and a former K-12 principal.

Amanda is the co-founder and Executive Director of Run For Something, a PAC that is recruiting and supporting young progressives who want to run for state and local elections. They’re endorsing more than 500 candidates in the 2020 elections, primarily women and people of color, and they’re inviting all of us to take an active role in writing a new future for our country.

Really, we probably do deserve a horde of bitter white men who all go to the same discount barber, but our world will be so much better off if we elevate diverse voices who actually know how to help our country’s diverse communities.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

"Indecent Assembly: The North Carolina Legislature's Blueprint for the War on Democracy and Equality" by Gene R. Nichol
"Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Find a great local candidate to vote for: directory.runforsomething.net/candidates
Support Run for Something: runforsomething.net/give
Listen to Amanda’s first episode: #60: Why You Should Run for Something in 2020

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: How to Eat More Plants (And Less Beef)

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Next up in our series of “How to Eat More Plants”. Today’s topic? Beef!

Here's What You Can Do:

Read the essay and get the links online here
Donate to the Humane Farming Association to support their work against factory farming.
Volunteer with Planted Society to help cities, restaurants, and individuals make sustainable changes in their food culture.
🌎️ Get educated about ways to transition to plant-based options by checking out the Meatless Monday campaign.
Be heard about animal cruelty, air and water pollution, and public health by asking the Department of Agriculture to stop supporting factory farming.
🌏️ Invest in industries that aren’t cutting down the Amazon using Deforestation Free Funds.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: The Sun Machines Cometh

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Please enjoy this hopeful ditty on how we have finally harnessed the sun ☀️ — and how we’re just getting started.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Grid Alternatives to advocate for community-powered solar policy that gets everyone on a clean energy grid (🌎 go global: Donate to GiveDirectly so people have the agency to buy their own solar)
Volunteer to become a member of the Green Workers Alliance to help ensure the creation and maintenance of well-paying, sustainable green jobs in the clean energy transition.
Buy solar for your home, company, school district, and/or your town with help from our best friends at Rewiring America.
🌏️ Get educated about where your power is coming from with electricityMap.
Be heard about continuing to expand solar access and ask your representative to support clean energy progress.
Invest in positive climate action and use your money to fund solar expansion with ATMOS.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: How To Eat More Plants

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Today’s post is more of a macro introduction to the why and how of the “eat more plants (and consequently) fewer animals” lifestyle.

Deep-dives on how to eat fewer animals, by type, including meat/beef/pork, chicken/turkey, dairy, and fish (and humans! Can’t forget humans) will follow in subsequent posts.

My overall goal is to help you — someone who already gives a shit for one reason or another — understand why eating more plants and fewer animals is intersectional as hell.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Friends of the Earth to help transition our food system into one that is more sustainable, healthier, and more just.
Volunteer with Kiss The Ground to help shift policies and resources towards regenerative agriculture.
Get educated about more ways to eat more plants by subscribing to Vox’s Meat/Less newsletter.
Be heard about passing a strong Farm Bill that provides critical funding so farmers can grow nutritious food via sustainable farming practices.
Invest in sustainable farming with Farm VC.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

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Essay: The Turn of the Tide

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

We're running an updated version of a popular essay from last year.

Tolkien described life (and often, his stories) as a "long defeat", where evil frequently, inevitably wins.

But he allowed for "eucatastrophe" — sudden joyous turns (just like breakthroughs in elections and voting rights).

We must keep fighting, to hold off the darkness.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to protecting voting rights and advocating for democracy with Fair Fight.
Volunteer to bring together conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to fix America’s political system with RepresentUS.
Get educated about quick, easy, daily actions you can take to save democracy by subscribing to the Chop Wood, Carry Water newsletter.
Be heard about fair elections and add your name to the End Gerrymandering Pledge.
Run for your state or local office with Run for Something (if you’re under 40, if you’re over 40, donate!)

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Everything Is Connected (No, Seriously)

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 07:00:00 +0000

How did our planet come to life? Is it alive? And where are we as part of that?

Those are today's big questions and my guest is Ferris Jabr.

His new book, Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life, is one of the most compelling, beautiful, timely, and important reads I've ever got to underline throughout.

Ferris is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and Scientific American. He has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, National Geographic, Wired, Outside, Lapham's Quarterly, McSweeney's, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other wonderful publications.

I've been on a bit of a bender lately. I'm getting older. I've got kids that are getting older quickly. Work continues. Everything keeps changing and staying the same. I'm trying to contextualize for myself, for this work, for you all, and for my kids, time and place and presence and relationships.

How much time do we each have here? Do we as a species have here? Who do we spend it with? How do we spend it? How precious is it to each of us? Does it become more so, less so? How should we use our time and experience, and how can we help?

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life
Read more of Ferris' work and follow him on social media

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Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

AI Ethics Not Found

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 07:00:00 +0000

When is a cancer scare, a rejected mortgage loan, a false arrest, or predictive grading, more than a glitch in A.I.?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Meredith Broussard.

Meredith is a data journalist and associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, Research Director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology and the author of several books I loved, including More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender and Ability Bias in Tech, and Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World.

Her academic research focuses on A.I. in investigative reporting and ethical A.I., with a particular interest in using data analysis for social good.

She's a former features editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. She's also worked as a software developer at AT&T Bell Labs and at the MIT Media Lab. Meredith's features and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, and other outlets.

If you have ever turned on a computer or used the internet in some way to apply for something, or literally anything, this one is for you.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Meredith's books: More Than A Glitch and Artificial Unintelligence
Check out Meredith's website and follow her on social media
Get up to speed on A.I. ethics by reading: Weapons of Math Destruction, Algorithms of Oppression, Automating Inequality, Race After Technology, Black Software
Follow algorithm and bias influencers Avriel Epps and Joel Bervell
Check out the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, NIST's AI Risk Management Framework, GAO's Algorithmic Audit, and the Algorithmic Accountability Act
Check out Encode Justice

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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Houston, We Have An Overfishing Problem

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

How do we stop overfishing if we don't know who's doing the fishing?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Jennifer Raynor.

Jennifer is an Assistant Professor of natural resource economics at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Before entering academia, she conducted policy-relevant economic research for the U.S. federal government for nearly a decade, most recently at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries.

Jennifer's research focuses on improving the efficiency and sustainability of fisheries and wildlife management, primarily using methods from economics, data science, and remote sensing.

She strives to inform the legislative decision-making process and works closely with state and federal resource managers to design and evaluate conservation policies. She serves on the board of trustees for Global Fishing Watch, and her research has appeared in top journals such as Science, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Jennifer and her team decided to tackle, 70 percent of our planet. The ocean. And what they discovered about who's trawling our oceans and where could set in motion policy the world over to make fishing drastically more sustainable and safe for everyone on every front.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Jennifer's satellite mapping paper in Nature
Read Jennifer's research on the economic benefits of wolves (and Ed Yong's piece about it in the Atlantic)
Follow more of Jennifer's work
Support Global Fishing Watch
Read the Crimes Behind The Seafood You Eat
Read The Outlaw Ocean series
Support the Outlaw Ocean Project

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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

🌎 Essay: A Leading Question

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 20:00:00 +0000

This week:

We are occasionally asked why we link to scientific journals, news outlets, and sometimes even opinion pieces that are behind paywalls.

In a world where HBO HBO Max Max and Spotify and everyone else raise prices once a month, it’s a great question:

Our newsletter is free — why the hell do we make you click through to something that costs money?

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the 19th, a diverse, indie, non-profit newsroom reporting on gender, politics, and policy. They do amazing work.
Volunteer with Documenters to fill the gap in local media coverage and make sure public meetings are on the record.
Get educated about what journalists can do to help journalism survive, from getting involved in policy to unionizing.
Be heard about helping journalists and publishers receive fair compensation from tech platforms for use of their content and ask your representative to support the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act.
Invest in companies that align with your values using fennel.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Bring A Folding Chair

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 15:00:00 +0000

How do we tackle huge systemic intersectional environmental justice issues at the local level?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Jacqui Patterson.

Jacqui is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, which helps connect Black communities that are being disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis with the resources they need to create systemic change across connected challenges.

Jacqui was recently named to Time Magazine's 2024 list of Women of the Year, and she took home the Earth Award for her work. Jacqui was previously the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Since 2007, she has served as Coordinator and Co-founder of Women of Color United.

She has served as the Senior Women's Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid, where she integrated a women's rights lens for the issue of feud rights, macroeconomics, and climate change, as well as the intersection of violence against women and HIV/AIDS.

Previously, she served as Assistant Vice President of HIV and AIDS Programs for IMA World Health, providing management and technical assistance to medical facilities and programs in 23 countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

Jacqui served as the Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University.

She also served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Chronicles of the One series by Nora Roberts
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

The Science of Fiction

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Why is it so important that we share the science of fiction, and what do we do with it once we have it?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Maddie Stone.

Maddie is a prolific science journalist. She is a doctor of earth and environmental sciences. She's the former science editor of the technology website Gizmodo, which I love, and the founding editor of Earther, Gizmodo's climate focused vertical, which I love.

Maddie has edited articles for The Verge, Polygon, and Grist, and her original and award winning journalism has appeared in National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Grist, Vice, MIT Technology Room, Technology Review, and Drilled, and many other outlets we love and link to basically every day.

An avid science fiction fan like me, Maddie runs one of my favorite blogs called The Science of Fiction, an email newsletter and a blog, if you're old, that explores the real world science behind fictional monsters and alien planets and stuff like that (which checks all of my boxes).

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Not The End of The World by Hannah Ritchie
The Right to Repair by Aaron Perzanowski
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Subscribe to The Science of Fiction
Keep up with Maddie's writing, including her recent story holding Microsoft accountable to their sustainability pledges
Check out the Climate Reality Check report from Good Energy

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: In Bruges

Mon, 27 May 2024 18:00:00 +0000

This week:

Do you like cookies? What about olive oil cake? What about chocolate chip coffee cake? Listen on.

Here's What You Can Do:

🌍️ Donate to support African farmers by increasing incomes and improving food security through the Alliance for a Green Africa.
🌎️ Volunteer to join the Coffee & Climate Network, an organization that connects stakeholders in coffee farming to create a climate-smart future.
🌎️ Get educated about regenerative agriculture that increases resilience using resources from Climate Farmers.
Be heard about your eco-anxiety by connecting with others having similar feelings at a Climate Psychology Alliance Climate Cafe near you.
Invest in deforestation-free investment options with Deforestation Free Funds.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Chronic Illness: Not Actually Female Hysteria!

Mon, 20 May 2024 07:00:00 +0000

How do we take a huge chronic disease burden like Lyme disease or long COVID or even long flu and make it so personal that we simply can't ignore it anymore?

That's today's big question and my guest is Dr. Mikki Tal, an immunoengineer and a principal scientist at MIT.

Dr. Tal leads the Tal Research Group within the Department of Biological Engineering, and also serves as the Associate Scientific Director of the Center for Gynepathology Research. Mikki is working to identify the connections between infections and chronic diseases.

I've written a bit recently about the lessons we finally need to learn about post viral and bacterial health issues, the societal and medicinal and health and economic issues and improving our baseline of wellness and community health, so that we don't suffer from those quite as much.

These things are very real, we've known about them for a very long time and the compounding effects of chronic diseases are just going to continue add up the longer we ignore them, and we gaslight people.

There has never really been a better time for Mikki's work, or for this wonderfully inspiring and personal conversation.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Participate in the MAESTRO Study
Explore more of Dr. Tal's research (including recent papers here and here)
Keep up with Dr. Tal's work on X and Linkedin
Read more about Dr. Tal's work here and here

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
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Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: How to get more Good Energy

Fri, 10 May 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This week:

This week I wrote about a groundbreaking and essential new study that — thank christ — is not actually about which seemingly reasonable dietary supplement will definitely extend/tragically cut short your life.

It’s about 🍿 film, and after you’re done reading, I’d love it if you replied to this email with some favorite movies that moved the needle for you in some way. We’ll share the list with everyone soon.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Eco-Anxious Stories to help create stories about meaning, mental health, and climate change.
🌍️ Volunteer to share your climate solutions story with the Global Solutions Diary from Project Drawdown.
🌎️ Get educated about how to integrate climate change into your writing in an authentic way by booking a consultation with Good Energy.
Be heard about the climate crisis and urge Congress to act.
Invest in a climate-positive future using ATMOS.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Get our merch
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Bridget Jones, Climate Hero

Fri, 03 May 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

In this essay, I will argue that Bridget Jones is the perfect climate-era hero, because she is all of us.

Here's What You Can Do:

🌍️ Donate to Project HOPE to support frontline teams working to strengthen healthcare systems and respond to crises globally.
🌎️ Volunteer to share your climate solutions work with the Global Solutions Diary from Project Drawdown and use your story to inspire hope in the climate community.
Get educated about how you can join a network of people working on climate, and get started on working on solutions, in your city with Climate Tech Cities.
Be heard about feeding hungry kids and urge your representatives to support the Universal School Meal Program Act.
Invest in a climate-friendly 401(k) using Sphere.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Keeping Long COVID In The News

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Who is still covering Long COVID, and how much is the audience actually growing?

That's today's big question, and my guests are Betsy Ladygetz and Miles Griffis, editors and co-founders of The Sick Times, a journalist-founded website chronicling the Long COVID crisis.

The Sick Times investigates injustices, challenges powerful institutions, wades through the latest research, assesses COVID-19 data, and offers an essential platform for those most affected by the crisis.

Betsy is an independent science, health, and data journalist and writer focused on COVID-19 and the future of public health in general. Prior to The Sick Times, she ran the COVID-19 Data Dispatch. She was recently a journalism fellow at MuckRock, where she contributed to award-winning and impactful COVID-19 investigations, such as the Uncounted Project, investigations into the National Institute of Health's Recover Program, and stories covering public health responses in several states.

Miles is an independent journalist and writer who covers Long COVID, science, and LGBTQ plus issues. He developed Long COVID at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and has used his lived experience to report on the disease.

So many people are struggling directly or indirectly with Long COVID.

Sometimes they don't even know themselves, but with journalism just crumbling around us, new publications like The Sick Times operated by people with very particular essential skills and lived experiences can help make sure that these massive all all-encompassing issues of our lifetimes stay in the news, giving everyone else a way to stay in touch, and of course, to act.

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New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor by Hamilton Nolan
Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT Up New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah Schulman
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Subscribe and donate to The Sick Times
Find a Mask Bloc near you
Support the COVID-19 Longhauler Advocacy Project
Support the Patient-Led Research Collaborative
Support the Long Covid Action Project
Learn about diseases related to Long Covid and support #MeAction, Solve ME/CFS, and Dysautonomia International
Support the Clean Air Club and A.I.R. NYC
Buy high-quality masks from Project N95
Get more COVID-19 info from People's CDC

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Program The World

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

Let’s talk about the Information Era.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate (and subscribe!) to the 19th, an independent, non-profit, kick-ass newsroom reporting on gender and politics.
Volunteer with Tech Shift to build a fairer, more just technological future.
🌏️ Get educated about the powerful institutions using technology to change society through the invaluable reporting by The Markup.
Be heard about keeping companies accountable to assessing AI for bias and effectiveness and ask your representatives to support the Algorithmic Accountability Act.
Invest in climate tech solutions that will accelerate the transition to a clean economy with Full Cycle.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

The Social Infrastructure of Water

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 07:00:00 +0000

What have we learned from millennia of water insecurity, of climate changes and disasters, of building along freshwater ways and the ocean, that we can apply today?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Amber Wutich.

Dr. Wutich is an ASU President's Professor, Director of the Center for Global Health, and 2023 MacArthur Fellow.

She's an expert on water insecurity, and directs the Global Ethnohydrology Study, a cross cultural study of water knowledge and management in over 20 countries.

Dr. Wutich’s two decades of community based field work explore how people respond individually and collectively to extremely water scarce conditions. She leads the NSF Action for Water Equity, a participatory convergence study that develops collaborative water solutions with water insecure U.S. communities. Her teaching has been recognized with many awards, including the Carnegie Case Arizona Professor of the Year.

As maybe the most important thing that neither you or I can live without, water is both becoming more scarce in Central America, Northern India, Syria and other places, and more prevalent through sea level rise, flooding and storms where we're not ready for it.

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New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Connect with Amber on LinkedIn, Twitter, and BlueSky
Donate or volunteer with Water For People
Donate to Dig Deep
Learn more about Amber's work with NSF-funded Household Water Insecurity Experiences Research Coordination Network
Learn more about the National Science Foundation

Follow us:

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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: The Aftermath

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Bernie decided March 15th is Long COVID Awareness Day, so I thought it was an appropriate moment to try to pull together the threads of why Long COVID pisses me off so much, examples of other self-defeating issues we never learned from, and a blueprint for how to do better, better.

Here's What You Can Do:

🌎️ Donate to Partners in Health to ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to quality healthcare.
Volunteer for a clinical trial to help us better understand the impacts of COVID and Long COVID.
Get educated about how you can start a career in public health.
Be heard about early detection in your community and get your local officials to start a wastewater intelligence program with Biobot.
🌎️ Invest in a matching fund with Gavi to get people vaccinated worldwide.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

The Best Depression Treatment For You

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000

You know you're stressed. You know you're anxious. Do you have depression? And do you need to know the latest in the biology of how the brain works and depression works or doesn't work and whether the gut is involved in getting meaningful help?

That's today's big question. I promise it's kind of one question, even if there are a ton of different answers, and they're going to be different for everybody.

This conversation is a follow-up to our last couple of conversations about the brain, the gut, and depression. My returning guest is Srijan Sen.

Srijan is still the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg Professor of Depression and Neurosciences at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center.

His leading research focuses on the interactions between genes and the environment and their effect on stress, anxiety, and depression.

Content Warning

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow along with the work of The Sen Lab
Follow Srijan on Twitter
Suicide Crisis Lifeline (Call 988)
The Trevor Project Hotline for LBGTQ+ youth
Listen to Srijan's first episode

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: How To Give

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 18:00:00 +0000

This week:

There are few problems so simple that a single donation can fix them.

Usually, to turn a problem into a realistic opportunity takes many donations. Over time, spread over a large number of donors.

But all the work before that is kind of exhausting: you’ve gotta make sure your donation goes to the right place, the right organization, the right people — usually the ones closest to the problem — with the most pragmatic intentions.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Give Directly and put cash straight into the pockets of the people who need it the most.
Volunteer with Overdose Lifeline to support their harm reduction and awareness efforts.
Get educated about starting a resilience hub in your community with resources from the USDN.
Be heard about making healthy school meals free for students everywhere.
Invest in a sustainable future and find a clean bank to move your money into using bank.green.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com
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Can Capitalism (Justly) Solve the Climate Crisis?

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000

The climate clock is ticking faster and faster.

How can we use capitalism to undo the bad stuff that capitalism did and maybe even make things better?

That's today's big (loaded) question, and my returning guest is Akshat Rathi.

Akshat is a London-based senior reporter, newsletter writer, and podcaster for Bloomberg News.

Akshat has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, and a BTech in Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai. Akshat was previously a senior reporter at Quartz and a science editor at The Conversation.

He is here today to talk about his first book, Climate Capitalism.

This wonderful book tells the stories of people building solutions at scale to tackle one of humanity's greatest challenges. Some solutions we've already built, like solar and batteries, and some we're still working on because they take a lot of work, and money, and politics.

In a world where journalism is going bye-bye, and the climate clock is ticking, but we've made so much progress, and we can make so much more, Akshat's reporting in this book couldn't be more timely, as we seek to answer the question, where are we on this timeline?

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-----------

INI Book Club:

The Long View by Richard Fisher
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Order Climate Capitalism in the US/Canada (out March 12)
Order Climate Capitalism in the UK (out now)
Order Climate Capitalism in India (out now)
Order Climate Capitalism in the rest of the world
Listen to Akshat on his podcast Zero, and subscribe to his newsletter
Read about the Biden Administration's regulations on the social costs of climate change here and here

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Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: on Twitter - twitter.com/quinnemmett; Bluesky - bsky.app/profile/quinnemmett.bsky.social; Threads - www.threads.net/@quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: How to See The Forest

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 17:00:00 +0000

This week:

Are we in the hardest part of the climate transition?

Here's What You Can Do:

🌎️ Donate to 350.org, a global movement working towards a fossil fuel-free world.
Volunteer with your local Mothers Out Front chapter to fight for a world that protects kids.
Get educated about building a clean energy company using the videos, exercises, and curriculum in Third Derivative’s Startup Resource Database.
🌎️ Be heard about climate justice and find an initiative that needs your support or signature in your country using GAIA’s action alert tool.
Invest in the future by setting up a climate-friendly 401(k) with Sphere.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Saving Democracy From The Bottom Up

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

What are reverse coattails, and how might they slow climate change, prevent the next pandemic, and keep Nazis off of school boards?

That's today's big question, and my returning guest is Amanda Litman.

Amanda is one of my favorite people. She is the co-founder and co-executive director of Run for Something, which recruits and supports young, diverse progressives running for down-ballot office, state, and local, and all those fun levels.

Since launching in 2017, a thousand years ago, Run for Something has elected more than 1000 leaders across nearly all 50 states, mostly women and people of color.

Politico named Run for Something and Amanda, one of the 50 ideas driving politics in 2018. Bloomberg called her one of the People to Watch in 2019. Fortune named her to their annual 40 under 40 list in 2020. And in 2022, Amanda was one of the Time Next 100, a list of 100 rising stars from around the world.

And look, it's yet another election year in America because it's another year in America, so there is never a better time to invite Amanda back onto the show.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

North Woods by Daniel Mason
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Run for Office!
Volunteer for a progressive, young candidate
Donate to help get progressive, young candidates elected
Learn more about running for office, support the educational efforts of Run for Something and make a c3 donation at Run For Something Civics

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

How are we supposed to navigate this energy transition, AI, and pandemics, if we cannot agree on the most basic, fundamental shit?

We argue about tradeoffs or gently suggest expanding the scope of our moral concern to include other people’s air, water, food, shelter, and health, instead of simply saying some things — like the lives of children — are simply, emphatically, non-negotiable.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Tobacco-Free Kids to protect kids from e-cigarettes.
Volunteer with Everytown to prevent gun violence in schools.
🌎️ Get educated about the many co-benefits of electric school buses.
Be heard about keeping kids healthy by urging your representative to co-sponsor the Universal School Meal Program Act.
🌍️ Invest in companies with ESG metrics that align with your morals using fennel.

🌎️ = Global Action Step

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
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Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Essay: If This, Then What Else?

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Today’s essay is a bit of a departure — I just wanted to make super clear where I stand vis a vis the next eleven months.

A MAGA party don't stop unless we stop it.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Voters of Tomorrow to defend democracy for the next generation.
Volunteer with Run For Something to help young, diverse progressives get elected.
🌍️ Get educated about how your country is keeping up with its commitments to the Paris Agreement using the Climate Action Tracker, and then hold your public officials accountable.
Be heard about returning political power to the people and contact your representative to support the Democracy For All Amendment.
🌏️ Invest in sustainable companies with Util, using insights based on data, not greenwashing.

🌎️ = Global Action Step

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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2024: The Gaps and How to Close Them

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Today’s essay is my version of a 2024 preview. Unlike other previews, though, it’s less, “This is what is going to happen” and more “These are the table stakes as far as I can tell.”

I think that approach is much more helpful, but you can be the judge.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the 19th, an independent newsroom that focuses on gender, politics, and policy. Journalism is being hit hard, and small outlets that do incredible work like the 19th are more essential than ever.
Volunteer with the Environmental Voter Project. If there was ever a year to do this, it’s this one.
Get educated about multisolving with resources from The Multisolving Institute. As you’ll read in the essay below, the issues are myriad, but we can choose solutions that address many problems at once.
Be heard about green transportation by urging your representative to reject cuts to Amtrak.
Invest in companies that are meeting the metrics that underpin the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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2023 Review: What Just Happened?

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

I’m back today to share my 2023 wrap-up. It’s a pretty stream-of-consciousness endeavor, but I think it sums up where I was right in my 2023 preview, where I was very wrong, how the world changed — or didn’t — and most importantly, how we responded.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to CAMFED to help them educate 5 million girls in Africa by 2030 (educating girls is key to building climate resilience!)
Volunteer with Action for the Climate Emergency, a network of young people working in key states to register young voters and educate them on climate change and climate justice.
Get educated about your country’s GHG emissions to thoroughly understand how and where to prioritize decarbonization resources using the Country Emissions Inventory from Climate Trace. Filter by year, sector, and type of GHG.
Be heard about protecting pregnant people at a federal level and urge your representative to support codifying abortion access.
Invest in solar and electrification by opening a bank account with ATMOS.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Best of: The End of the Universe

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 07:00:00 +0000

How will the universe end?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Sarafina El-Badry Nance.

Sarafina is an NSF graduate research fellow, astrophysics Ph.D. candidate, and Forbes 30 Under 30 Science 2022 honoree, specializing in supernova and cosmology.

She's also the author of the new, honest, and empowering memoir "Starstruck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark".

Sarafina and I recorded this conversation back in 2021, and not only is it an all-time listener favorite, well, the universe at large hasn't ended yet, even though it's felt like it was coming sometimes. We've all been through a lot since then, and this conversation is still and will remain, evergreen.

Sarafina's goal is to measure the rate of the expansion of the universe as propelled by dark energy. And, I'm sorry if that isn't exciting enough for you, I don't know what to tell you.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

"Untamed" by Glennon Doyle
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

starafina.com
Instagram: @starstrickensf
Twitter: @starstrickenSF
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarafina-nance-7a5888a0
Watch: Constellations
girlswhocode.com
thebreasties.org

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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Best of: Episode X: A Far Out Geek Girl Rises

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Why does it matter who reviews our video games?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Swapna Krishna.

Swapna and I recorded this conversation in 2022, and as gaming and the entire media ecosystem changes and evolves and is pulled apart and merged, it's more important than ever to find reputable sources we not only trust, but who we have a connection with, and that's why representation matters so much.

Swapna is a writer and journalist covering space, science, tech, and pop culture, and writes some of the most empathetic tech, and pop culture commentary on the web.

She writes everywhere from Fast Company to StarWars.com, from StarTrek.com to Business Insider and the LA Times, Bitch Magazine, Bustle, Mental Floss, and more.

Swapna has appeared on a bazillion excellent podcasts, she's been at ComicCon, she's the co-host of the Desi Geek Girls Podcast, and the host of PBS's show, Far Out.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

Sword Stone Table by Swapna Krishna and Jenn Northington
Stay tuned for Roshani Chokshi's new book
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Swapna on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Swapna on TikTok
Watch PBS Terra's Far Out on YouTube or their website
Listen to and follow Desi Geek Girls
Check out NASA Social

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Best of: Why We Can't Focus

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 07:00:00 +0000

How do we get our attention back?

That's today's big question. I think about it every day, and my guest is Johann Hari. Johann and I recorded this conversation in 2022, and with the Internet in general and social networks of the past fifteen years being straight-up pulled apart, I think it's more relevant than ever.

Johann Hari is the author of three New York Times best-selling books, an executive producer of an Oscar-nominated movie, and an eight-part series starring Samuel L. Jackson. His books have been translated into thirty-eight languages, and his TED Talks have been viewed more than eighty million times.

Johann is the author of the new book, from last year called Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again.

No matter what you do, we are each and all being pulled in so many different directions. If we can't pay attention to what's going on with our planet and our communities, we're going to have a hard time fixing any of it.

Our attention is spread too thin. And where this all clicks for me, is that we need to dial in more than ever before, and we also need space to let go, to understand, and marinate on big problems consciously, and subconsciously. Right now, we don't have room for any of it, and it really matters.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

The Anatomy of a Moment by Javier Cercas
The Apology by Eve Ensler
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Johann's book, "Stolen Focus"
Follow Johann on Twitter
Discover more of Johann's work

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Best of: Internal Activism

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 07:00:00 +0000

How's your mental health around climate change?

That is today's big question, and my guest is Britt Wray. Britt and I recorded this conversation in 2022. It is an all-time favorite of mine and of our listeners.

Britt is the author of the fantastic book, Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. She has a passionate generational perspective on how to stay sane amid climate disruption. Britt has a PhD in science communication from the University of Copenhagen. She's the author of The Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction.

Britt has a PhD in science communication from the University of Copenhagen. She has hosted several podcasts, radio, and TV programs with the BBC and CBC, and is a TED resident. Britt is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she is researching the mental health impacts of climate change on young people.

Britt is also the author of Gen Dread, the first newsletter that shares wide-ranging ideas for supporting emotional health and psychological resilience in the climate and wider ecological crisis. I read it every week.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis by Britt Wray
Greek Myths by Gustav Schwab
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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How To Make Ethical Decisions

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Has there ever been a more important time, a more consequential time, to lead with ethics?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Susan Liautaud. Susan is the author of The Power of Ethics and of the Little Book of Big Ethical Questions.

She teaches cutting-edge ethics courses at Stanford University. She is the Chair of the Council Trustees at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She's the Vice Chair of the Global Partnership for Education, and is Chair of the Stanford University Freeman's Spogli Institute for International Studies Advisory Council.

She also serves with the Stanford Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence, which is obviously really important, and the AI Ethics Advisory Panel. Other boards include Benevolent AI, the Yale Divinity School Advisory Council, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, among many others.

Her work and her frameworks reverberate through so many decision-making apparatuses today. I have been trying to learn from and operate from Susan's work personally and in this work for a long time because it's easy to feel incapable, not skilled enough, or not practiced enough in this moment of big decisions.

This moment, at the intersection of technology and society and personal impact where a better, healthier, cleaner future, however imperfect, is within our hands, will require each of us to adopt and then practice a framework to consider who we want to be and who we see ourselves as, and then what that means in practice in each situation, on a day to day level, and when we're faced with the big stuff.

A framework that interrogates the information available to us, that honestly asks who could be affected by our decisions, including ourselves, and what would it be like to be affected by our decision, now and way down the line.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Susan's books The Power of Ethics and The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions
Connect with Susan on LinkedIn

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

The Creepy Reality of Consumer Tech (Privacy Not Included)

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

What are the best holiday gifts that aren't privacy nightmares?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Jen Caltrider.

Jen is the lead researcher for Mozilla's Privacy Not Included program where since 2017 Mozilla has published 15 editions of Privacy Not Included, their Consumer Tech Buyer's Guide.

They've reviewed over 500 gadgets, apps, cars now, and more, assessing their security features what data they collect from you and your loved ones, and who they share that data with or sell it to. They have even built the first annual Consumer Creep-o-meter, distilling what's good, what's bad, and what's just plain creepy in the world of consumer tech.

While I love new tech and I own quite a bit of it, I have become pretty obsessed with at least understanding what I'm getting myself into and getting my kids into.

Part of that's for myself and my family, but obviously, so I can share it with you all as well.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

Blitz by Daniel O'Malley
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Privacy Not Included website
Report about your car spying on you
Who is collecting data from your car? by The Markup
Facebook data being used in court post-Dobbs
10 Questions You Need To Ask Right Now, before using an AI tool

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: How Does The Brain Work?

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

How the hell does the brain work? And what does it have to do with lemonade stands and school supplies?

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to support The Markup’s invaluable work examining the ways technology is being used to change society.
Volunteer with your local Surfrider chapter to keep our waterways, oceans, and beaches clean.
Get educated about the easiest ways your company can improve sustainability by reading this article from Protocol.
Be heard about clean water as a human right by urging your Members of Congress to support the WATER Act.
Invest in industries that will measurably move the needle using the IEEFA’s financial research.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Best of: Life Finds A Way

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

I think about time a lot. Some days I feel ancient, some days I can’t believe how old I am.

I’ve got kids, too. I can’t believe how fast they’ve grown up already. They love so many things. Swimming. Cooking. Plain pasta. The beach. Vegetables, somehow. Their friends. Their family. Dinosaurs.

Man, oh man, do they love dinosaurs.

I love to challenge them, to help them think about how long ago it all was, and how long it lasted. How different the world was. How the land under their feet was an ocean, once.

And of course, knowing what we know now, how fast it can all change. How an asteroid - or a virus, or a fire, or a flood - can change your life forever.

As much progress as we’ve made in these 300,000 years of Homo sapiens, from fire to wheels to meat to agriculture to handwashing – we are in a moment when we are challenged yet again on a global scale, and unlike the dinos, our future is of our own making.

In this episode from 2022, our guest is Riley Black.

Riley is a science writer and amateur paleontologist based in Salt Lake City, Utah, right in the center of dinosaur country, where she chases tales of vanished lives from museum collections to remote badlands.

Riley’s published books include Written in Stone, my favorite and critically acclaimed My Beloved Brontosaurus, When Dinosaurs Ruled, Prehistoric Predators, and The Last Days of the Dinosaurs.

Riley’s journey and storytelling are powerful and so important at this moment when we’re so ready to move on to the next thing that we haven’t taken the time to cherish the people, the places, the world around us, and how lucky we are to have them.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

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-----------

INI Book Club:

Why Won't You Apologize? by Harriet Lerner
The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black
My Beloved Brontosaurus by Riley Black
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Riley on Twitter
Find more of Riley's work on her website

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

The Female Origin of Species

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? And why the hell are we just finding out about it now?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Cat Bohannon.

Cat is the author of the incredible new book, “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution”. Cat is also a researcher and author with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative in cognition. Cat's essays and poems have appeared in Scientific American, Mind, Science Magazine, The Best American, Non Required Reading, The Georgia Review, Story Collider, and Poets Against the War.

Look, for a very long time, scientists ignored everything about the female body, except for how to have sex with it. And even that, they barely understood (and still don't). They didn't think or care to ask helpful questions like: How did we get here? What else about the female biological body is different from the traditional male body? Why might those differences matter? And how might they have gotten us to where we are today, atop the animal kingdom, for better or worse, and a huge outlier in about 500 different ways from even our closest primate cousins?

Why are we so weird?

Cat's book asks all of these questions, and I genuinely cannot wait for you to listen to this conversation, and read the book.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katharine Boo
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Cat's book "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution"
Keep up with Cat's work
Our World in Data: Life Expectancy
Support the Trevor Project

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Coffee: Back To The Future

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 19:00:00 +0000

This week:

Will coffee survive climate change?

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to support African farmers by increasing incomes and improving food security through the Alliance for a Green Africa.
Volunteer to join the Coffee & Climate Network, an organization that connects stakeholders in coffee farming to create a climate-smart future.
Get educated about what is in your supplements using Examine’s independent, evidence-based database.
Be heard about your eco-anxiety by connecting with others having similar feelings at a Climate Cafe near you.
Invest in deforestation-free investment options with Deforestation Free Funds.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Can Your Gut Predict Alzheimer's?

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Can your gut composition predict Alzheimer's?

That's today's big question and my returning guest is Gautam Dantas.

Gautam heads up the Dantas Lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. His lab works at the interface of microbiogenomics, ecology, synthetic biology, and systems biology to understand, harness, and engineer the biochemical processing potential of microbial communities.

Since our last conversation, Gautam was named a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology for his studies of microbial communities and antibiotic resistance. I wanted to have him back on the show, not just because Gautam is one of my favorite guests of all time, and not just because of this new study we're going to really dig into, but because you have probably been affected by Alzheimer's in some way.

Alzheimer's is growing more prevalent throughout the world every day as the U. S., China, and so many other countries get old.

We've asked so many questions about dementia, Alzheimer's, and other brain diseases and found so few answers that are repeatable and can either prevent or just slow this disease in some way.

And that's what makes me so excited about Gautam's new research, however preliminary it might be. We get to keep doing it.

We get to keep asking these important questions that can help people.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

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-----------

INI Book Club:

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Gautum's study on the gut microbiome and Alzheimer's
Keep up with the Dantas Lab
Listen to our first episode with Gautam
Volunteer for research at the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Washington University
Find more research opportunities and clinical trials near you

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: How I think about how to think about what’s next

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

How I think about how to think about what’s next

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to help the BlueGreen Alliance unite labor unions and environmental organizations to create clean jobs, develop clean infrastructure, and pursue fair trade.
Volunteer with 3.14 Action and help get people who care about facts and evidence elected.
Get educated about the direction of our food systems by reading the Paradigms of Agriculture.
Be heard about restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit and urge your representative to support the American Family Act.
Invest in clean energy using research that separates hype from reality from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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What Causes Depression?

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Content Warning

What is depression?

And how do the interactions between our genes, our chemistry, and the environment around us affect our odds of developing and being treated for anxiety and depression?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Srijan Sen.

Srijan is the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg Professor of Depression and Neurosciences at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center. His research focuses on the interactions between genes and the environment and their effect on stress, anxiety, and depression.

Even before COVID, kids, teens, and adults were suffering increasing levels of depression, loneliness, anxiety, and stress.

The symptoms are fairly common to folks who have them, but the causes are far less so. From genetics to the gut, to brain chemistry, to inflammation, and innumerable possible environmental factors like say, a pandemic, or school shootings, or a loved one passing, or childhood abuse, whatever it might be. Just a lack of sleep can trigger depressive symptoms. Or not.

I have suffered through it, Srijan has suffered through it, and so many of you have too.

So, with the way science is progressing rapidly in myriad ways, I thought it was time to dive in.

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INI Book Club:

Range by David Epstein
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow along with the work of The Sen Lab
Follow Srijan on Twitter
Read Quinn's essay about Apple and mental health
Suicide Crisis Lifeline (Call 988)
The Trevor Project Hotline for LBGTQ+ youth

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: The Disconnect

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

Exactly why the youths are so pissed off.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the Steve Fund to support the mental health of young people of color.
Volunteer with Everytown so youth can grow up in communities free from gun violence.
Get educated about being a better ally to trans and non-binary young people with this guide from the Trevor Project.
Help youth be heard about their future by supporting Voters of Tomorrow.
Invest in a better world for young people with Carbon Collective.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Essay: The Illusion of Choice

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

It can be difficult as hell to understand when we don’t actually have a choice — and when we’ve got more options than we think. Deciphering the two is the key to the good stuff getting built way, way faster.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to The Greenling Institute to help communities of color build wealth and live in healthier, climate-resilient communities.
Volunteer with People for Bikes to make biking better for everyone by improving infrastructure, advancing policy, and removing barriers to participation.
Get educated about funding opportunities in your state to hire more apprentices in your trade, or receive tuition support to enter a trade.
Be heard about increased access to EV charging infrastructure, and have your city sandbox a pilot with it’s electric.
Invest your money through an eco-friendly bank using Might Deposits bank comparison tool.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Do You Know Where Your Water Comes From?

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Every single one of us needs air, water, food, shelter, and energy. So why are the infrastructure that provides them, the systems we are most reliant on hidden in plain sight?

How can we reconnect with them, appreciate them, rebuild them, reinforce the ones we already have, and build new ones that actually benefit everyone?

Those are today's big questions, and my guest is Deb Chachra.

Deb is a material scientist and professor of engineering at Olin College of Engineering. She has studied bones, and heart valves, and infrastructure. Wired said reading her newsletter, Metafoundry, was like being plugged Oculus-style into her brain while she meditates on science and culture. Deb also writes a recurring column, Reinvention, in the American Society for Engineering Education's PRISM magazine.

Deb's wonderful new book, How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World is out on October 17th in the U.S.

And it couldn't be more timely as the truly incredible infrastructure of the 20th century, and the centuries before that, are coming under threat now from climate change and negligence and the awareness of the inequities behind them.

It's more vital than ever that we develop a personal appreciation and a collective appreciation for how we got here.

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INI Book Club:

Games: Agency as Art by C.T. Nguyen
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Get your copy of How Infrastructure Works
Follow more of Deb's work here
Subscribe to Deb's newsletter
Go deeper and read about how infrastructure will be impacted by climate change

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Support our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgrade
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: The coolest year of the rest of your life

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 19:00:00 +0000

This week:

Why was this year so hot? Will it keep getting hotter, and for how long? It’s not an easy read, but it’s important you know and keep in mind the inputs and externalities.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Climate CREW to help build resilience hubs and prepare your community for extreme heat.
Volunteer to build a resilience hub in your community so your community can better respond to extreme heat.
Get educated about community planning for extreme heat by reading this piece from Vox.
Be heard about the health and safety of workers and urge your representatives to support the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury, and Fatality Prevention Act.
Invest in deforestation-free funds so your money isn’t contributing to the planet getting hotter.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Essay: The Long Defeat

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

Tolkien described life (and often, his stories) as a "long defeat", where evil frequently, inevitably wins. But he allowed for "eucatastrophe" - sudden joyous turns, just like breakthroughs in voting rights. We must keep fighting, to hold off the darkness.

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to protecting voting rights and advocating for democracy with Fair Fight.
Volunteer to bring together conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to fix America’s political system with RepresentUS.
Get educated about quick, easy, daily actions you can take to save democracy by subscribing to the Chop Wood, Carry Water newsletter.
Be heard about fair elections and add your name to the End Gerrymandering Pledge.
Run for your state or local office with Run for Something (if you’re under 40, if you’re over 40, donate!)

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Turning The Tide On Microplastics

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 07:00:00 +0000

What are microplastics doing to us? And how do we stop putting them into our water, and our bloodstreams, and our food?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Julia Yan. Julia is the co-founder and CEO at Baleena, a closed-loop, consumer-facing laundry startup working to tackle ocean microplastic pollution.

Julia is a recent graduate at UPenn, and with her two co-founders, some funding, including from our friends at 776 and a bunch of big name partners, they're trying to tackle one of the biggest microplastic inputs. Your washing machine.

Microplastics are not great. They're so prevalent that we have found them on the bottom of the ocean and on the top of mountains. We have found them in deserts, in our crops, in our soil. We have found them in adult bloodstreams and in unborn babies and placentas.

It is an enormous, wildly complicated problem and the implications are becoming more clear. The good news, like carbon emissions, we can choose to stop it.

It's just going to take an intentional systemic approach and people like Julia.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Join the waitlist to pre-order your Baleena product now
Follow along with Baleena's journey on Instagram
Read more about the 5 Gyres Microplastics Solutions sailing expedition

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: The Next Big Test

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Are you ready for the next big test?

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Cooperation Humboldt, a worker-led, non-hierarchical non-profit that delivers programming in seven areas that are key to basic human rights.
Volunteer with Global.health to help create a global resource of public health information and assist in preventing the next pandemic.
Get educated about steps to solving the climate crisis by receiving a weekly challenge in your inbox from Minimum Viable Planet.
Be heard about better outbreak tracking, and get your local government officials to sign up for Biobot Analytics wastewater testing.
Invest in getting the world vaccinated by having your company sign up for a matching fund with Gavi.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Essay: Did You Hear The One About The Starfish?

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

Because I am a sap, I have been thinking about my kids a lot lately. And kids in general. They’re going to grow up and live in a world that’s very different from ours, and it’s important to me that they’re all as ready for that as they can be.

So this week: Did you hear about the starfish?

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Tobacco Free Kids to help fight against flavored e-cigarettes.
Volunteer with Mothers Out Front and come together to fight against climate injustice and for our children’s future.
Get educated about how to electrify your child’s school, making it cleaner, healthier, and climate-safe with these resources from Rewiring America.
Be heard about protecting children from pesticides and urge your representative to support the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.
Invest in a better world for kids and make sure your philanthropic dollars make a measurable difference with Impact Assets.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Best of: Peer Pressure Works

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 20:00:00 +0000

Over the past few years, more and more voters have cited “action on climate” as a reason for voting the way they do.

But here’s the thing: lots of voters who are registered, and even those who do vote in presidential elections – don’t turn out for midterms.

Much less for state and local races.

Millions of registered voters who list the environment or climate as their most important issue do the same.

Success might not actually be about identifying and focusing on one specific issue, campaign, or candidate. It might come down to how we want to see ourselves, why we wear those little “I Voted” stickers, how we identify, and our behaviors.

And that’s what the Environmental Voter Project is all about, and why we are rerunning our 2022 conversation with Nathaniel Stinnett.

Nathaniel founded the Environmental Voter Project in 2015 after over a decade of experience as a senior advisor, consultant, and trainer for political campaigns and issue-advocacy nonprofits, and he sits on the Board of Advisors for MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative.

He’s here to help me understand the EVP’s mission and tactics, and how we can help them achieve their goal of turning out more climate-focused voters this year and in the years to come.

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-----------

INI Book Club:

The Overstory by Richard Powers
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Nathaniel on Twitter
Volunteer with the Environmental Voter Project today!
Follow the Environmental Voter Project on Twitter

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
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Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Introducing: Catalyst with Shayle Kann - The Carbon Market's Quality Problem

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Voluntary carbon credits are a lot like used cars: You really have no idea what their quality might be. Or maybe they’re more like expensive bottles of wine. Many people (or at least Shayle) can’t tell whether they’re actually buying good-quality wine. If it’s expensive, it must be good, right?

That’s the kind of logic that has plagued voluntary carbon markets for years.

A carbon credit can work in one of two ways. First, it can avert 1 metric ton of emissions that would have otherwise happened by, for example, preventing deforestation. Alternatively, a credit can directly remove a ton of carbon from the atmosphere through methods such as direct air capture or biochar.

But widespread reporting reveals that most credits don’t do what they say they do. Just this month, the CEO of the world’s leading certifier stepped down after an investigation by The Guardian revealed that over 90% of rainforest carbon credits were worthless. In May, a $1 billion lawsuit filed in California alleges that the credits that Delta Air Lines relies on for its claim of reaching carbon-neutrality are bogus.

Carbon credits have reached a crisis point at the same moment we need to massively scale them up to meet net-zero goals. So what do we do about these quality problems?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Allister Furey, co-founder and CEO of Sylvera, a company that rates the quality of credits in a manner akin to what agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s do for bonds.

Shayle and Allister cover topics including:

The history of the first voluntary carbon markets and their early problems, such as producing fluorocarbons just to destroy them.
The current state of the market, including its size, segments and prices.
The wide gulf in price between the cheapest avoidance credits and the most ambitious engineered removal credits
Why Allistair thinks we need to be on a “war footing” to reach the highly ambitious carbon-removal targets needed to meet net zero, such as growing the market from $2 billion to $1 trillion by 2050.
Why high prices do not necessarily mean high quality.

Recommended resources:

The Guardian: Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows
The Guardian: Delta Air Lines faces lawsuit over $1B carbon neutrality claim

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.

More episodes of Catalyst can be found here.

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Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: The Best Kinds of Stories

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This Week:

Telling better stories is a type of Compound Action.

Here's What You Can Do:

Check out the Good Energy Project's playbook on how to tell better climate stories.
Donate to Experiment, a platform where scientists can crowdfund their research, and you can pick and choose what research you want to support.
Volunteer with our friends at the Environmental Voter Project, a non-partisan non-profit with a proven track record of getting non-voting environmentalists to the polls.
Get educated about climate change and combat disinformation with Climate Feedback, a worldwide network of scientists sorting fact from fiction in climate change media coverage.
Be heard about climate action and keep your representative accountable by checking out this list of candidates and elected officials that have signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge.
Invest in deforestation-free companies by moving your money into investments that aren’t killing the planet with Deforestation Free Funds.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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How To Access Better Maternal Mental Health Care

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How can we provide better mental health support for pregnancy, postpartum, and loss around pregnancy?

That's today's big question, and obviously in America in 2023, it's a loaded one, so I'm so thankful that my guest today is Simmone Taitt. She's the Founder and CEO of Poppy Seed Health.

Simmone experienced the vast gaps in emotional and mental support in American maternal healthcare while navigating her own path to parenthood after suffering multiple miscarriages, which she talks about today, with and without health insurance, like so many Americans.

In 2019, Simmone identified a better way forward for all birthing people, becoming a birth and full spectrum doula, and then launching Poppy Seed Health, a growing network of diverse, very qualified doulas, midwives, and nurses. They provide care within seconds, private care right in the app just when you need it the most.

If you've ever been a part of this journey as a pregnant person intentionally or not, as a partner, or in postpartum, whatever your path, you are probably intimately aware of how much and how often, often in the middle of the night, you just desperately need someone informed who can help answer questions around birth and postpartum planning, lactation support, general comfort, miscarriages, relationships, sleep, and so much more.

And we do it very, very poor job as a country of intentionally providing these essential services, often intentionally not providing it.

And so that's why I am so glad that Poppy Seed exists.

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INI Book Club:

The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Learn more about Poppy Seed Health
Download the app on iOS or Google Play
Follow Poppy Seed Health on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and LinkedIn
Follow Simmone on Instagram and LinkedIn

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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

What Can You Do With Just 493 Genes?

Mon, 14 Aug 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How did we get here?

That's today's big question, and today my guests are Roy Moger-Reischer, and our first three-time guest, Brandon Ogbunu.

Roy Moger-Reischer is a scientist trained in microbiology, evolution and data analysis for his PhD. He's currently a fermentation specialist Arzeda, working to develop new proteins and biochemistry for the production of valuable molecules.

Brandon Ogbunu, described as a radical collaborator, is an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale. His research takes place at the intersection of evolutionary biology, genetics, and epidemiology.

When I first read about the work of Roy and his lab compatriots to take this idea of a cell stripped down to only what is most essential -- a minimal cell -- and then to see if it would or could evolve to survive even basic mutations, my first thought was, "What?"

The answer, it turns out, is profound as hell.

And because I'm a self-aware moron, I also begged past guest, Brandon Ogbunu, to come back on the show to help me understand what the hell is happening here and what it means for our history, for society today, and for future breakthroughs to help answer the question:

What can you do with just 493 genes? And if the answer is not only survive, but thrive, what can we do once we know that about the building blocks of life?

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New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Ghost in the Shell by Shirow Masamune
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Roy's paper on the minimal cell
Keep up with Roy's work
Keep up with Brandon's work

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Introducing: Degrees: How To Green Any Job

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week, we’re running an episode of Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers, from our friends at the Environmental Defense Fund.

This episode is part of a new miniseries called “The Year of the Climate Job,” hosted by EDF Innovation Director Daniel Hill.

Each episode provides the best advice from movers and shakers in the green careers landscape. They share creative, practical ways to land a job and build a career in climate work.

In this episode, Drawdown Labs Director Jamie Beck Alexander is pushing for every company on the planet to fight climate change. How? By harnessing the power of employee voices to change systems for the better from the inside.

A new season of Degrees launches in September. Right now, there are new and emerging green job opportunities in nearly every industry.

Degrees is the podcast for climate career inspiration and job advice.

Make sure you check out other Degrees episodes about how the green jobs transformation is shaping the future.

Degrees home

EDF Green Jobs Hub

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Shiny Things

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

How to be excited about the future, explained.

Plus, the news:

🌊 The tipping point for the Atlantic Ocean
👶 An RSV shot for babies
🥕 Examining the “N” in SNAP
🤖 Profiting from AI tools
And more!

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the Institute for Policy Studies to help turn transformative policy ideas into action.
Join a Ride Spot Challenge by committing to replace car trips with bike rides. Biking is an easy way to lower your emissions and be part of the climate solution, even if you just start at one trip a week.
Get educated about parking reform, which has the potential to impact climate change, equity, and housing.
Be heard about climate change by helping Climate Cabinet elect candidates that give a shit about drafting legislation to combat the climate crisis.
Invest in the world’s natural capital with ReGen.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Yes, heat can be fatal. But it also has a plethora of non-fatal health consequences on both the body and the mind
Infants can now get a preventative shot for RSV, which is the leading cause of infant hospitalization in the US
A new analysis is skeptical that Biden’s Justice40 program will fix the racial gap in air quality
Literally go and touch some grass. It’s scientifically proven to be good for you.

Climate

Extreme heat is a key issue in UPS contract deals
Differing theories of decarbonization could create rifts in climate coalitions and derail progress
Federal regulatory agencies are starting to (think about) cracking down on dubious carbon offset programs
Changes in the Atlantic Ocean are definitely not great, but exactly when we hit the tipping point of totally fucked is hard to predict

Food & Water

What’s the price of water scarcity? The finance industry doesn’t know
The “N” in SNAP is complicated
The companies that make ultra-processed food should be held accountable for the damage they are doing to the health of their customers
Some states are starting to step up and help families feed their kids with Child Tax Credits

Beep Boop

No one is exempt from the impacts of climate change. Not even artificial intelligence.
It’s time to start thinking about how AI creators intend to profit from it
Cigna Healthcare used algorithms to deny health insurance claims, prompting a class action lawsuit
iOS users can easily manage prescription drug treatment plans with the new “Medicine Cabinet” tool

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Introducing: Living Change: A Quest for Climate Leadership

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:00:00 +0000

This week, we want to tell you about Andrea Learned’s podcast: Living Change: A Quest for Climate Leadership.

In season one, Andrea interviews local leaders living the change they want to see reflected in their communities, from John Bauters and Alex Fisch on the west coast to Barbara Buffaloe in Missouri.

But she also goes beyond city leaders to find corporate and media professionals leading the way – from CFO’s to Emmy award winners. The conversations highlight how their personal values integrate into their work.

There are some really interesting stories here – we enjoyed it so much we’re highlighting her conversation with Mark Gamba in our feed.

Mark Gamba’s path into local politics in Oregon is uniquely “Living Change.”

As a professional nature photographer seeing climate change on the landscape in real-time, he had all the motivation he needed to run for Mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon.

Biking for transportation around town, and working to make it safer for anyone else who wants to do it, has become part of his brand.

For local political leaders across the country, Mark’s inspiring journey – and the way he shares it in this episode – is an aspirational model.

Links:

Subscribe to Living Change
Produced by Larj Media

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

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INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
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Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: Haggling Over The Future

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

This week: Are car dealers the devil? And why?

Plus, the news:

🇨🇳 Can we build a green economy without China?
🦆 Bird flu, explained
🇷🇺 Russia quits the Black Sea grain deal
🤖 A.I. journalists
And more!

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to Grid Alternatives, an organization building community-powered clean energy solutions that advance economic and environmental justice.
Volunteer your school or workplace to participate in the EPA’s Clean Air in Buildings Challenge.
Get educated about leasing an EV with electrek’s cultivated list of Factory Lease offers.
Purchase fresh produce from your local farms with GrownBy (and if you’re a farmer, starting selling on the app).
Invest in a better world with Impact Assets, and ensure your philanthropic dollars are making a measurable difference.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

It’s time to get serious about bird flu
How long Covid is impacting the Global South
Family homelessness is on the rise, and the Federation of Scientists is crowdsourcing for national policies to increase housing supply. Submit your idea here.
Tornado damage to Pfizer plant will likely lead to long term shortages of medicine great great

Climate

Why the impacts of climate change are escalating so quickly
A new registry could make carbon removal more accessible, and more trustworthy, maybe?
China’s role in America’s green economy
What the warming planet means for the future of pathogens and diseases

Food & Water

Vegan (ahem, plant-based) diets result in 75% less emissions, water pollution, and land use 🤝 🫘👩‍🌾
Manufacturing silicon chips requires a shit ton of water
Russia has quit its grain deal with Ukraine — originally made to avert a global food crisis — and will target commercial ships in the Black Sea
School lunches are now free in six states

Beep Boop

Bots are grabbing students personal data when they complete online assignments. We shouldn’t do this?
Google is testing a new A.I. tool that can write news articles
Secretaries of State are getting ready for AI-fueled disinformation during the 2024 campaign
Facebook messages could be used in a Nebraska abortion case

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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⚡️Electrify Everything: What Does The Pace of Progress Look Like?

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Sure, we've got to electrify everything, including 1 billion machines by 2050. But where are we now and how do we get there?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Cora Wyent from Rewiring America.

Cora is the Director of Research at Rewiring America, where she's conducting research and analysis to enable rapid electrification of everything in the economy.

Prior to joining Rewiring America, Cora completed her PhD in physics at Caltech, where she studied new materials for ultra thin solar cells and performed techno economic analysis of new photovoltaic and carbon capture technologies.

Before that, she received her bachelor's degree in physics from the beautiful UNC Chapel Hill.

If you're new here, you should know this is another in our continuing series on electrifying every building and car in America, including your home, whether you own it or whether you rent.

We've partnered with the best in the business at Rewiring America to understand where we need to all go on the whole, what we can do, and how you can get started on your own journey.

And of course, to unlock an easier path for everyone else.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Rewiring America's Pace of Progress report
Follow Cora and Rewiring America on Twitter
Read our series with on home electrification with Rewiring America, including our product recommendations, guide to IRA, and home electrification prep guide
Listen to our home electrification Q&A episode
Use the Watt Diet Calculator
Renters! Read our Renters Guide to Home Electrification

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Farm to Table

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

How can we better protect farmworkers?

Plus, the news:

A free online summit for eco-anxiety from RITA
A new era for Alzheimer’s treatments
Inflated prices of packaged food
Saving lives with better weather forecasting

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the Food Chain Workers Alliance, a coalition dedicated to improving working conditions for workers in every stage of food production, and to the Native CDFI Network to improve access to capital and credit for Indigenous farm workers.
Volunteer to build a climate resilience hub so your community can better respond to extreme heat events and other disasters.
Get educated about how to protect yourself and your community from heat and other extreme weather.
Be heard about building heat-resilient communities and share the Heat Action Platform tool and U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit with your city officials.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Cost Plus Drugs is utilizing strategic partnerships to improve affordability and accessibility of prescription drugs
Pregnant? The Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act says that your boss now has to accommodate you. Here’s everything you need to know.
FDA approval of lecanemab begins a new era of Alzheimer’s treatment
18 million doses of the first-ever malaria vaccine are rolling out in 12 African countries

Climate

Despite growth in renewables, global emissions from the energy industry are 👏 still 👏 rising 👏 . We can, and must, do better.
How to prepare for and survive during a black out in extreme heat
Join the Resilience in the Anthropocene free online summit from Aug 8-10 to discuss eco-anxiety and climate distress with leaders from frontline communities.
If you’ve (however reluctantly) made the transition to Threads, start rebuilding your following list with these climate solutions experts.

Food & Water

Food industry giants are responsible for plastic pollution (and “compostable” alternatives might not be much better) and need to be held accountable
Some cities are leaving toxic lead pipes in the ground
Need one more reason to prioritize fresh food? Inflation is still causing packaged food prices to soar
A plant-based diet shouldn’t stop you from enjoying a tasty little ice cream treat

Beep Boop

Investing in better weather forecasting could save lives
The U.K.’s Online Safety Bill could cause a greater risk to online safety by undermining encryption
AI could be used to tackle superbugs, but also cause a rise in misinformation ok have a nice weekend

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Transit For A Habitable Planet

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Why the hell is America's public transportation so terrible?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Nicholas Dagen Bloom.

He's the author of the subtly titled new book, the Great American Transit Disaster. Nicholas is a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College. He's the author of a bunch of books including Public Housing That Worked, The Metropolitan Airport and How States Shaped Post-War America. He's also the co-editor of the prize-winning Public Housing Myths and Affordable Housing in New York.

This new book, the Great American Transit Disaster (out now) is a deep dive into how we got here, and the overwhelming evidence that transit divestment was a choice rather than destiny, with a lot of actors involved.

The willful divestment over the past 100 years to purposefully build out our car culture today drives a full third of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Undoing it won't be an easy or simple task.

But the good news is, there are multi solving opportunities everywhere for not only less racism and fewer emissions, but for more and better housing everywhere, for better and more plentiful, safer transportation options, and for healthier bodies and minds.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Great American Transit Disaster by Nicholas Dagen Bloom
Walkable City Rules by Jeff Speck
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Connect with Nicholas and follow more of his work
Read David Zipper's Bloomberg piece on Nick's book, and follow David's other transit work

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Why I Don't Eat Animals

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 11:00:00 +0000

This week:

Why don’t I eat animals?

Plus, the news:

Carbon capture is (mostly) BS
Narcan vending machines save lives
The vertical farming boom doesn’t have enough power
Hacking EV charging stations
And more!

Here's What You Can Do:

Donate to the Food Animals Concerns Trust to advocate for raising food producing animals in a healthy and humane manner.
Volunteer with the Environmental Voter Project to turn out more environmental voters for elections at every level.
Get educated about climate-friendly food with this municipal guide from Friends of the Earth, a blueprint for your town to reduce meat consumption, costs, and associated pollution deaths.
Be heard about reproductive freedom and urge Congress to protect abortion access on a federal level.
Invest in tech companies supporting global decarbonization.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

“Dementia Villages” could be the future of home care
Narcan vending machines are saving lives in the opioid epidemic
The risk of dying from breast cancer has dropped dramatically since the 90s, which is great. Meanwhile, maternal mortality rates have more than doubled in some states, which is decidedly NOT great
Big Pharma is suing the federal government over Medicare provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act

Climate

Farmworkers are especially vulnerable to extreme heat. A low-tech solution could save lives.
I’m obsessed with Pique Action’s new YouTube series “Unf*cking The Planet.” Watch their latest video on why carbon capture is mostly bullshit (right now), but still necessary
And, some Good News: U.S. truck-makers are phasing out diesel trucks in California 🤝

Food & Water

The vertical farming boom is facing some growing pains (you’re welcome)
Plant-based is the new vegan, especially in marketing

Beep Boop

A lack of standards in EV charging stations poses a hacking risk that could impact drivers, and the power grid
Congress failed to regulate Big Tech. Here’s how it happened.
The French are allowing police to remotely activate phone cameras and microphones

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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How To Live A Happy Life

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How can we live happier lives?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Marc Schulz, the co-author with Dr. Robert Waldinger of “The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness”

They're the most recent generation of co-directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest study of happiness ever conducted. Marc is the Associate Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and the Sue Kardus PhD 1971 Chair in Psychology at Bryn Mawr College, where he also directs the data science program. And previously, he chaired the Psychology Department and Clinical Development Psychology PhD program at Bryn Mawr.

Now, look, how can we lead happier lives is obviously nuanced, complicated question.

But I don't think it'll surprise you that almost 90 years of data from this study has shown that well-nourished relationships inside and outside the home are a major key, if not, the major key to what you might call a happy life.

It's not money, it's not work or any of these things -- it's the people we relate to.

What can 90 years of comprehensive research teach us about protecting and nourishing our most important relationships in times of radical change?

Whether that's about having kids or about climate change, this is the most important thing.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Connect with Dr. Schulz and keep up with his work
Watch Robert Waldinger's Ted Talk

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Life, Liberty, and Solar Panels

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 20:00:00 +0000

This week:

Texans have a huge opportunity to get even MORE liberty — from the sun.

Plus: Diabetes is expected to double, the state of carbon removal, A.I. detection tools, future

pandemic prepping, BEES?!, and more

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ It’s getting hot out there. Direct your city officials to the Heat Action Platform Policy Tool to explore existing heat adaptation solutions for your community.

⚡️Thinking of becoming a nurse? Bless you, and thank you. Here are some resources including FAQs about education requirements, salary, and benefits.

⚡️ Representation in books helps kids build self-esteem and increase self-acceptance. Find kid-affirming books for your family or classroom with a ColorPop Book bundle.

⚡️ Defend rights to digital privacy all over the world by donating to The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

⚡️ Align your money with your values by finding a financial institution near you with sustainable banking services.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Scientists are engineering microbes to benefit our health and the environment
A new research model is allowing researchers to gain new insights into human embryonic development
The number of people with diabetes is expected to double by 2050 — to 1.3 billion people
Our terrible health care system, explained by a nurse

Climate

Extreme heat will result in $1 billion in health care costs this summer alone
How you can prevent power outages during a heat wave
UK ad regulators are clamping down on greenwashing
Understand the current state of carbon removal (and the need to regulate it) with these fun charts
Can we blame heat and wildfires on the jet stream?

Food & Water

3M is paying out a $10.3 billion settlement for contaminating public water supplies with toxic forever chemicals
Beekeepers are keeping US honeybee colonies “relatively stable” after nearly half of colonies died last year
How real people are being impacted by cuts to the food safety net
Refilling rivers is beyond what rain can provide. Here’s the case for desalination

Beep Boop

Your drugstore is telling Facebook when you buy sensitive items online, like Plan B or an HIV test
Experiencing online harassment? The Supreme Court isn’t going to do anything about it
Do A.I-Detection tools really work?

COVID

When should you get your next COVID booster?
The EU has made a deal with Pfizer to stock up on vaccines to prepare for future pandemics
The pandemic has been linked to a surge in children and youth with diabetes

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Essay: An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 21:00:00 +0000

This week:

Can Apple help improve mental health?

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️LGBTQ+ youth are 4x more likely to attempt suicide than their peers. Help the The Trevor Project build a safer, more-inclusive world through crisis services, peer support, education, and advocacy. Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: The Inevitable Future

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 21:00:00 +0000

This week:

Is the future inevitable?

Plus: A lack of OB-GYN’s in a post-Roe world, some new bills for agrivoltaics, the best in climate journalism, the link between COVID and Alzheimer’s, misinformation, and more

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ Our algorithms and technology are only as good as the people who make them. Empower future innovators to consider the social impact of their work with Tech Shift.
⚡️ Donate to the Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank working on solutions and policies to make coastal cities climate-ready.
⚡️ Electrifying school buses reduces air pollution, immediately improving the health of kids while ALSO reducing emissions. Tell your school board about Highland Fleets, an organization working to make electric fleets accessible for all.
⚡️ As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather, emergency services are becoming overstretched. Climate Resilience Hubs prepare communities before, during, and after an emergency. Find yours with this interactive map from Climate Crew.
⚡️ The housing shortage is bad for people, equality, the environment, and the economy. Help your city develop, implement, and monitor local housing strategies with actionable tools and guidance from Local Housing Solutions.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Half of US counties don’t have an OB-GYN. That’s fucking unacceptable, and abortion-bans are making it worse.
Dirty air kills more people than smoking, car crashes or HIV/AIDS, cutting up to six years off the lives of billions of people. Coal (surprise!) is the worst culprit
Endocrine disrupting chemicals could be the reason behind the decrease in global sperm counts
A new report is highlighting how hospitals can address the nursing shortage by attracting and retaining more nurses (cough-pay them-cough)

Climate

A coalition of environmental organizations have the solutions to scale up transmission infrastructure in an equitable way
The US Treasury and IRS have the released the latest updates on IRAs clean energy incentives, in time for Rewiring America to determine the pace at which we need to electrify everything to meet climate goals
Indigenous communities are leading the climate fight as usual, this time with the help of mapping tech to claim their land rights, and stop deforestation
Climate-related start-ups in Africa have received $2.8 billion in funding since 2019
Covering Climate Now has released the finalists for the 2023 CCN Journalism awards, honoring the best coverage of climate change and climate solutions around the world

Food & Water

Agrivoltaics get a boost in the Senate, a climate solution that benefits farmers, ecosystems and the climate
Chickens in Europe are getting dose with antibiotics “critical to human health”, causing growing concerns about superbugs
Sooo what happens if California’s dams fail?

Beep Boop

ICE is using LexisNexis to track and gather information on people in order to make arrests for deportation
What data does your car have on you?
If misinformation actually is increasing, what can we do about it?
An algorithm designed to reduce poverty is doing a bad job

COVID

Researchers have established a link between Covid-19 and Alzheimer’s
A common drug for diabetes may prevent Long COVID

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Start Over (Again)

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 19:00:00 +0000

This week:

Got fired? Start over.

Plus: More young people are getting cancer, the rise of solar power, new YouTube misinformation rules, getting paid to bike to work, and more

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ If apocalyptic skies and hazardous air quality reports are making your climate anxiety a little more intense this week (I feel you), look into the Climate Psychiatry Alliance’s database to find a climate-aware psychiatrist near you.
⚡️ Help spread fire adaptation practices and give communities the tools they need to reduce their wildfire risk and increase their resilience by donating to Fire Adapted Communities.
⚡️ Campaign to speed up the transition away from coal in your community by joining a local team to retire coal plants.
⚡️ While you’re staying indoors to avoid the unhealthy air outside, purchase an air purifier to keep your indoor air quality up to par (got Scrooge McDuck cash? Donate a few to local schools).
⚡️ Learn more about the impacts of air pollution, and read these recommendations for proper building ventilation.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

A new pill for lung cancer was found to cut the risk of death in half during clinical trials, yay!
Unfortunately, cancer is on the rise for people under 50 worldwide, and we don’t really know why, god I really fucking hate cancer
The chatbot “working” for an eating disorder helpline, instead of real humans capable of human empathy, was found to be encouraging unhealthy eating habits. Cool cool cool
This week was one of the worst wildfire pollution events in U.S. history

Climate

Biofuels might not actually be the best climate solution
Reforesting the Amazon could drastically help slow global warming, but there are a lot of roadblocks
Would you bike to work if the feds paid you to?
The clean energy transition is reliant on mines — but young people don’t want to work in them
Solar is growing fast enough to meet global decarbonization goals — here’s a graph as a treat. You deserve it.

Food & Water

Lack of water is limiting construction in Arizona, which I don’t know, feels like a big deal
As global food costs soar, a food delivery company is launching a fund for food-insecure Americans
Droughts in France are leading to water shortages, and the current solution isn’t sustainable
A pretty pretty vital Ukrainian dam was destroyed this week, leading to major flooding

Beep Boop

Could online age verification rules designed to protect children come at the price of everyone’s privacy?
The A.I. boom could be hindered by the cost of operating systems to run them
YouTube has changed its misinformation policy to allow 2020 election denial videos to remain on the site GREAT WORK EVERYBODY

COVID

Anti-vaxxers and medical misinformation spreaders are getting their social media platforms back
Wildfire smoke can increase the risk of contracting Covid. Let’s do neither?

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Essay: 10 Questions You Need to Ask Right Now

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 22:00:00 +0000

This week:

Ask these questions before you click on ANYTHING.

Plus: Gut inflammation news, California insurance gets harder to find, 750k adults just lost Medicaid, what (non-vaccinated) COVID actually does to your lungs, and more

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ PFAS (“forever chemicals”) have been linked to serious health problems. Urge Congress bans PFAS from all food contact materials by using this script from Toxic-Free Future.
⚡️ Work in marketing? Join Clean Creatives, a movement of advertisers and PR professionals, and pledge to cut ties with fossil fuels.
⚡️ Reclaim your right to privacy online with the Mullvad VPN (I use it every day).
⚡️ Keep informed with Circle of Blue’s in-depth reporting on the solutions and challenges to the water scarcity crisis.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Most pregnancy-related deaths occur in the year after a baby is born, prompting new strategies in caring for new mothers
The science behind how chronic stress impacts gut health
Nano-plastics are causing inflammation in the gut and brain, but the damage is reversible when they’re removed
Maybe everyone knowing where you are at all times isn’t actually the healthiest thing for our relationships? Imagine being a teen worrying that everyone is hanging out without you, and then confirming your suspicions are correct

Climate

State Farm is no longer accepting homeowner insurance applications in California
What the Debt Ceiling Deal means for the climate
The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is changing the way the government calculates the costs and benefits of regulation, all in the name of fighting pollution
How and where to build a strong manufacturing base for clean energy in the US

Food & Water

How the debt ceiling agreement will put 750,000 older adults at risk of losing food assistance
Commodity farmers are using regenerative cover cropping to adapt to climate change
A million plastic bottles are purchased worldwide every minute. EVERY MINUTE! That’s a shit ton. If you need help visualizing a shit ton, here’s a visual.

Beep Boop

A summary of Wolfram Alpha’s breakdown on what the hell is going on with ChatGPT and LLM’s
It’s time to start thinking about the governance of superintelligence
Amazon has settled with the FTC for illegally spying on users and collecting kids data

COVID

Here’s what COVID does to your lungs
And the 12 most common symptoms associated with Long COVID

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Best of: How to Protect Yourself from Wildfire Smoke

Mon, 29 May 2023 07:00:00 +0000

What's in wildfire smoke and how can you protect yourself from it?

Those are today's big questions, and my guest is Dr. Mary Prunicki.

Dr. Prunicki is the Director of Air Pollution and Health Research at Stanford University under the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research. Her lab examines the impact of air pollution and wildfires on health, specifically immune health.

Dr. Prunicki and I got together in late summer 2021 as fires and smoke just enveloped the American West and eventually the East Coast too.

Almost two years later, the west has seen a very wet winter and relative if temporary respite from fires, but Canada's on fire now, and everyone can see and taste the smoke as the jet stream carries it all the way across the continent.

So it's always a good time to understand how to protect yourself and your family, and that begins with understanding what you're protecting yourselves from, so we're rerunning this very popular and necessary conversation to make sure you and I, and all of us are up to speed all over again.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Night by Elie Wiesel
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

profiles.stanford.edu/mary-prunicki
Buy Purple Air monitor (or just look at the live map)
How to Buy a *Real* N95 Mask
EPA Air Quality & Climate Change Research
California Air Resources Board
American Lung Association on Outdoor Air Quality
Stanford Center for Air Quality Research
From Bloomberg: Wildfire's Toxic Legacy Leaves Children Gasping for Air Years Later

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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Essay: Gradually, and then all at once

Fri, 19 May 2023 19:00:00 +0000

This week:

Things feel pretty out of control. Get used to it.

Plus: The Canadian West is burning, Oregon bans PFAS, ChatGPT plugins for everyone, the All We Can Save project is hiring, and more

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️Wildfire smoke exposure is directly linked to myriad health impacts due to poor air quality. Know your daily risk by using this Purple Air outdoor air monitor.
⚡️We need to heal ourselves to heal the planet. Find resources and community to help with your climate anxiety through the Climate Mental Health Network.
⚡️Act locally. Use ReFED to find current food waste policies and programs you can learn from and implement in your town.
⚡️Work in local government? Biobot Analytics provides wastewater testing tools so we can better estimate the number of COVID-19 (and other diseases) infections in the community

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

These are the cities with most bike deaths per capita (I share news like this to illustrate where we can make drastic improvements)
Not to be outdone, the South Carolina House passed a six-week abortion ban
UnitedHealthcare wants doctors to get prior authorization for colonoscopies. People are very pissed off.
Where American air pollution is improving, and getting worse

Climate

Our friends at the All We Can Save project are hiring a Programs & Community Manager — details here!
Could enormous robots dramatically speed up solar farm construction? Sure!
How can we restore oyster reefs without oyster shells?
Octopus Energy continues to be a model for…everyone else
The Canadian west continues to burn, and climate change is a big reason why

Food & Water

Oregon banned PFAS (forever chemicals) in food containers
How plant-based food makers can fight back against meat and dairy disinformation
If growing one almond requires 3.2 gallons of water out west, how do we reconcile that?
The women working for food sovereignty on island territories
Undercover audio of a Tyson employee reveals “free-range” chicken is bullshit (more on humanewashing)

Beep Boop

OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT plugins to everyone, should be fine
Ransomware hackers are zeroing in (again) on under-resourced cities and towns
The Supreme Court ruled Twitter and Google aren’t legally liable for terrorists using their platforms

COVID

This isn’t COVID-specific (I wrote that big update last week), but it could be monumental, if we do the work: the CDC released a new health-based indoor air ventilation target, and the the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers released its own enhanced ventilation standard.
Here’s Joseph G. Allen on why it could be a game-changer.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Health Care Is A Human Right

Wed, 17 May 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Is healthcare a human right?

That's today's big question, and it clearly shouldn't be a question, but here we are. My guest to help explain the obvious today is Dr. Sheila Davis, the CEO of Partners in Health.

Sheila entered the global health arena in 1999, responding to the global HIV and AIDS pandemic. A few years later, she co-founded a small NGO that worked in both South Africa and Boston on a wide array of health projects, including the operation of a rural village nurse clinic.

She joined PIH in 2010 as their main operation in Haiti was torn apart by the earthquake there and worked her way up over the years, becoming the Chief of the Ebola response during the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic. And then as the Chief of Clinical Operations and the Chief Nursing Officer, Sheila oversaw nursing efforts as well as the supply chain, medical informatics, laboratory infrastructure, and quality improvement activities.

Dr. Davis is a frequent national speaker on global health and clinical topics, including HIV and AIDS, the Ebola epidemic, leadership in public health, and the role of nursing and human rights.

And folks, if it is not clear enough for the past few years, just in the US, much less everywhere around the world, yes, healthcare is a human right, and everyone deserves a fair shake.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

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INI Book Club:

Devotions by Mary Oliver (a starting point, as one of many Mary Oliver poetry selections)
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Paul Farmer
Above Ground by Clint Smith
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Get involved with Partners In Health
Follow Dr Davis on Twitter

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: COVID has ended (or has it?)

Tue, 16 May 2023 16:00:00 +0000

This week:

COVID is over (as far as we know it). What did we learn, and what’s next?

PLUS: Gay blood donations are a go, wind power in the UK, social media guidelines, millions for Black farmers, water report cards, and more

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ Discover which websites are harvesting your data using The Markup’s Blacklight tool
⚡️ Prepare your home for a wildfire using these resources from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
⚡️ Ensure everyone, everywhere, receives access to quality healthcare by donating to Partners In Health
⚡️ With SNAP benefits getting rolled back, make sure more people have access to food and volunteer with or donate to Feeding America
⚡️ Keep an eye on wastewater tracking data to understand the prevalence of COVID in your area

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

The APA has released a health advisory on social media use for kids
Gay and bisexual men are now eligible to donate blood without having to abstain from sex. Welcome to the 21st century, FDA!
A new discovery about T cells could inspire new anti-tumor treatments
Google is using AI to improve hearing technology

Climate

In Europe, British wind power has overtaken gas, and e-bikes are taking over in Germany
The Biden-Harris Administration is committing $50 million to fund clean energy solutions in rural America
We can halve the amount of land use needed for renewables in the US
Exxon is in breach of its Environmental Permit in Guyana, according to a High Court Judge

Food & Water

Louisiana is publishing report cards for its water systems to improve transparency
Black farmers are getting a $20 million boost
The Farm Bill needs to include funding for Indigenous food producers

Beep Boop

Google Search is facing some big AI-related challenges
A lawsuit is threatening the cybersecurity of US critical infrastructure
An interactive map from The Markup explores what neighborhoods internet providers excluded from fast internet

COVID

Nearly a million New Yorkers lost at least 3 loved ones to COVID
Food banks are being hit hard as pandemic aid expires

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Fighting Food Waste With The iPhone of Trash Cans

Mon, 08 May 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How much food do you throw away every week? And do you have to?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Matt Rogers.

Matt is a former Apple iPod and iPhone engineer. The Co-Founder of Nest thermostats, Founder of incite.org, and former Chairman of Carbon180. He is now the Co-Founder and CEO of Mill.

What's Mill? It's a membership to a food-shrinking, de-stinking kitchen bin, and it just may be one of the most important levers you and I can take to fight food waste and climate change.

I'm a huge fan of Matt's multidisciplinary work to drive systems change across tech, non-profits, and politics.

Mill may be his most direct take on it yet.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager
Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Reserve your Mill bin
Follow Mill on Instagram and Twitter
Follow Matt on Twitter
Read the recent Nature article on food waste and emissions

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: Never Tell Me The Odds

Fri, 05 May 2023 21:00:00 +0000

This week:

Solutions to our biggest problems shouldn’t be so perplexing. On the other hand, washing our hands wasn’t obvious for a couple hundred thousand years, and my kids STILL don't want to do it.

Plus: Seasonal allergy news, a new Barbie, non-profit grocery stores, climate hackers, the SEC, the WHO, Google’s huge new feature, and Khan Academy revolutionizes education — again

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ Floods or not, fire season’s (probably) right around the corner. Get up to the minute air quality reports with a Purple Air monitor (and nifty map, too)
⚡️ Your community may need to replace toxic lead water service lines. Check out Beyond Plastic’s report on the pros and cons of PVC pipes.
⚡️ Sure, the economy and market are completely unpredictable at this point, but there’s no better time to put your retirement fund to work fighting climate change. Do it with Carbon Collective.
⚡️ Speaking of lead pipes — will microplastics and PFAS (“forever chemicals”) be our version? Check out PFAS Central’s PFAS-free brands and consumer products.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Seasonal allergies are coming for us all
In Cancer Alley, US chemical giants mounted a campaign against grassroots organizers, so they can continue to kill people
Apparently forever chemicals in food packaging (like take-out containers) can migrate into food
North Carolina passed a 12 week abortion ban, fuck those guys
Barbie launched the first doll with Down’s syndrome

Climate

None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
Recycling, which doesn’t really work, also spews microplastics
Environmentalists sue California over their stupidly reduced solar incentives
The SEC is taking forever to regulate climate disclosures, so the EU has gone one farther and oh boy
Florida and Louisiana are borrowing millions to pay insurance claims (go deeper in my must-listen convo with Washington Post reporter Brianna Sacks)

Food & Water

In which the FDA chief dips his toe very gently into the idea of food as medicine
Non-profit grocery stores are trying to rehab America’s food deserts
Inside Big Beef’s (incredibly effective) climate messaging machine
Meet the climate hackers of frontline Malawi
Pollution from farms violates civil rights, maybe?

Beep Boop

WATCH: Sal Khan unveils Khan Academy’s new educational chatbot, Khanmigo
Google began rolling out passkeys — this is a great day for data security (check out how to enable it now)
The FTC wants to stop Meta/Facebook from releasing any new products until they stop trouncing kids’ privacy
Washington State passed a sweeping health data law

COVID

Per the WHO, with commentary from David Wallace-Wells: Apparently the Pandemic Emergency is Over (it was America’s 4th leading cause of death in 2022)
There’s a new culprit behind Long COVID: monocytes

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Check Your Insurance Policy

Mon, 01 May 2023 16:00:00 +0000

You've got insurance, right? Are you sure?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Washington Post reporter Brianna Sacks.

Brianna's an extreme weather and disaster reporter for the Post where she explores how climate change is transforming the United States through violent storms, intense heat, widespread wildfires, and other forms of extreme weather.

Brianna deploys to disaster zones, which are sometimes very close to home, and does enterprise reporting on the preparations for responses to and the aftermaths of catastrophic events.

We're having this conversation today because last month Brianna revealed how insurers have slashed Hurricane Ian payouts far below damage estimates, often up to 80%.

I cannot emphasize enough that the future includes an insurance landscape that is among the most important in our very brittle economy and society.

It underpins everything we rely on, so understanding not only your own insurance but how well your mortgage holder and the system at large are prepared for what's here and what's coming, is essential.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Training for the Uphill Athlete by Steve House, Scott Johnston, and Kilian Jornet
The Great Displacement by Jake Bittle
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Brianna on Twitter and Instagram
Read Brianna's piece on Hurricane Ian insurance cuts
Read more of her reporting at The Washington Post

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: What Would You Say You Do Here

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Is what you’re working on important?

Plus: The cleanest produce, a mosquito factory, lots of rooftop solar, autonomous GPT, maybe, and the latest with the Colorado River

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ Climate change and mental health are inextricably linked. Get some help with the Climate Mental Health Network.
⚡️ Live in or own a multi-family building? Check out how BlocPower can help electrify it.
⚡️ If you’re like “I wonder if my town or state has e-bike rebates”, here’s a Google Sheet with every known rebate in the country
⚡️ Start a student alliance for tech ethics at your university with the Techshift Alliance.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

The countries with the highest rates of malaria deaths have approved Oxford’s new vaccine
Brazil built a massive mosquito factory — it’s not what you think
Our friends at Biobot Analytics have expanded their wastewater monitoring into norovirus outbreaks
Are we close to a combo flu and COVID vaccine?

Climate

Why SUV’s got so big, and so popular
Germany shut down their remaining operational nuclear plants for really no reason, but banned new gas and oil heating?
Elon’s Twitter could break disaster response
Jigar’s Energy Department committed $3 billion to rooftop solar access for those with lower credit scores

Food & Water

These are EWG’s “Dirty Dozen” in produce
Radical “seed breeding” could bring about more climate friendly crops
The Colorado River crisis didn’t have to be this way, but big meat made it this way
The massive batteries sloshing around beneath our feet

Beep Boop

OpenAI’s hunger for data might come back to bite them
State tech laws are starting to look like state marijuana laws
How Mexico became the biggest user of Pegasus spyware
Hype grows over “autonomous” GPT

COVID

The NIH spent $1 billion on Long COVID research. Where’d it go?
Ed Yong is back and asking why we’re so keen on erasing Long COVID

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Every Climate Action Matters

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 13:30:00 +0000

What can I do?

The simple question is the underlying premise of everything we do here. It's often the easiest one to help people answer for themselves, but from the outside, it's often the most imposing.

All of which is why we keep coming back to it, and why I'm so excited about the fantastic new book, The Climate Action Handbook by Dr. Heidi Roop.

Dr. Roop is the Director of the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership and an assistant professor of climate science and extension specialist at the University of Minnesota. She also serves as the Director of Knowledge Transfer for the NSF-funded COLDEX Science and Technology Center.

Dr. Roop's research and extension programs have taken her from Antarctica to Minnesota, and they combine cutting-edge climate science and effective science communication to increase the use and integration of climate change information in decision-making at a whole range of scales, from city and state to national and international levels.

Safe to say, I'm very into that and you're going to love her.

If you've struggled to find a way to get involved in the climate fight, this book and this conversation are for you.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Climate Action Handbook by Heidi Roop
Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Connie & Peter Roop
A Brief History of Life on Earth by Clemence Dupont
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Heidi on Twitter
Keep up with Heidi's work

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Essay: This Isn't Rocket Science (Unless It Is)

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

A very basic way to use a mental model, you’re welcome.

PLUS: Mosquitoes, overseas abortion pills, healthy ice cream, German nuclear power, electric school buses, and more.

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ Interested in community solar? Check out Wattbuy’s tools to get some.
⚡️ One of the most effective ways to make fashion more sustainable is to partner up with our friends at Fashion Revolution
⚡️ Want to understand if there’s (actually) a moral case for fossil fuels? You should read Amy Westervelt’s handy little guide.
⚡️ There are over 9000 school board seats up for election this year. Help Run for Something support candidates who actually give a shit about kids.
⚡️ Over 60? Put your experience and skills to work and join Third Act to help fight the climate crisis.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Here come the mosquitoes (the screened porch is one of mankind’s best inventions)
Could an mRNA treatment wipe out peanut allergies?
Inside the online market for overseas abortion pills
Air pollution is increasingly linked with both dementia and reduced lung function in kids
Hear me out: could ice cream have health benefits? (Happy Birthday, Dad! I got you a study scientists are very confused about)

Climate

Germany quit nuclear power, which isn’t helpful
Puma, a brand I’m nowhear near fashionable enough to rock, opened up their supply chain to Gen Z sustainability nerds
Why the next EV push is to electrify school buses
Southeastern US seas are rising triple the global average
Check out how your state’s clean electricity efforts are going
The new EV rules are in — here’s 7 big takeaways before you go shopping

Food & Water

Wall Street made a run on the west’s precious groundwater supplies
Speaking of: All those atmospheric rivers have temporarily reduced drought warnings, which is (truly) great, but flooding’s getting worse, and the Colorado River is still in trouble, so the feds finally stepped in
Italy’s plan to ban lab-grown meat won’t help their climate issues

Beep Boop

OpenAI launched a bug bounty program
Semi-related: Spain and Italy are investigating whether OpenAI breached GDPR
Is ChatGPT hallucinating, or bullshitting?
Millions of Facebook users had their info stolen in a ChatGPT app
Semi-related: WhatsApp made it harder for scammers to steal your account info

COVID

COVID is climbing steadily in India — here’s why
Semi-related: Antimicrobial resistance is growing in India — and everywhere — because we’re over-prescribing them
The jury is still out on how often you and we should get COVID boosters

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at https://www.importantnotimportant.com/
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Take a nap you deserve it

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Best of: Black Moms Matter

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Why is it so dangerous to have Black babies in America?

April 11-17th is Black Maternal Health Week, and so we are replaying one of our favourite episodes from 2021 with guest Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois, a nurse and former senior advisor to President Obama.

We discuss how this country is failing Black mothers, and her incredible Momnibus Act, a suite of 12 bills designed to improve Black maternal health outcomes in America, where Black women are dying in or after childbirth at 3x-4x rates of white women.

In this incredible conversation, Rep. Underwood goes deep to help us understand the complexities of the problem, the crushing personal inspiration for her work, and what we can all do to help.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Finding the Humanity in Artificial Intelligence

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 07:00:00 +0000

If you had all of the data in the world at your hands, what question would you ask first?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Emma Pierson.

Emma is an assistant professor of computer science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech, and a computer science field member at Cornell University with a secondary joint appointment as an assistant professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. Sure. Why not?

Emma has published a number of game-changing papers, and we talk about those today and how they all tie together. She's written for the New York Times, 538, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Wired, all my favorites, and has been named to the MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators under 35 list, and the Forbes 30 under 30 in Science list.

Her team's work has helped unlock answers and solutions to some of our biggest, most lingering and also sometimes most urgent questions.

Emma and her team work diligently to develop data science and machine learning methods to study two vital, huge interlocking areas: inequality and healthcare.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

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INI Book Club:

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Emma on Twitter
Keep up with Emma's work on her website

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Best of: What Really Happens When You Just Give People Money?

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 07:00:00 +0000

What if we just gave people money?

That's today's big question and my guests are Caroline Teti and Michael Faye from GiveDirectly. This conversation from 2021, one of my all-time favorites is one of those conversations that can help you truly think outside the box and reconsider how to most effectively take a simple action that can have cascading effects.

Caroline Teti or just Teti as she likes to be called, I swear, works on the ground in Kenya, Nairobi, where she is the Director of Recipients Advocacy for GiveDirectly's global operations, and the Director of Governmental and External Relations.

Michael Faye is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of GiveDirectly.

I think we can all understand that different people need different things on different days. We're talking about life essentials: clean air, clean and accessible water, healthy food, shelter, medicine. The needs can vary enormously among people and on a day-to-day basis.

But one thing that unites us all in need is a need for agency over our own life.

From everything I've understood in this conversation and talking to so many folks over the past few years, nothing takes away agency like poverty.

And it turns out that giving people cash can create that power.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

“The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova
“The Art of Reading Minds” by Henrik Fexeus
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Best of: How to Stop School Shootings in the USA

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 13:30:00 +0000

We're going to keeping re-running this 2020 episode until America stops sacrificing children.

---

Here we are, yet again.

We first ran this episode with Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland victim, Jaime Guttenberg in 2020 - and what has changed? More gun violence and more senseless deaths.

It doesn't have to be this way.

In Episode 98, Quinn & Brian discuss: common sense solutions to prevent gun deaths and destroy the gun lobby.

Our guest is: Fred Guttenberg, a gun safety activist and political troublemaker.

14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg was killed in her high school on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, FL. We usually like to make some jokes at this point, but not today. This is a loss that no person should have to experience — and it’s all the more painful for how utterly avoidable it is. Which side you choose to be on this issue should be as simple as answering this question: do you want to wake up and discover that one of your friends or loved ones has been shot? If the answer is no, then pay attention.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

VOTE: votesaveamerica.com
“Find the Helpers: What 9/11 and Parkland Taught Me About Recovery, Purpose, and Hope (Grief Recovery)” by Fred Guttenberg
Support Orange Ribbons for Jamie
fredguttenberg.com
Instagram: @orangeribbonsdad
Facebook: facebook.com/orangeribbonsdad
Twitter: @fred_guttenberg

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Where In The World Are All Of The Electricians?

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Where the hell did all of the electricians go?

That's today's big question, and my guest is leading journalist Emily Pontecorvo.

Until recently, Emily was an energy, environment, and climate reporter at Grist, one of our favorite publications. She's now moved on to the new climate newsroom Heatmap.

Emily has covered the whole enchilada from green hydrogen subsidies to coal ash, scope three emissions, Fashion Week, airports, locusts, frequent flyers, college divestment movements, carbon removal, you name it.

And so when Emily did a deep dive on the worker's subsidies and training schools behind America's electricians or lack thereof, I knew she was the perfect person to help me, and therefore you, understand where we go from here because we need a lot of electricians to electrify everything.

It's complicated, it's systemic, and it's holding us back.

We need to understand what the bottlenecks are when you can't find an electrician, how we can market to future electricians, then educate them, train them, and support them as a new generation of truly essential workers.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough by Holly Jean Buck
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Read Emily's electrician shortage piece in Grist
Subscribe to Heatmap
Follow Emily on Twitter
Upgrade your home or building with BlocPower
Upgrade your home with Sealed
Support an equitable transition to a world powered by renewable energy with GRID Alternatives
Check out ChargerHelp
Help decarbonize California with resources from TECH Clean California

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: ESG is good business (but don't call it ESG)

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 21:00:00 +0000

This week:

Fighting over ESG is stupid, risky, and bad business. Let’s move on.

Plus: RSV vaccines, the E-BIKE Act, Skittles (?), deepfakes, allergies, and a new season of DRILLED

What We Can Do:

⚡️ Submit your comment to keep Virginia in the very-successful — and very lucrative — RGGI
⚡️ Some folks need shelter. Some need water. Or food. The data says giving them agency — and straight cash — works better. Do that by donating to GiveDirectly.
⚡️ Health care is a universal human right. Setup a new monthly donation to the legendary Partners in Health to provide care first to those who need it most.
⚡️ You know what’s cool? A BILLION oysters. Plant them with the Billion Oyster Project and help clean up New York’s waters.
⚡️ There’s 1000 words about ESG investing below, so now’s a good time to find a bank that supports climate action AND your community with Bank for Good.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

The FDA recommends 2 RSV vaccines for older adults — a huge public health win
We can learn a lot about how to eradicate homelessness from Houston and Helsinki
The 988 suicide hotline is expanding LGBTQ services with 24/7 chat and text - huzzah!
We really should celebrate the enormous — ENORMOUS — impact the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has had (and the thousands of people who fought for it)
The best and worst American cities for allergy-sufferers

Climate

The E-BIKE Act was reintroduced in Congress and I AM SO EXCITED
The new season of Amy Westervelt’s incredible “Drilled” podcast is out, and this year it’s a cross-over with Damages, as they explore Guyana’s oil reserves, and how ExxonMobil is exploiting them
I LOVE the “Third Act” protesters who came after after the big banks who fund fossil fuels
The final rules on EV tax credits are coming — and everyone is both excited and annoyed

Food & Water

Can we make and popularize toilets that don’t use running water?
California might ban Skittles (if this isn’t our most clicked on link, I don’t know what the point is)
We desperately need a new economics of water

Beep Boop

It’s just all moving so, so fast. The first ChatGPT plugins are here.
Meanwhile, vocal deepfakes are already out of control

COVID

A new Medicare designation may save the most vulnerable rural hospitals that are failing after COVID
From Atul Gawande: The aftermath of a pandemic requires as much focus as the start

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

The Dive Into Challenger Deep

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 07:00:00 +0000

What if you got the chance to dive to the bottom of the ocean? Would you go? And what would you find there?

That's today's big question and my returning guest, one of my all-time favorites, is Dr. Dawn Wright, better known the world over as Deep Sea Dawn.

Dawn recently became the 27th person ever in history and the first Black person ever to dive into the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of Earth's ocean.

Dawn is an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering and the Chief Scientist at Esri, where she works with other scientists to map the ocean floor in 3D.

As our oceans heat up and rise, as we try to reduce overfishing, and as our governments and companies race to mine minerals for our all-electric future, there has never been a more monumental and historic, and vitally important project than trying to understand our oceans.

A lot has happened, since Dawn and I last spoke.

It shouldn't be surprising then, that this conversation not only talked about the wonder of the deep seas and the Earth's crust but also went to some wonderful and unexpectedly emotional places.

I'm so thankful to have shared another conversation with Deep Sea Dawn.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Surrender by Bono
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

5 Ways Scientists, NGOs, and Governments Can Support Indigenous-led Conservation
The “story maps” that Esri made for Victor Vescovo and Caladan Oceanic after Kathy Sullivan’s dive to Challenger
The “story map” of Dawn's dive
The MPA Guide – great resource for all things designating and managing Marine Protected Areas
Dawn's mom’s story
Follow Deep Sea Dawn on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: Welcome to the Unknown Unknowns

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 19:00:00 +0000

This week:

What we know — and more importantly, what we don’t — about what AI is capable of, and how much change we’re capable of absorbing.

Plus: the Willow Project, H-1B visas, blueberries, honeybee vaccines, climate disclosure rules, next-gen bed nets, and health insurance in North Carolina

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ Just a few bucks buys some life-saving bed nets with Against Malaria, maybe the most effective NGO on the planet
⚡️ The only thing dumber than cancer is rare cancers. Good news: you can help fund research against them (and work up a sweat at the same time) with our friends at Cycle for Survival
⚡️ This is the best electric vehicle you can buy
⚡️ Get educated and follow the Black Maternal Health Caucus on Twitter
⚡️ Understand your home’s exposure to flooding, fires, heat and wind with Risk Factor

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

What’s second-hand stress?
Next-gen bed nets are coming and could save so many lives
Medicaid expansion might finally be coming to North Carolina

Climate

Joe Biden approved the Willow Project in Alaska and it sucks, but on the other hand, the US is on track for a major clean energy milestone
The world’s first honeybee vaccine is like “magic”
Use this tool to see how early spring came to your neighborhood
In the future, it might still cost $1 trillion per ppm of CO2 removed, we should pay for it
The SEC’s climate disclosure rules are coming. 85% of business execs said they’re not ready.
Why did insurers slash Hurricane Ian payouts?

Food & Water

The EPA proposed their strongest ever standards for keeping coal plant pollution out of your water (right after they went after forever chemicals)
Blueberries are packed with pesticides?
A Supreme Court case could reshape Indigenous water rights in the (parched) southwest

Beep Boop

Some additional AI reading: Azeem Azhar on “Everything, everywhere, all at once”; Are LLM’s the new CPU’s?
Amid mass tech layoffs, workers on H-1B visas have 60 days to find a job, or leave the country, and we’re really just doing this all wrong

COVID

COVID made maternal health outcomes much worse (and especially among Black people)
There doesn’t seem to be an association between Paxlovid and a COVID rebound, which is great

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Best Of: Is The Ocean Running Out of Oxygen? Is That Bad?

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 10:00:00 +0000

What if I told you there was less oxygen in the ocean than there used to be?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Dawn Wright, or as many in the ocean community know her "Deep Sea Dawn."

Dawn Wright is an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. She's the Chief Scientist at ESRI, where she works with other scientists to map the ocean floor in 3D.

In 2018, when I was just a baby podcaster, when Brian was my co-host, I saw a headline about the ocean that made me question a lot. I knew the oceans were heating up. I was beginning to understand, I think we were all beginning to understand, just how much global heating the oceans had absorbed over the years.

But I didn't know what that meant for the billions of creatures that call the ocean home. I didn't know what it meant for us. So I called Dawn.

In celebration of Dawn's return to the show next week, I wanted to replay this incredible conversation we had with her to better understand how far we've come.

-----------

Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

⚡️Your Home Electrification Questions, Answered

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

In response to our ongoing and delightful home electrification series with our friends at Rewiring America, we have received a hell of a lot of questions that are beyond our ability to answer.

So we brought in the experts: previous pod guest John Semmelhack, home electrification wiz and co-owner of The Comfort Squad, and Joel Rosenberg, member of the Special Projects team at Rewiring America.

Your regularly scheduled newsletter will return next week!

Here's What You Can Do:

Find a reputable contractor in Colorado with Renu, Xcel Energy, Elephant Energy, or Helio
Find a reputable contractor in California with The Switch Is On from TECH Clean California
Find a reputable contractor in Maine with Efficiency Maine
Not from any of those states? Check with your State Energy Office
Check out Redwood Energy's retrofit guide
Learn more about smart heat pump water heaters
Buy a low-level carbon monoxide sensor/alarm

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch this episode
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: A living act of resistance

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 18:00:00 +0000

This week:

Can little-old-you really make a difference? Hell yes you can.

Plus: cheaper insulin, cleaner camping gear, a new (lidless) coffee cup, good news on BetterHelp, and maybe even some paid leave.

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ Help your local farmers sell online — not just at farmer’s markets — with GrownBy.
⚡️ Help people worldwide get clean, safe, accessible drinking water with charity: water.
⚡️ Support Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s Urban Ocean Lab as they write the future of ocean policy.
⚡️ Stay ahead of water news with the award-winning Circle of Blue non-profit newsroom
⚡️ Queer student journalists: Apply to be a member of the 2023 Nat’l LGBTQ Journalists’ Conference Student PROGRAM, a week-long all-expenses-paid reporting intensive

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

REI has committed to stop selling products with forever chemicals
Eli Lilly will cut insulin prices to $35, should still be regulated
There’s a new bipartisan push for paid family and medical leave
Endovascular thrombectomy will (eventually) save millions of lives

Climate

The Interior Department released guidance on how states can claim $500 million to clean up oil wells
The world swore they’d eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. Funny story! They doubled them (it’s complicated)

Food & Water

This new coffee cup is entirely compostable (and cool as hell)
The Mediterranean diet is, one, delicious, and two, may improve a person’s response to immunotherapy

Beep Boop

The FTC will ban BetterHelp from sharing mental health data for ad targeting, which, I don’t know, sounds pretty damn obvious
Instead of legislative bodies, judges are making consequential tech policy, and, look, nobody’s prepared for this stuff

COVID

This is the first at-home COVID and flu test
Why forest clearing doesn’t just release emissions — it helps viruses jump to humans

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Best of: Lessons From Plants

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 18:00:00 +0000

What can we learn from trees?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Beronda Montgomery.

Beronda's a transformative writer, researcher and scholar who pursues a common theme of understanding how individuals perceive, respond to and are impacted by the environments in which they exist.

She recently moved from Michigan State University to Grinnell College where she's a professor of biology and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College, which is perfect because I can't think of anyone who is more intentional about mentorship than Beronda.

She is the author of one of my favorite books, Lessons From Plants.

She's also one of my all-time favorite podcast guests, so I'm excited to share one of our most popular conversations from all the way back in 2021 as we more urgently and comprehensively try to understand how to adapt ourselves, our society and our economy and our ecosystems to mitigate further harm from climate change.

We can learn a lot from plants which are living things that are literally planted in place and so they are forced to adapt to whatever comes their way.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

"Breathe: A Letter to My Sons" by Imani Perry
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Best Of: Did A.I. Just Make My Life’s Work Obsolete?

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How many nights have you spent up recently worried that AI is just gonna take your job?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Mohammed AlQuraishi.

Almost three years before chatGPT and New Bing really hit the scene, Mohammed showed up to a conference excited to share his life's work on protein folding, one of the biggest problems in biology.

But Mohammad quickly discovered that Deep Mind or to be more specifically AlphaFold had solved the whole damn thing.

Mohammad is an assistant professor in the Department of Systems Biology and a member of Columbia's program for mathematical genomics, where he works at the intersection of machine learning, biophysics and systems biology.

Obviously, all this is more important and more relevant than ever before.

Literally, it changes every week, so I'm excited to share this conversation from 2019 or a million years ago.

The world and AI is moving so quickly, but it's messy and in many places it's moving faster than our societal and ethical guardrails can keep up.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Learn more at https://moalquraishi.wordpress.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/moalquraishi
“The Future of Protein Science will not be Supervised”
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative: chanzuckerberg.com

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: How to get sh*t done

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Pulled in a million directions? Wondering what the hell you do with your days?

Find your north stars (and become devastatingly effective) with one simple question.

What We Can Do:

⚡️ Please don’t use public wifi without a VPN. Please? If you can’t just hotspot, use the lightning-fast Mullvad VPN to secure your data.
⚡️ On the hunt for new furniture? Save some trees and check out Kaiyo’s marketplace to buy and sell fancy used furniture!
⚡️ Cancel out your transportation emissions and find your next (or first!) e-bike at Ride Review
⚡️ Want to go to climate farm school, or be a climate VC? Get the education you need and build an incredible network with our friends at Terra.do.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Are we getting closer to curing Alzheimer’s?
5th person confirmed cured of HIV
After a brutal winter, an RSV vaccine might finally be around the corner
Social media has been a major cause of mental illness in girls for a long time. Here’s the evidence.

Climate

How disinformation is slowing the clean energy rollout
Global corps climate pledges are ‘misleading’, not the word I would have used
Biden wants all of the floating offshore wind
Why the hell has climate change made tampons more expensive?
Governments spent a record $1 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies last year

Food & Water

One year later, the infant formula crisis is still a thing, and could happen again
Cereal companies are NOT pumped about the FDA’s new “healthy” label
Congress killed a bill to give farmworkers a path to citizenship
Healthier school lunches may reduce obesity

Beep Boop

Why haven’t digital therapeutics got payer coverage yet?
How Google’s ad business funds misinformation (I wrote a deep dive into disinformation last week)

COVID

That meta-study on masks is decidedly not as decisive (or honest) as expected
What happens with COVID-era food benefits end?

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: What Do You Need?

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

The future of search and chatbots looks a lot like our ancient past. Why do we keep making the same tools over and over again?

What We Can Do:

⚡️ Addiction is brutal. Help yourself or a loved one or someone you’ve never met with Shatterproof.
⚡️ I’m so excited to share that my favorite event on Earth, “LA Loves Alex’s Lemonade Stand” is finally back. Support pediatric cancer research and buy yourself some tickets to eat food from some of the greatest chefs on the planet.
⚡️ It’s a pretty pretty pretty good moment to read Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence and The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values.
⚡️ Want to switch your retirement fund to one without fossil fuels? Check out Fossil Free Funds to find mutual funds and ETFs that qualify.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

It’s probably helpful to understand that half of all American hospitals are projected to be in the red this year
American teenage girls are suffering in a very real way. There are a million things we can do, here are a few ways to start to help
E-bikes incentives are SO POPULAR
Sure, we need to get toxic gas out of our homes, but also — why is asthma the way that it is?

Climate

This amazing new solar farm is also a prairie restoration project and a carbon sink, you’re welcome (also, let’s hear it for hedgerows!)
Harvard voted to build climate change into its medical school curriculum

Food & Water

Sorghum is one of our oldest and most reliable grains and could be a stalwart in the age of climate change
Can food be medicine, after all?

Beep Boop

Tesla’s recalling 300,000+ cars because self-driving was bullshit all along
Supermarkets, like everyone else, are selling your data

COVID

China’s recent COVID death toll could top a million
Is Long COVID a neurological disease?

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Clean Air Is An Inside Job

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Imagine you’re in a sci-fi movie. The one where everything’s on the line.

And while dinosaurs or aliens or a virus takes over down on the ground, you’re the scientist unexpectedly riding in the helicopter with the actual president, the scientist who’s run the calculations and asked the questions nobody else thought to ask, who’s uncovered the virus’s single weakness.

But nobody’s listening to you. Because it’s complicated when everything is on the line. But you know that what you know could save millions of lives.

What do you do next?

That’s today’s big question, and my guest is Dr. Linsey Marr.

A renowned scientist and multidisciplinary engineer who pioneered research into a better understanding of the flu’s airborne status, and how humidity plays a role in the flu’s seasonality. She is among a very small group of scientists who truly understand the aerosol transmission of bacteria and viruses.

Three years later, we’re still wrestling with the implications of this virus and how we level the playing field by cleaning up our indoor air.

And nobody understands the challenges we face – and the opportunities in front of our faces, literally under and inside of our noses – like she does.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Follow Dr. Marr on Twitter
Read and implement the EPA Clean Air In Buildings Challenge
Learn more about air pollution
Read the CDC recommendations for ventilation in buildings
Install a PurpleAir air quality monitor in your home
Monitor CO2 in your home with an Aranet4
Purchase an Air Purifier for your home

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: How to Survive

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:00:00 +0000

This week:

There are a default group of problems that exist in our society because of the basic needs required to be a human.

They are:

Air
Water
Food
Sleep

These, our most primal needs, are more or less biologically inarguable, and the good news is, we understand them very well and have made enormous progress to ensure they are accessible to a greater percentage of humans than ever before.

There have been trade-offs along the way, of course, including plundering most of the solar system’s single habitable planet’s resources.

Without fulfilling our most basic requirements, we can’t truly move into the future, no matter how much one small but powerful group wants to skip ahead to electric planes or flying cars or extended life spans.

I want to get to the future as fast as anyone, but without equal access and enjoyment of these make-or-break requirements, there are simply no bootstraps to pull yourself up by, no ground to stand upon, much less to collectively reach higher.

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡ Understand the health impacts of what’s actually in your food, cosmetics, and cleaning products with the free Yuka app
⚡ Reduce food waste and take care of your grocery shopping with the Misfits Market
⚡ Interested in community solar? Plug your zip into Arcadia’s tool to find out how you can go clean and reduce your power bill
⚡ Want to invest in clean tech but don’t know where to start? Check out ImpactAssets and their donor-advised fund and put your cash to work saving the world

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Is this why lung cancer doesn’t respond to immunotherapy?
The first federal gun crime report in 20 years dropped
New blood donation rules will loosen restrictions on gay and bisexual men
Prenatal exposure to air pollution is associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes at just 2 years of age

Climate

The US Treasury made more cars eligible for tax credits, and still, there’s nothing for e-bikes and other micro-mobility options
The Colorado River crisis is not going swimmingly as seven states just can’t agree on cuts
Europe’s fossil fuel use should plummet this year

Food & Water

CRISPR could help feed the world but boy genome editing in crops is a tad bit controversial
The FDA rolled out a plan to re-org the food side and not everyone is pleased
How road salt is poisoning Michigan’s water

Beep Boop

A new group called Health3PT is trying to address ransomware attacks along hospital supply chains
GPT is coming to…everything
The ACLU is suing the US intelligence community to try and further expose abuses of a warrantless surveillance program

COVID

Vaccine makers kept $1.4 billion in prepayments for canceled COVID shots for the world’s poor and I am losing my mind
VA Senator Tim Kaine, suffering from Long COVID, pushes for more research and treatments
A good piece on we need an air-quality revolution

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Essay: "Why Do We Exist?"

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

For the next few weeks, I’m rewriting and sharing a selection of essays I wrote in 2020 and 2021, so about two hundred years ago. I think they’re more relevant than ever — I can’t wait to hear what you think.

This week: What would you say you do here? (Originally published July 2020, updated February 2023)

Why do we exist?

After a hundred years of progress, humanity faces stress tests unlike any we’ve faced before, and all at once.

The good news: Your company can help rewrite the future.

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ The death toll in Turkey and Syria continues to rise. Relief agencies are having a hell of a time, but you can donate to the Syrian American Medical Society, Doctors Without Borders, and World Central Kitchen.
⚡️ There’s never been a better time for educators to bring climate crisis solutions into the classroom, and no better tool than the All We Can Save Project.
⚡️ Renter? Landlord? Either way you can find out how to green your building with BlocPower.
⚡️ Clean up the air in your town with Mom’s Clean Air Force.
⚡️ Every boob is different, so help recruit more women to breast cancer studies with WISDOM.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Please read this David Brooks piece on friendship and depression
Sure, yes, electric cars can clean up the air, but please also way fewer cars
A quarter million US students haven’t returned to school since the early pandemic. Where the hell are they?
Workers fighting America’s overdose crisis need much more help
Yelp is coming for “crisis pregnancy centers” and the GOP is not pleased (this is exactly what I mean in the essay above)

Climate

Shell’s board of directors were sued for mismanaging climate risk
EU leaders are still unsure how to deal with the United States’ climate industrialization moves (which we’ve gotta get right)
NPR’s stunning multimedia piece on Senegal’s climate fight is worth a read
Paris is growing new mini-forests

Food & Water

Hot damn — bacteria really does eat plastic.
How to save food from the landfill with WhatsApp (?)
Yeah there’s lead in most dark chocolate, so what should you eat?

Beep Boop

AI is a lot right now. The invaluable Ted Chiang puts it all in perspective, and Charlie Warzel on the gold rush
Federal agencies only followed 40% of cybersecurity recommendations, the same percentage as my children’s chores
Legacy IT systems at London hospitals are not ready for global heating or even like a gentle breeze
What happens when you Google “grief”

COVID

Biden will end the COVID emergency declaration soon. Issac Saul on what it means.
The FDA’s recommendation for annual COVID shots — like the flu — got mixed reviews

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Best of: How To Innovate

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How does innovation actually work?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Christopher Mims. Chris is a journalist for the Wall Street Journal, and I had him on the show in 2021 to understand how he asks big questions.

Chris is constantly asking questions about the most pressing technological and societal issues we face from robot trains to the future of batteries, brain implants, and whatever happens to land in between. And his thesis is this: every little bit counts. And innovation is more predictable than you think - or is it?

In this conversation, Chris and I explore the team dynamics of innovation, the "great man" question, the invisible force behind Moore's Law, and more.

The bad news: Nobody gets to save the world.

The good news: Everyone gets to save the world a little bit.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

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INI Book Club:

Life as We Made It by Beth Shapiro
Arriving Today by Christopher Mims
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

mims.club
Twitter: @mims

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: Insurance, for you and me

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

Everyone needs insurance. But what kind? And what does it mean to have it, or not?

Well, there’s actual insurance, which is a policy where you and an insurer contract with one another in case things go south with (usually) your home, your car, or your body.

That’s the layman’s technical explanation, but more colloquially, and for our purposes today, “insurance” can mean just having a buffer or a back up plan, or a “thing you might do to make sure a big decision (like buying a home, having a child, or just generally being a person) doesn’t go to hell in a hand basket.”

All of these decisions are usually the result of understanding that just by being alive you’re really putting yourself out there. While you believe in your choices, and the odds of actual calamity are (usually) reasonable, the costs of calamity can be devastating.

My friends: We are in a time of calamity. It’s time to get some insurance.

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️Understand your home's flood and fire risk with Risk Factor
⚡️ Work for a local government? Get real-time flood forecasting with FloodMapp
⚡️ Wildfire season is around the corner -- get an outdoor monitor and check the map with PurpleAir
⚡️ Get ahead of COVID and more. Get your town's wastewater monitored with Biobot
⚡️ Over 60? Use your life experiences to organize for climate action with Third Act
⚡️ Find the best "green" bank near you with Bank.Green

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Parents #1 concern for their kids: mental health
Teen's leukemia gains into remission after experimental gene-editing therapy
An ALS patient set a record for communicating via brain implant
Medicaid continuous enrollment is ending. That's bad.

Climate

$1.1 trillion was invested in climate tech of all kinds last year. That's the new floor
The UK will offer £600 million to industry to switch to green steel (Europe's going to need to throw way more money to catch up to the US)
1/3 of the Amazon is degraded, and Lula's just started fighting back

Food & Water

The FDA unveiled limits for lead in baby food, the same week the top food safety official publicly resigned
Minnesota is one step closer to requiring 100% clean electricity by 2040

Beep Boop

You'll never guess who's the world's biggest face recognition dealer
The BlackCat ransomware attack showed how vulnerable health care records are
Apparently the Xbox is woke now

COVID

Two new studies suggested the bivalent COVID vaccines are more effective against severe illness than the previous ones, please get them

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Best of: How Do We Rebuild Capitalism in a World on Fire?

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How do we reimagine capitalism in a world on fire?

That's today's big question, and my guest is Rebecca Henderson, Harvard professor behind the wildly popular class "Reimagining Capitalism".

I had Rebecca on the show in 2020 to discuss her book of the same name and her research, which explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy, focusing on the relationships between organizational purpose, innovation, productivity, and high-performance organizations.

What Rebecca discovered over the last decade or so of research is that focusing exclusively on shareholder profits is a pretty terrible way to run a company in the long run. And it could burn this whole thing down in the short, in the long term.

The silver lining is, as we try to present here all the time, of the four to five catastrophes happening in this country at any given moment, many also present unprecedented opportunities to build a better today and tomorrow for everyone.

Here's my 2020 conversation with Rebecca Henderson.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

"Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist" by Kate Raworth
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

reimaginingcapitalism.org
“Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire”
Twitter: @RebeccaReCap
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rebecca-henderson-recap
Read Ed Yong’s “How the Pandemic Defeated America”

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: You Say You Want A Revolution

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

This week:

What does it mean when people say “revolution”?

For these purposes, which are pretty narrow and entirely of my own invention, I don’t mean some single moment in time, unless it was a bellwether for something bigger.

And I don’t mean the revolutions that have necessarily most directly impacted me. When I think “revolution” I imagine a building up of…something…that affected most people directly or indirectly, so that’s the threshold I’ll use here.

This list is in no way comprehensive, I’m a generalist bonehead who definitely missed some significant items. I am 40, though I feel like I’m 99, so anyways I’m going to use 1982 as my starting point. YMMV.

INI is about looking forward, to understanding where we are and where we might be going, so we can build a better today and tomorrow for everyone. But to do so, it’s helpful to look back a little bit to understand how we got here, what’s underway, and what might be brewing, for better or worse.

Because the more we have our eyes on these currents, the more we can strike at the root to influence them.

Here's What You Can Do:

⚡️ I love donating to DonorsChoose so much. Teachers need so much more support and should never have to front the cost of essential supplies. Buy some books or crayons or maps or even a 3D printer!
⚡️ Understand where your power is coming from, live, like right now, with Electricity Maps.
⚡️ From the southern border to Ukraine, East Africa, and Palestine, Doctors Without Borders provides medical humanitarian assistance to folks who need it the most. Setup a new monthly donate now.
⚡️ Volunteer to text or call with the Environmental Voter Project, an incredibly effective movement to identify millions of non-voting environmentalists and turns them into consistent voters

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

Genes from the mother shape a baby's microbiome
A bunch of states are suing companies over insulin prices
Clean air in schools could become New Mexico law

Climate

What the California drought map looks like after massive rains
A more sustainable way to grow crops under solar panels
Biden's Green Energy Bank starts to dole out billions

Food & Water

New York will ban forever chemicals from clothing by end of the year
98% of California's don't have flood insurance
What happens when the Great Salt Lake disappears?

Beep Boop

T-Mobile gave up 37 million customer accounts. Again.
US law enforcement agencies have access to 150 million bank transactions
Russia's increasingly going after Ukraine's mobile phone network

COVID

Can we stop Long COVID before it starts?

Get more:

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Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode:

Best of: How To Be A Better Ancestor

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

How can I be a better ancestor?

This question has haunted and inspired me since way back in 2019 when I first read the Optimist's Telescope. A beautiful, helpful, inspiring book by Bina Venkataraman. Then I had Bina on the show.

I think it's fair to say it reframed and focused my work and now all of our work here.

You simply cannot be a better ancestor by hoping shit gets better in posting black boxes on your Instagram stories. You have to do the work for today and tomorrow. If you want your descendants to consider you the cool, great-great uncle, you need to drive change today.

Bina is a journalist. She's an author and a science policy expert. She's the editor at large at the Boston Globe and a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. She's been an advisor to President Obama on everything from climate innovation to Ebola to public school science education.

I hope you enjoy this wonderful throwback conversation.

It is mid-Trump presidency. It is before COVID, before Biden, with old co-host Brian Colbert Kennedy, sharing the mic with me, where we dig into the influence Bina's family had on her perspective and her ideas for how you can value the future, how you can use the tools we have available to us now to both prevent further calamities and a build better future.

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Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com

New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at importantnotimportant.com/podcast.

-----------

INI Book Club:

“The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss
Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

Links:

Watch Bina’s TEDTalk: "The power to think ahead in a reckless age"
Read: "The Optimist's Telescope"
Twitter: @binajv

Follow us:

Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett
Edited by Anthony Luciani
Produced by Willow Beck
Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Find our more about our guests here: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/guest-stats

Advertise with us: https://www.importantnotimportant.com/sponsors

Mentioned in this episode:

Essay: What it all means

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Across the front of our website, in big bold letters, is our calling card: “Science for people who give a shit.”

You may have seen it and immediately thought “That’s me!” or “You sir, are a child.”

Either reaction is well and great. We’re not for everybody.

You’re here, though, so let's assume you’re on board with the whole idea.

However you identified with that tagline, you may have also asked yourself what it means, in practice. And that’s a good question because while the mantra isn’t changing, I’m more focused than ever on putting it into practice for me, and you.

To Do Better Better requires trust in one another.

That we care, that we'll step up when it counts, that we won't pull the ladder up after us.

It requires a radical reorientation of our assumptions and expectations, to put into practice our values, to show up for one another -- together whenever we can, and when we're most alone -- to understand 1% better every day doesn't feel very different today -- if anything, it can feel like nowhere near enough -- but in three hundred and sixty-five days, much less by 2035 or 2050, at the rate of 1% a day, together, we can build something entirely new and fucking awesome.

That's compound action. That's what we're about. That's science for people who give a shit.

Here's What You Can Do:

Mutual aid is probably the most effective way to help the folks around you. Find a network near you here.
Want to take on one of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals? Google's offering cash prizes in their 2023 Solution Challenge. Build a team and get to work!
To understand the climate crisis, you have to understand our food systems. Nobody does a better job at that than Civil Eats. Subscribe today.

Get more:

Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at importantnotimportant.com/newsletter
Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com
Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store
Take a nap you deserve it

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Mentioned in this episode: