Important, Not Important

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 th

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 fr

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

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.comSupport our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgradeGot feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.comFollow us on Twitter at @importantnotimpSubscribe to our YouTube channelTake a nap you deserve itAdvertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

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 amat

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

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.comSupport our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgradeGot feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.comFollow us on Twitter at @importantnotimpSubscribe to our YouTube channelTake a nap you deserve itAdvertise with us: impo

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 disea

This week: How I think about how to think about what’s nextHere'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.comSupport our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgradeGot feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.comFollow us on Twitter at @importantnotimpSubscribe to our YouTube channe

Content WarningWe're going to be talking about stress and anxiety, depression, suicide, and more today.If any of this could be triggering to you in any way, please feel free to just skip over this one. Nothing in this conversation should be taken as medical advice. If a treatment or combination of treatments prescribed or recommended by your healthcare provider is working for you, that's great.Your personal experience with that treatment is much more relevant than anything in this conversation. If you're using a depression medication or other therapy and not getting relief from your depression symptoms, talk with your healthcare provider. And finally, if you are struggling, feeling distressed and that you might hurt yourself or if someone you love qualifies in any way here, you can text or call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.That's 988, right now from your phone to get help. You can even call and press three to speak to a counselor with the Trevor Project, the nonprofit that works and provides wonderf

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.comSupport our work and become a Member at importantnotimportant.com/upgradeGot feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.comFollow us on Twitter at @importantnotimpSubscribe to our YouTube channelTake a nap you deserve itAdvertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors Mentioned in this episode:Support Our WorkSubscribe

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

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

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.comFollow us on Twitter at @importantnotimpSubscrib

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@importantnoti

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 approa

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 

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

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

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 Del