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.

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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:

• 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/

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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:

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.

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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:

• 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
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• Get our merch
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• Follow us on Threads: www.threads.net/@importantnotimportant
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Follow Quinn: on Twitter -

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.

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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:

• 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
• Follow us on Threads: