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

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

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 -

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
• 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

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
• 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:

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
• 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 -

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
• Follow us on Threads:

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
• 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 -