We have ignored vaginas for so long. Hear me out. On the one hand, history and popular culture, from god-kings to love songs to movies to fan fiction, are littered with supposedly straight men with a single pursuit: intercourse with a vagina. But along the way these same men have pigeonholed women and their vaginas into simple vehicles for heterosexual sex or reproduction. They’ve ignored almost everything else in the area, and shamed women for even considering pleasuring themselves, or pl...
Jul 11, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep 139•Transcript available on Metacast This week: What's a chief heat officer? Fixing schools in the time of COVID Why plant-based meat is a massive 80/20 move for the climate (and your health) Uh, Juul is back? Google's hiding your "sensitive" location data Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Jul 08, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ocea...
Jul 04, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 138•Transcript available on Metacast This week: The SEC's coming for greenwashing in a real way BA4: Endgame and BA5: Infinity War are here and immune evasive Eat more local veggies Bye-bye vapes (and nicotine?) A digital privacy bill might actually see the light of day Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve...
Jun 24, 2022•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Where do gas cars go when we buy electric? A bunch of COVID updates The Colorado River's next chapter What's next for Alzheimer's Holy shit Facebook's tracking pixel is more invasive than expected, which is saying something Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserv...
Jun 17, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Biden's going it alone on electrification Moderna's got a new booster Why food is so expensive An unbelievable cancer result Apple's saying goodbye to passwords Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Jun 10, 2022•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Soup to nuts, I’m more concerned about COVID today than I’ve been at any point in the past year . I don’t think it’ll be a horror show soon, not like it was before, but we haven’t (yet!) put ourselves in a position to get ahead of a virus whose entire job is to find ways around our defenses, and now it’s doing just that. My usual caveats: I’m not a virologist I’m not an MD I’m not an epidemiologist I’m not a sociologist I’m not a policy maker I’m not a journalist I’m not a cat I am: A former lib...
Jun 09, 2022•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast We are all being pulled in so many different directions. The clock is ticking and we have a climate and virus and society and economy to fix and we’re distracted, all of the time . Not just by all of these immense, complicated, systemic issues , not just by an explosion of candidates to donate to, and GoFundMe’s to donate to, but also by the just infinite plethora of opportunities for engagement , if only for a moment. It’s getting harder for us to read long-form writing, to focus on one t...
Jun 08, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep 137•Transcript available on Metacast This week: SEC climate risk reporting gets closer to reality What's the Paxlovid rebound? How to make strawberries last weeks longer What the hell is monkeypox? Mastercard wants to give you variable interest rates in exchange for your face Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you d...
Jun 03, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Lithium is expensive AF because it's in wildly short supply Paxlovid and Long COVID, a thing? Global breadbaskets are getting hotter and/or wetter and/or laced with explosives Fuck guns Healthcare info privacy is not a thing, apparently Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a n...
May 27, 2022•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast A woman’s right to choose is under renewed attack in America and the federal protection it has benefited from for so long, however tenuous, is closer than ever to going away. It's vitally important we understand the underlying systems behind any singular issue, and ask “Why is this this way?” and “Does it have to be this way?” It is 14 times more deadly to deliver a baby than to have a legal abortion in America. We have no universal healthcare, we have no mandatory paid sick leave, we have...
May 16, 2022•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Water in the West Who will get Long COVID? The baby formula shortage, explained Drug overdoses and gaslighting Data privacy improvements Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
May 13, 2022•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: India's heat continues When a surge is not a surge Antibiotics (still) in meat Abortion Email cybersecurity is...lacking Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
May 06, 2022•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you give a shit, well, you’ve probably had at least a few moments where the enormity of what’s in front of us has challenged your mental health in some way . I can’t imagine there are many folks listening to this show who’ve never felt the heaviness of our climate future, of our climate present. There’s a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of shame about that shame, a lot of furious action – we’re here, aren’t we. And running parallel alongside all of those emotions is the dread of what’s be...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Ep 136•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Wind isn't profitable Kids vaccines on the hold up The kitchen sink answer to food waste, it's metaphors galore today Menthol cigarettes are all smoked out America's new AI chief Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Apr 29, 2022•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Should we mine the ocean? Mask mandates are over, what else? Split up the FDA Alzheimer's trials are very white Ronan Farrow comes for Pegasus spyware Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Apr 22, 2022•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Carbon removal: Hope is not a plan. A bajillion dollars might be! COVID and diabetes is the new Bennifer Walmart's regenerative farming pledge is about dirt PFAS in food wrappers, not delicious How hospitals get cyberattacked, but why Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap...
Apr 15, 2022•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast TLDR: INI/Membership is here . Today we’re launching the first way for INI readers and listeners to come together, to go deeper, and to unlock a place where you can gain wisdom and organize to make concrete progress towards a cleaner, more equitable world — for everyone. And just in time. Here’s what won’t change: The newsletter and podcast will remain free, forever. Even better: Memberships will not only make sure the newsletter and podcast remain free for everyone across...
Apr 14, 2022•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the past few years, more and more voters have cited “action on climate” as a reason for voting the way they do. From Data for Progress , in October: Over two-thirds of voters ( 68 percent ), agree that the U.S. should lead the world in addressing climate change so other countries will follow suit. From November: Roughly two-thirds of voters ( 64 percent ) think that the U.S. should invest in cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable energy sources rather than ramp up fossil fuel production and co...
Apr 04, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep 135•Transcript available on Metacast This week: The climate tech gap, explained Free COVID tests, over (for some) The future of freshwater Millions of nurses, lost Facebook, unregulated, still Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Apr 01, 2022•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: The SEC's new climate rule, summarized J&J's COVID shot, redeemed? How to protect food workers in the climate age PTSD and ecstasy Russia's lack of cyber warfare, hypothesized Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Mar 25, 2022•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast A little while ago, I had a conversation with Dr. Madhukar Pai about vaccine equity. In it, I tried to understand why and how developed countries were spending billions on COVID vaccine boosters, but so relatively little in low-income countries. Not to say that nothing has been done, but it’s a pretty clear-cut case where whatever we have done, however complex the system, it’s nowhere near enough. I can’t be more clear here. This will affect you. We’re handing out 21 million shots a day across t...
Mar 21, 2022•56 min•Ep 134•Transcript available on Metacast This week: ESG's crumbling COVID on the rise, funding vanishes California's breadbasket at risk Gene therapy pricing Your biometric data for sale, part 73 Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Mar 18, 2022•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ver...
Mar 14, 2022•53 min•Ep 133•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Putin's oil, rejected The lives we write off What "sustainable" really means, or, nothing Lead pipes, still Microsoft's new cancer bot Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Mar 11, 2022•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast There’s these metaphors that sum up a lot of what we’re trying to do here, what needs to be done on planet Earth, from climate change to COVID to AI ethics, which is something you definitely need to know and care about before it's too late, there are like 7 Terminator movies and only 1/3 of them are any good. Anyways! Re: today’s conversation, we need to design and implement standardized AI ethics regulations across everything AI touches, so, everything, while also asking questions like: what is...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep 132•Transcript available on Metacast This week: The IPCC report, by the numbers Biden's new COVID plan Wheat (prices) on the rise Mental health apps need to meditate on some randomized control trials Pegasus: Not a horse! This time Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Mar 04, 2022•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jafar Tabebordbar was in his early 30’s, living and working as an accountant in Shiraz, Iran, when he became a father. It was 1986, nearly a decade after the 1979 revolution, and Jafar’s muscles were already beginning to whither. As his sons grew, and watched, their father Jafar lost his balance, his ability to walk, to drive, and eventually, the reliable use of his hands. There were no answers, and no treatments to be found. Two questions haunted his sons as they grew: What was causing the...
Feb 28, 2022•59 min•Ep 131•Transcript available on Metacast In 2019, Quinn interviewed his good friend Craig Mazin , writer, producer, and creator of the hit HBO miniseries, Chernobyl , to learn what happened there, and what it means for our energy future. This week, Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine, directing the Russian military to take Ukraine's bases, cities, people, and strategic assets. Today, they took Chernobyl . We're re-running this invaluable conversation because misinformation is rampant, and it's never been more important to understand...
Feb 25, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week: Gas: the forever bridge fuel Boosters, boosted Megadrought self-awareness Maternal deaths on the rise Your location data, for sale Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com Got feedback? Email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com Follow us on Twitter at @importantnotimp Get fun merch at importantnotimportant.com/store Take a nap you deserve it...
Feb 25, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
