Important, Not Important

The Most Important Question

Science EN ↓ 462 episodes

You already know things are broken. You read the news, you listen to the analysis, you've got the outrage. What you don't have is a plan. The Most Important Question — 6x Webby-nominated, 2x Signal Award-nominated — is a weekly conversation with one person who stopped asking "what can I do?" and went and found out. Not pundits. Not commentators. The scientists, doctors, nurses, journalists, farmers, activists, and policymakers who are doing the actual work on the frontlines of climate, public health, democracy, AI, food, water, medicine, and justice. Host Quinn Emmett goes deep with each of th...

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Important, Not Important

Episodes

BEST OF THE BEST: Where Does Ebola Go From Here? 21.08.2019 1:14:10

In Episode 62, Quinn & Brian asked: Where does Ebola go from here? Our guest is Karin Huster, a Field Coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, where she is currently bouncing between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. She spent a decade in...

#77: Please, Please, Please Do A Good Job, Colorado 13.08.2019 1:00:39

In Episode 77, Quinn & Brian discuss: How Colorado can fix this wholllllle thing with one little election. Our guest is Mike Johnston, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Colorado and the first in our series of conversations about the 2020 ...

#76: Save the Corals, Save the World 06.08.2019 1:10:04

In Episode 76, Quinn & Brian discuss: What you don’t see (any more) when you snorkel. Our guest is Dr. Kim Cobb, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology who specializes in climate change, speci...

BEST OF THE BEST: It’s Getting Hot in Here, and America’s Poor Are Dying Faster Than Everyone Else 31.07.2019 1:00:46

In Episode 50, Quinn & Brian discussed: How D.C. and LA are dealing with urban heat issues. Our guests are Yesim Sayin Taylor and Molly Peterson. Yesim is the founding Executive Director of the D.C. Policy Center and Molly is a renowned reporter focusi...

#75: Can Zebrafish Beat Childhood Cancer? 23.07.2019 1:08:48

In Episode 75, Quinn & Brian discuss: Beating the crap out of childhood cancer with science and... zebrafish? We’re getting really nerdy about beating childhood cancer with Dr. Jaclyn Taroni and Dr. Genevieve Kendall. Dr. Kendall is a Postdoctoral scho...

#74: Incentivizing Those Dirty Capitalists to Solve Climate Change for Us 16.07.2019 1:13:59

In Episode 74, Quinn & Brian discuss: Making carbon capture suck more (but this time, with carrots). Our guest is Henry Elkus, the frustratingly young and impossibly optimistic founder of Helena, an organization that assembles “some of the world’s most...

BEST OF THE BEST: What’s It Feel Like To Be Asked To Save the World? 10.07.2019 1:29:03

Today’s episode is a rerun of Episode 56, where Quinn & Brian asked: What’s it feel like to be asked to save the world? Our guest is Rhiana Gunn-Wright, who is writing policy and leading the Green New Deal project at New Consensus, which is one of the ...

#73: Did A.I. Just Make My Life’s Work Obsolete? 02.07.2019 1:07:16

In Episode 73, Quinn & Brian ask: Hold On A Minute -- Did A.I. Just Take Our Jobs? Of course, we aren’t talking about our jobs. If A.I. took our jobs, the show would have won that Webby. We’re talking about really, really important jobs – like curing c...

#72: The Monsoon Is 11 Days Late 25.06.2019 1:11:45

In Episode 72, Quinn & Brian discuss: Monsoons, food, and people. Our guest is Dr. Deepti Singh, an Assistant Professor in the School of the Environment at Washington State University - Vancouver who is motivated by the potential for climate studies to...

#71: Why Raising the Status of Girls Can Change Everything 18.06.2019 1:28:30

In Episode 71, Quinn & Brian discuss: Why raising the status of girls can help change everything. Our guest is Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, a Vice President at Drawdown, an author, a public speaker, and an expert in just about everything. She’s made a very...

#70: Who’s Fixing the People Fixing Our Planet? 11.06.2019 1:28:53

In Episode 70, Quinn & Brian discuss: When things are broken, when the people who are working on those things are also broken, and why we need to help them. Our guest is Nikki Silvestri, the founder and CEO of Soil and Shadow, a project development fir...

#69: Rebuilding Los Angeles & L.A.’s Green New Deal 04.06.2019 1:11:52

In Episode 69, Quinn & Brian discuss: Rebuilding Los Angeles and L.A.’s Green New Deal. Our guest is Jeanalee Obergfell, who works just down the street from Important, Not Important HQ as a City Planning Associate for Los Angeles. When it comes to maki...

#68: Let’s Send Our Homework into Space 28.05.2019 1:13:44

In Episode 68, Quinn & Brian discuss: Sending our homework to space. Our guest is Michelle Lucas, an actual rocket scientist and the founder of Higher Orbits. Michelle spent 10 years at NASA, where part of her role involved teaching astronauts how to.....

#67: Is Climate Change "Flippable"? 21.05.2019 1:18:09

In Episode 67, Quinn & Brian ask: Is Climate Change "Flippable"? Our guest is Catherine Vaughan, CEO and Co-Founder of Flippable, an organization dedicated to flipping state governments from red to blue. You may not be surprised that Catherine is, inde...

#66: So We Can’t Just Blow Up Asteroids, Then? 14.05.2019 1:05:40

In Episode 66, Quinn & Brian want to know why the hell we can't -- and further -- shouldn’t just blow up asteroids. Our guest is the incredible Professor K.T. Ramesh, professor of mechanical engineering at John Hopkins, founding director of the Hopkins...

#65: Chernobyl: A Preventable and Rare Accident from the Past or a Vivid Picture of Our Hellish Nuclear Future? 06.05.2019 1:25:10

In Episode 65, Quinn asks: Is Chernobyl a preventable and rare accident from the past or a vivid picture of our hellish nuclear future? Our guest is Craig Mazin, a screenwriter, podcaster, and the creator of a new HBO mini-series called Chernobyl – whi...

#64: Sunrise Movement Tour - Live (ish) in LA! 30.04.2019 19:17

In a very special Episode 64, Quinn & Brian discuss (live! Kind of): everything that’s good at the Sunrise Movement Tour (and everything that’s not-so-good in the local communities)! Our guests are politician and native Hawaiian Kaniela Ing, environmen...

#63: Green Acres: Farming for Millennials and Other People Who Like Food 23.04.2019 54:43

In Episode 63, Quinn & Brian discuss: Building a new pipeline of sustainable food growers. Our guest is Dena Leibman, the Executive Director of the Future Harvest Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (or Future Harvest for short), a non-prof...

#62: Where Does Ebola Go From Here? 16.04.2019 1:15:55

In Episode 62, Quinn & Brian ask: Where does Ebola go from here? Our guest is Karin Huster, a Field Coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, where she is currently bouncing between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. She spent a decade in t...

#61: How Do We Atone for Poisoning Generations of American Minorities? 09.04.2019 1:16:35

In Episode 61, Quinn & Brian ask: How do we atone for poisoning generations of American minorities? Our guest is Dr. Michael Dorsey, a recognized expert on global energy, finance and sustainability matters. Dr. Dorsey holds Rotary International’s highe...

#60: Why You Should Run For Something in 2020 02.04.2019 1:02:51

In Episode 60, Quinn & Brian discuss: Why YOU should run for something in 2020! Our guest is Amanda Litman, the co-founder and Executive Director of Run For Something, a PAC that helps recruit and support young diverse progressives to run for down-ball...

#59: Is Florida the Harbinger of Doom? (Probably) 26.03.2019 1:16:39

In Episode 59, Quinn & Brian ask: Is Florida the harbinger of doom? (Probably) Our guest is Dr. Salvador Almagro-Moreno, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Central Florida. His lab, The ...

#58: Is Faith Sustainable? 19.03.2019 1:18:07

In Episode 58, Quinn & Brian ask: Is faith sustainable? Our guest is Dekila Chungyalpa, a trained scientist and Buddhist operating at the intersection of science, faith, and the environment. She is the director of The Loka Initiative, a new and innovat...

BONUS REPLAY: Is Food Waste the Stupidest Thing We Do (& How Do We Cut it in Half)? 12.03.2019 1:00:30

We’re digging into our vault and playing a hit this week because there’s big news for former guest Dr. James Rogers and his company Apeel Sciences: Fast Company named Apeel the 7th most innovative company on their list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative...

#57: Make Food Great (Nutritious) Again 05.03.2019 1:20:30

In Episode 57, Quinn & Brian discuss: Why more food ≠ more nutrition. Our excellent guests are Professors Kristie Ebi and Irakli Loladze. Dr. Ebi is the Rohm & Haas Endowed Professorship in Public Health Sciences at the University of Washington, where ...