The Most Important Question

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.

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What Can I Do?

What Can I Do?

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.

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• Find high-impact, strategic climate solutions to fund at Giving Green https://www.givinggreen.earth/

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What Can I Do?

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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• Get money to lifesaving projects at https://proimpact.tools/

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What Can I Do?

What Can I Do?

Get Mill

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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• 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/

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What Can I Do?

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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What Can I Do?

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.

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New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com.

Take Action at www.whatcanido.earth

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What Can I Do?

In every flood scarred bend of an Appalachian river sits a chance to rebuild something stronger, cleaner water for people, and room for a 160 million-year salamander to thrive again.

Hurricane-shaped chaos is unveiling a surprising truth when we restore stream banks, fund green storm water projects, and protect keystone species like the Eastern Hellbender, we don't just rescue wildlife, we buffer towns and farms and drinking water intakes against the next big storm. The same fixes that help a snot otter bounce back can future-proof entire communities like yours and mine.

So what can I do to turn the washed-out creeks and budget cuts into a cleaner, more resilient future?

my guest today is Jackie Flynn Mogensen, senior reporter at Mother Jones.

Jackie embedded with conservation biologists after Hurricane Helene and uncovered how saving an ancient salamander could safeguard our waterways and our towns for decades to come.

Stick around and you'll discover practical ways to turn today's river wreckage into tomorrow's resilience.

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What Can I Do?

There are a million legitimate reasons why standing up to bullies may require a pseudonym (and a cowl), or even anonymity.

As has been clear for centuries, and even more so in this moment of inescapable mass surveillance, some of us — by nature of our birth nation, skin color, ethnicity, sex, gender, religious beliefs, and/or who we love — are in far more clear and present danger than someone like me.

And yet — millions of people over decades and centuries have stood in broad daylight and put their names and their bodies, their finite time and resources to the test, on the line, to fight for a better future for themselves and the generations to come.

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What Can I Do?

63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and yet here we are. So what can we do to make the language around abortion more positive?

My guest today is Sophie Nir.

Sophie is the CEO of the Abortion Positivity Project. The Abortion Positivity Project seeks to destigmatize abortion by more or less overhauling the framework by which we currently understand and discuss it.

They've developed a training curriculum on embracing abortion positive messaging in partnership with other nonprofit orgs and mission-aligned companies. Their goal is simple: educate everyone about abortion, expand the lens through which we all view abortion and ignite peer-to-peer conversations about reframing abortion discourse.

Sophie is the former executive director of Eleanor's Legacy, as well as the former finance director for New York State Attorney General Leticia James. She's the founder of Vaccine Vigilantes, which is a fucking incredible name, and a veteran of the campaigns of many prominent women elected officials.

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Sometimes you buy organic, sometimes you hit a restaurant that's plant-based, or at least you choose the veggie option.

Maybe the fish option at the market or the restaurant is marketed as being sustainable. Maybe you compost. It's all useful. But we've been doing it for a while and it's not moving the needle for climate, for restaurants, for farmers, for our health.

So anyone who gives a shit wants to know, what can I actually do to scale regenerative agriculture to benefit everyone?

My guest today is Anthony Myint.

Anthony is the executive director of Zero Foodprint, where he and his colleagues work to mobilize the restaurant industry and allies in the public and private sectors to support healthy soil as a solution to the climate crisis. Anthony's also a chef who won the 2019 Basque Culinary World Prize for his work with Zero Foodprint. He is known in the restaurant industry as the co-founder of Mission Street Food. The San Francisco Chronicle called it the most influential restaurant of the past decade, Mission Chinese Food, which the New York Times named the Restaurant of the Year in 2012. And The Perennial, which was Bon Appetit's most sustainable restaurant in the country. 

Anthony is currently on the board of trustees for the James Beard Foundation, and I am so excited to share this conversation with you because food is such a huge part of everything and we're doing it wrong and we can do it so much better.

And sometimes, like Anthony and his crew have, you've gotta fail a bunch of times and then take an end around before you can really start to make a difference.

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What Can I Do?