Episodes

If our mission is to help people, everyone, answer the most important question, what can I do? Then at some point we need to talk to the people who help really wealthy people, help people. So today's question, what can I do a...

Hi! It's Quinn. We have huge plans for 2026, and we need your help. So we're running the biggest discount on an Important Membership that we've ever run, and will ever run, probably. Right now it's $30/year. On January 1st, i...

Hey friends, I want to talk about something big. Change the actual world big, because the world won't unfuck itself, as we all know. We are joining podcasts across the planet for Pods Fight Poverty , a campaign directly suppo...

What if talking about menopause out loud was as normal as talking about sports scores or school pickup? Imagine it in movie plots, in your group chat, at the clinic, and on the campaign trail because when we name what's happe...

If the American Revolution was, as Ken Burns put it, the biggest event since the birth of Christ, then there's probably never been a better time to explore and drastically expand on why it happened, who was involved, and what...

I've recorded hundreds of conversations with incredible people working on the front lines of the future. People who've asked the most important question: what can I do? Who found their answer and followed it. But for today's ...

Chronically parched is not something anyone in this country or anywhere should ever have to feel, but here we are. So how are towns and states making clean water more affordable, reliable, and less controversial? 'cause remem...

I think we can all agree that kids shouldn't go hungry ever really, but especially at school. You might feel right now like you are giving it everything you got, but when you look around, things feel kind of dark out there. S...

Maybe you feel like you're already giving it all you've got. You look around, and things are tough out there. You, our listeners and readers and viewers and users across the country and across the world, you're demanding more...

Things are a little tough out there. So you, want, no need, more examples of fight and progress you can actually see and touch and feel. And in these series of conversations, in partnership with our best friends at Run for So...

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...

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...

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 some...

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...

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 d...

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 hav...

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 som...

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 visio...

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 surp...

This week: 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 survei...

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 P...

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...

We've spent the last few years learning up close how a crisis like a global pandemic reveals and deepens all of our faults, inequalities, biases, and outright failures of empathy. But here's the kicker: it's not the first tim...

The United States has long been the largest aid donor in the world, accounting for about 40 percent of humanitarian assistance globally last year, according to the United Nations . But that is quickly changing. Most U.S. fore...