Episodes
June 3, 2022
Newsletter #278: The deal with monkeypox
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...
May 27, 2022
Newsletter #277: Why EV batteries are suddenly SO expensive?
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 n...
May 16, 2022
Black Moms Matter, Redux
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 underlyin...
May 13, 2022
Newsletter #276: Who gets Long COVID?
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.importantno...
May 6, 2022
Newsletter #275: How Hot is it in India?
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 G...
May 3, 2022
Internal Activism
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’...
April 29, 2022
Newsletter #274: Is Wind Power Unprofitable?
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, ...
April 22, 2022
Newsletter #273: Where Batteries Come From
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 newslett...
April 15, 2022
Newsletter #272: Is carbon removal real?
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 cy...
April 14, 2022
A Very Big Deal
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...
April 4, 2022
Peer Pressure Works
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 le...
April 1, 2022
Newsletter #271: What is the climate gap?
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.imp...
March 25, 2022
Newsletter #270: Did you hear about ecstasy?
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...
March 21, 2022
3 Billion Shots, Part Deux
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 l...
March 18, 2022
Newsletter #269: The ESG Bubble
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.impo...
March 14, 2022
Fresh Banana Leaves
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...
March 11, 2022
Newsletter #268: This is the transition in real time
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.importantnoti...
March 8, 2022
Abhishek vs Terminator
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...
March 4, 2022
Newsletter #267: What's in the IPCC plan
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, analy...
Feb. 28, 2022
The Cure of a Lifetime
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 whit...
Feb. 25, 2022
Newsletter #266: What gas means in all of this
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.importantnotimpor...
Feb. 25, 2022
Putin Takes Chernobyl
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 de...
Feb. 19, 2022
Newsletter #265: What Sea Level Rise Means
This week: America will see an average of 12 inches of sea level rise by 2050 1 million COVID deaths $1 billion for cover crops Antimicrobial resistance got next Clearview's next steps (to harvest your data) Get more: Get mor...
Feb. 11, 2022
Newsletter #264: Where masks are coming off
This week: Carbon markets are magic and demand to be taken seriously, Michael Mask mandates are ending Food prices up the rise Biden's cancer moonshot IRS FaceTime cancelled Get more: Get more news, analysis, and Action Steps...