Your Brain On Climate

Your brain spends every microsecond sorting information into two buckets: useful and believable; and everything else. Alas, if you're a bit of data about the world and you're you're not in the first bucket, you ain't getting heard. So much noise! Like the background throng of a pub, or the hundreds of adverts we see and immediately discount every day. So what happens to ideas about climate change if they don't feel like they make sense to the reality of our lives? We quickly 'clock them', dismiss them, and chuck them in the 'f**k it bucket'. (As friend of the show Stuart Goldsmith likes to say.) But while it's relatively easy to see where people have hostile views against things like climate policy, it's much, much harder to see what it feels like when people just feel a bit 'meh' about it. Joining me to talk about the surprising emotional literacy of normal people is Professor Colin Strong. With Tamara Ansons* he writes the brilliant Frontline BeSci blog, which included the piece about 'clocking it' that landed so firmly in my Interesting Bucket when I first saw it. (* not 'Anson' as I mistakenly said on the show). This chat was recorded in June 2026. Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. And do consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references below.00:40 - the Harvard selective attention test (video).12:38 - Dan Sperber's work on epistemic vigilance. 16:57 - Sam Friedman and studied ordanariness. 26:50 - a great paper on the 'third person effect' (we assume other people are more gullible than we are) 34:13 - my chat about the 'war on net zero' with Becca Massey-ChaseYour Brain on Climate is a show about human brains vs the climate crisis. It's  hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. You can follow the show on instagram @yourbrainonclimate, and I occasionally put up a Substack. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

Fast fashion: terrible for the planet, awful for its workers, and hypercharged by the infinite marketing potential of social media. But we love to look cool (well, I don't, but you take the point). And let's face it, there's something very appealing about getting your clothes for very cheap. So in this episode I ask one of the country's leading experts on the psychology, culture and systems behind fast fashion: what's to be done, where does the power lie... and is it really possible to think ourselves out of our obsession with Primark, Zara and the rest? Joining me is the phenom that is Lucy Siegle. She's a broadcaster, author, documentary maker and general all round superbrain and superstar - as funny and down to Earth as you get, but with a knack for explaining how fast fashion really works that I think you'll just love.  Check out Lucy's Substack and see below for links to her stuff as discussed. This episode was recorded live in front of an audience as part of Sustainable Fashion Week. It took place at Hang On In There Baby in Crystal Palace, as part of a series of SFW events organised by Hana and the fab team in CP. As I hit publish there are still some events coming up so check them out here if you're local. Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. And do consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references below.07.22: Lucy's 2011 book, To Die For. 11.37: Changing Markets report into fossil fibres.  20.02: More from David Birnbaum, he of the 101 steps to making a garment. 22.55: Where to watch The True Cost documentary. Your Brain on Climate is a show about human brains vs the climate crisis. It's  hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. You can follow the show on instagram @yourbrainonclimate, and I occasionally put up a Substack. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

**Warning: this episode contains swears**My guest on this episode of Your Brain on Climate says it's time environmentalism grew some teeth. He wants YOU to actively disrupt destructive activity – to sabotage the machines that are destroying the Earth – because asking politely isn't getting us where we need to be fast or fair enough. But yet hardly anyone is prepared to do stuff like this, despite rising temperatures and a planet on fire. So I ask: what does it take to get people taking disruptive direct action - and what stops the rest of us? Joining me is academic, author and activist Nicholas Beuret. Nic's the author of Or Something Worse: Why We Need to Disrupt The Climate Transition. Nic thinks modern environmentalism has got too polite, and accuses the environmental movement of not doing enough to force a transition that is making life better for everyday people. Nic is thoughtful, principled and funny - I think you'll like him - and just maybe you'll leave this chat reflecting on what it would take for you to chain yourself to a pipeline. Join me on the 4 October for Your Brain on Climate LIVE in Crystal Palace - tickets here. Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. And do consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references below.21:23 - How climate change is pushing up food inflation, from Carbon Brief. 29:52 - Inside the anti-fracking protests in Lancashire. 39:23 - John Jost's System Justification Theory. 50:21 - an interview with Jane McAlevey about how to organise for power.Your Brain on Climate is a show about human brains vs the climate crisis. It's  hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. You can follow the show on instagram @yourbrainonclimate, and I occasionally put up a Substack. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

Come with me for a walk around Crystal Palace Park in London - home to the world's first ever life-sized models of dinosaurs, built in 1854. It's hard enough imagining what last Tuesday was like, never mind what living things might have looked like millions of years ago - so no wonder the Victorians got loads of the details wrong. But can you imagine how mind-bending it must have been to learn for the very first time that longer ago than we can imagine, there were zonking great lizards the size of small houses? Can we do something like that to our heads now? Can pondering deep time - like, dinosaur deep - help get our heads around what climate change really is, and how to think about it? This episode contains clips from my chats with Clayton Page Aldern and Ella Saltmarshe.  It was recorded on 1 September 2026. Please do consider chipping in a couple of quid over at http://www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. And a written review would be ace. Please thank you please. The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. The show is over on Instagram at @yourbrainonclimate. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me.  Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

You're a mature, rational adult who can face massive, existential problems head-on, right? Or is your brain more like a medieval dungeon: a deep dark place in which you chuck things you don't want to think about, and throw away the key? Uh-oh. My guest on this episode, the esteemed psychologist, TED talker and author Dr Renée Lertzman, thinks it's the latter - and she thinks it's about time you got them complex thoughts out.  Renée tells me why most traditional climate chat is more likely to cause us to shut down than authentically connect with how we feel about climate change (and all the rest of it). She draws from the worlds of therapy and trauma management to urge us all to be guides, not lecturers - and to help others to dig into what lies beneath. Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. And do consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references below.18:14 - Psychosocial research = how our inner worlds relate to our social lives. 22:23 - Marshall Alcorn's Resistance to Learning.  24:49 - A Substack from Renée, including on how naming complex truths makes our immune system work better. 32:50 - Lisa Feldman Barrett's amazing work on how emotions work. 37:30 - A fascinating long read/listen on accompaniment.  44:56 - Another of Renée's Substacks, this time on the three As. Your Brain on Climate is a show about human brains vs the climate crisis. It's  hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. You can follow the show on instagram @yourbrainonclimate, and I occasionally put up a Substack. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

Why do people who care about climate change still jet off on planes (including, occasionally, me?) This is an excerpt of me attempting to answer that surprisingly complicated question on Joel Walker's Look Near First podcast - where Joel asked me all about the psychology and culture of flying. How come despite knowing about climate change, and the damage aviation causes, those who fly keep on doing so - even if they're ostensibly really concerned about the planet? And if facts don't do it, what might persuade said people to holiday closer to home? I have a go at marshalling everything this show has taught me about human brains and how they work.  It was a pleasure to be invited on Look Near First. Here's a link to the full episode of my chat with Joel, and I commend his show to you in the highest terms.  Joel appeared on Your Brain on Climate a few episodes back telling me his story - the pilot who quit because of his climate anxiety. Please do consider chipping in a couple of quid over at http://www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. And a written review would be ace. Please thank you please. The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. The show is over on Instagram at @yourbrainonclimate. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me.  Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

For most of the last two decades, the right of UK politics were all for climate action. Heck, in 2019 a Conservative Prime Minister signed us up to net zero emissions by 2050!  But a few short years later both of the two major parties on the right are now very much against 'net "stupid" zero', and everything they think that means.  What's going on? What are they trying to do? And - will it work? I'm joined by Becca Massey-Chase, Head of Citizen Engagement at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).  Becca tells me the different attack lines that the right are using against net zero - whether they are persuasive to the average person, and what deeper stories they're tapping into. We discuss why the right has done such a reverse ferret on climate change, after decades of broad consensus - and how much of it is cynical politics vs sincerely held worldviews.  And I ask: if some people's views about climate action can really shift that quickly - what does that reveal about how firmly any of us really believe what we think we believe about it? You can find Becca's brilliant report here.  Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. And do consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references below.21:34: Political identity guides climate belief. 22:14: Motivated reasoning. 30:00. Becca's research (again). 40.04: Janan Ganesh's vibes theory of politics (paywalled alas)43.06: A brilliant piece from Climate Barometer about climate salience. Your Brain on Climate is a show about human brains vs the climate crisis. It's  hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. You can follow the show on instagram @yourbrainonclimate, and I occasionally put up a Substack. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

If you've ever caught yourself writing off a  group of people with a simple and dismissive description of why they do what they do - or been thusly written off yourself - then you'll be familiar with 'thin description'. It's a bad way to learn what makes someone tick and probably annoys them as well. So instead, here's the idea of 'thick description': properly spending time with people to understand their complex inner lives and what they really think about things, including climate change. In this Micro episode, I revisit my chat from 2025 with anthropologist Karl Dudman. Karl's  inspiring work with the Trump-voting yet climate-threatened communities of Down East is description that is beautifully, nourishingly, and enlightenlingly thick. I also mention my appearance on the Look Near First podcast, talking about the psychology of flying and aviation. Check that out here. Please do consider chipping in a couple of quid over at http://www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. And a written review would be ace. Please thank you please. The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. The show is over on Instagram at @yourbrainonclimate. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me.  Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

I am good. I protest. I save people. I must save the world - now.  If this even slightly feels like something you've told yourself, then this episode is for you. Author and campaigner Anthea Lawson's brilliant new book is called How Not To Save The World. It's about the 'script' that activists - including her - tell ourselves, often without realising it. From this script, which can come from deep cultural and psychological places, comes many things that aren't much help - like burnout, the excusing of bad behaviour, and pushing people away rather than persuading them.  Instead Anthea's got a new recipe for change-making which is better for the activists, and better for the world. I loved Anthea's book and, as will become abundantly clear, it spoke to me good and proper. If you've ever wrestled with how to be a good activist, I commend it, and this chat, to you in the highest terms. Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. And do consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references below.01:19: the episode of Sustainababble in which I talked about why I quit.  16:47: here's Wikipedia explaining (using too many long words in my opinion) the Cartesian divide.20:44: a great article about Jung's idea of the shadow.  24:46: What's the amygdala? 39:03: More in Common's deep dive into Progressive Activists.40:00: My interview with Deborah Prentice about pluralistic ignorance.  Your Brain on Climate is a show about human brains vs the climate crisis. It's  hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. You can follow the show on instagram @yourbrainonclimate, and I occasionally put up a Substack. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

When's the last time you were bored? Thanks to our phones, it's easier than ever to be distracted, stimulated, and fed attention calories of varying quality so you never have to worry about being bored again. But what do we miss when we live life without giving ourselves time not to do anything at all? In this Micro episode, I revisit my chat from 2024 with broadcaster Simon Mundie, remembering what Simon told me about how much about the natural world - good and bad - we can notice and experience if we put away our phones for a bit. Please do consider chipping in a couple of quid over at http://www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. And a written review would be ace. Please thank you please. The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. The show is over on Instagram at @yourbrainonclimate. YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me.  Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.