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MICRO: Optimism Bias
Thing about humans is, we like to look on the bright side of life. Without optimism, we'd not have evolved out of the trees in the first place. Our species has optimism bias. But we're all different, and some of us are a little bit too wired to be over-optimistic - and vice versa. This has big impacts for the messages we see about climate change. In this MICRO episode, a snippet of my forthcoming chat with Professor Geoff Beattie. What did he learn when he put optimistic and pessimistic people in an eye tracker and got them to read bits of text about the state of the planet? OWL NOISE: Read more about Geoff's brilliant work on optimism 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.
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Violence, with Peter Schwartzstein
Climate change sucks, not least when it causes violence - which it does more than you'd think. In a hundred ways it can add stress and trauma to brains already under huge pressure, and when that's all finally a bit much - well, the worse demons of our nature can, and do, come out. Grim. But are we doomed? Does it have to be like that? Can environmental peacebuilding turn climate violence into an engine of cooperation? Or is human nature a more powerful force when the chips are down, which they increasingly are? Joining me this episode is environmental journalist Peter Schwartzstein. We discuss his remarkable book of reportage from the world's climate and confrontational hotspots - The Heat and the Fury: On the Frontlines of Climate Violence - and what lies behind his termite theory of climate violence. Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. Please consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references: 15:33. Peter's piece for Columbia Journalism Review about how climate change is scuppering climate journalism. 16:43. A review of Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker. 21:09. Alessandro Massazza joined me last year, discussing climate change & mental heat. 39:15. Steven Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature. The show is 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. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/. Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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MICRO: Laughing Matter
Comedy opens the mind and helps us cope with the sheer strangeness of being alive. But is climate change a suitable topic for comedy? In this micro episode of Your Brain on Climate, I chat to Stuart Goldsmith - stand-up par excellence and host of the Comedian's Comedian podcast - about what he's learned from trying to to do jokes about the state of the planet. If you liked this episode, here's the full chat with Stuart from back in 2023. I use a clip from Stuart's set on Live at the Apollo earlier this year. 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.
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They F*** You Up, Your Mum & Dad - with Nina Alexandersen and Sophia Cheng
How should you bring up baby in the age of climate breakdown? Should you tell them what's happening or not? And given how messed up is the planet we're passing on - is it even fair to *have* kids? In a YBOC first this episode is a 3-way chat. Dave meets Nina Alexandersen and Sophia Cheng - respectively someone who became a climate activist through fear for her kid's future, and someone whose activism made them very ambivalent about becoming a mum, until something changed. We talk about all things motherhood and parenthood - like what it does to your brain, and whether you still have as much time to care about things like climate change. And we discuss people who don't want to have kids because of the state of the planet: are they doing the right thing, or missing out on something core to being human? Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. Please consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references: 18:57: More on matrescence. And 19:09: Matrescence, including Lucy Jones, in Time Magazine.20:02: Lucy Jones wrote a brilliant book about foxes. 23:33: The (wrong) finite pool of worry hypothesis talked about in this from Vox. And 24.57: Sisco et al take apart the finite pool of worry idea.26.15: Steve Akehurst discusses the importance of keeping climate in the news. 29:10: A discussion of Joanna Macy's Three Dimensions of the Great Turning.38:55: Jo McAndrews's work. 45:55: Alice Brown, then of the Birthstrike movement, on Sustainababble. The show is 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. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/. Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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Somewhere, with Karl Dudman
We vote in our self interest, right? So how come people living on islands disappearing because of climate change - and they know it - keep voting for Donald Trump? The answer to that goes to the heart of our climate politics. But it also tells us something very important about how different people think about climate change and what should be done about it, even when they can see it literally killing the place they love. This episode is a fascinating chat with anthropologist Dr Karl Dudman. He talks all about his time spent with the unique communities of Down East, North Carolina - a fiercely proud, strongly Republican, and very maritime patch of the US Coast. Karl explains with empathy how Down Easterners talk about the sea level rises, hurricanes and changing fishing patterns that feels like the last straw in a community whose centuries-old identity is falling apart. Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. Please consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. Owl noises = references: 04:33 - Karl's brilliant blog on the Conversation.07:53 - Yale's climate opinion maps. 09:33 - Google Maps link to Down East, as if you can't find it yourself. 23:48 - Miranda Fricker's epistemic injustice. 33:34 - Danna Young's appearance on YBOC.34:18 - more on affective & negative polarisation40:19 - the original paper on solastalgia by Glenn Albrecht et al.40:55 - Arlie Russell Hochschild's majestic Strangers In Their Own Land41:23 - OK I can't find a great link for the aesthetics of embodiment. A bloke explained it to me. 42:40 - Revisionist History episode on country vs rock music. 44:04 - some stuff about methodological symmetry in here.51:25 - my chat on YBOC with Jonathan Rowson. 52:17 - the not uncontroversial original essay by David Goodhart on somewheres vs anywhere. The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell. You can follow the show onFit, Healthy & Happy Podcast Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
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About Your Brain On Climate

Psychology vs climate change: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency. Each episode host Dave Powell interviews experts in how our brains work - from PhDs in psychology to writers, activists and beyond. They'll talk about how their brains and our brains do (and don't) work, and how all of that might help make sense of the climate crisis - and possibly what to do about it.

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