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 pess...

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, whi...

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 t...

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 ...

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 Ka...

I'm out in the garden looking for that pile of jobby I found the other day, and it made me think back to my chat in episode 17 with Erica McAlister all about flies (and fleas). Erica is the London Natural History Museum's expert on all things dipeteric (flies) and siphonapteric (fleas), and an extremely funny and nice person too. Reaching for that fly-killer? WAIT A MINUTE. Must we call kill all pests? (Must we even think of them as pests in the first place?) If you like the...

An episode all about the subtle art of talking bollocks. We live in a golden age of bullshit. It can seem that our politics is riddled with it. Corporate climate communications are drenched in it. And despite the looming eco-crisis, perhaps our own brains are too. In this episode, Dave meets author Mike Berners-Lee to chew over his new book, A Climate of Truth. It's a brilliant balance of home truths about the state of things, with unputdownable optimism that humanity can - and mu...

In this bite-sized edition we look back at perhaps my favouritest episode ever - episode 9 about disgust, with Yoel Inbar. We all have a gag reflex. But when we find people - like polluters - disgusting, are we feeing *actually* disgusted, or is it just a metaphor? What about how we might feel about things like climate change itself? Does it make us want, literally, to vom? If you like the show please do consider chipping in a couple of quid over at http://www.patreon.com/yourbrainoncli...

An episode all about cognitive dissonance. Ever feel like there are two yous in the same head? The one that cares about the planet, and the one that doesn't act like it does? And that having two yous makes at least one of your yous freak out? You (and you) are not alone. Welcome to cognitive dissonance. As Walt Whitman wrote: you contain multitudes. It's a feature, not a bug, of being alive. Humans, it turns out, are very good at thinking conflicting things at the same time....

In this YBOC microdose, a hark back to my inspirational chat with ultrarunner and climate activist Damian Hall, who dispensed his wisdom about how to keep up the slog - advice that's as useful for changing the world as it is for running up that hill. Sorting climate change is the definition of a marathon, not a sprint. It particularly feels that way right now. What we need is ENDURANCE, and plenty of it - and the right perspective to keep on keeping on. For the full chat, check o...

Or: why we all hear what we want to hear, and disregard the rest. Confirmation bias is hardwired into human brains, and without it we'd never get through our day. But it doesn't half get us - and the planet - into trouble sometimes. In this episode Dave learns all about confirmation bias from the splendid Professor Adam Harris off of University College London. Learn about how casinos make their cash, why lefties should read righty-press sometimes, why confirmation bias once c...

Why is social change so hard - particularly right now? Part of the reason likes in pluralistic ignorance - the social phenomena that helps to explains everything from imposter syndrome to slow progress on climate change. In this micro episode, we explore a nugget of insight from Professor Deborah Prentice - currently vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and at the time of our chat back in 2021, provost of Princeton. What is pluralistic ignorance, and how does it lead to a 'cons...

We're reasonably good at imagining what nuclear war would be like (although it'd probably be even worse than that). But it's not the same for most other complicated, really really scary risks. Eg: the UK government is still not taking seriously the risk of another pandemic - and that's despite the fact we LITERALLY JUST HAD ONE, GUYS. And it's the same for climate change - with knobs on. For sure, our politicians, banks and cultures just aren't ready for the climate-clusterfudge....

If you want someone to change their mind, it's best if they persuade themselves. And they're much more likely to do that if they actually *do* something new, rather than just pathetically feeling like they *should*. There's nothing like getting yer metaphorical hands dirty to show you you can do things you never thought you could - from bleeding radiators to leading climate marches. And everyday stories of people *doing stuff* are far more effective than simply telling people there's a ...

Common sense? Ain't nothing common about it. Populists - like Donald Trump - love to appeal to 'common sense', while pushing ideas as contentious as they come. But what does Trump get right about how he talks to people about big ideas - and what can everyone else learn from it? And what does all this mean for how to talk about something as complex and polarised as climate change? In this episode I'm joined by Dr Dannagal Young, Professor of Communication and Political...

Is climate science 'neutral'? Should it be? Are humans even capable of being neutral about anything? In this new-format episode, I dig into accusations that climate scientists risk undermining their work by going on climate marches. Can that really be true? Doesn't the scientific method speak for itself? And is it realistic to expect people to spend all day immersed in awful data, and NOT want to change the world afterwards? I'm joined this episode by the fab Dr Lydia Messling, climate engage...

When it gets hot, we all get a bit stroppy: think 'shouting at people on the internet' stroppy. But that's only the tip of the (melting) iceberg. Too much heat can trigger or make worse a range of mental health conditions. And what does climate change bring? More heat. So what are the mental health implications of rising global temperatures? Joining Dave this episode is Dr Alessandro Massazza (X / LinkedIn) - Policy Advisor for United for Global Mental Health. Ale tells Dave all a...

Time. You work on a human timescale, but the planet doesn't. Sometimes we can think long term but mostly real life gets in the way: but the decisions we collectively take will have a huge impact on life on Earth now, and for generations to come. What are the biases that peg us to short term thinking? How can we shift our perspective to the day after tomorrow, and how can that help everyday life? And what do pigeons have to do with it? Joining Dave this episode is Ella Saltmar...

You are so much more lucky than you think, even if you think you're not. Most of us are dead proud of the good things we've done, and we tell ourselves how hard we have worked and how much we deserve it. But unfortunately we don't. This also works the other way round: we are never as much to blame for our 'failures' as we think. Thing is most things in life are down to luck: not just whether you win the lottery or meet the perfect person, but deeper stuff. Like who your parents were and ...

Well you SAY you care about climate change, but you don't, do you? There's you, driving a car (!!!) or not putting that plastic bottle in the recycling (!!!!!). There's you, saying you value the planet, but acting like you JUST DON'T CARE. You and me and everyone else. The gulf between our values and actions is large you could drive an SUV through it. This is the 'values action gap'. Closing it is the stated aim of just about all behavioural science and climate campaigns and...