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 Science at the University of Delaware. Danna is the author of 'Wrong:  how Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation'.   We talk about her amazing work on the psychological underpinnings of political tribes, including how much any of us actually like to think about complicated things at all. 

These new-format episodes take a long time to record, script, and edit. If you like it - that'll make me happy. 

• 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: 

• 07:15 - Here's a paper by Danna about lay epistemology.
• 10:45 - Sophia Rosenfeld's book, Common Sense: A Political History 
• 12:17 - Wikipedia entry on Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
• 24:27 - Alex Bellos sets puzzles every week in the Guardian. 
• 25:58 - Want to measure your own need for closure? Check out the Kruglanski scale.  
• 44:25 - Awful lot of stuff written about using fear in climate messaging. Here's a decent piece from Scientists for Global Responsibility. 
• 47:28 - If you've liked this episode and you haven't read Kahneman's seminal Thinking Fast and Slow, you better get on it.  
• 52:09 - Numberphile2 on YouTube explains the Monty Hall problem (with visuals, which really helps). 

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis. Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Bluesky and X/Twitter, although I don't use the latter any more.

YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me.  Lots of other lovely bed music in this episode by Rockot.  Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com. 

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 engagement expert and a very thoughtful and clever person. Lydia talks about her experiences in being told not to go on climate marches, and what she's learned about how climate scientists can be great public communicators.  And Lydia helps me understand the big big difference between being 'neutral' and being 'objective': while the former's probably impossible in science or life, the latter is the very heart of what makes science fab in the first place. 

This is a new type of episode that I hope will be the norm from now on. But it takes a lot longer to do. So if you want to see more like this, let me know - [email protected] and please do leave a review. And do please consider chucking a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate. 

Owl noises: 

• 08:12 - Lydia et al's Nature piece challenging the 'neutrality myth'... 
• 08:22 - which was a response to this Nature piece from Ulf Büntgen. 
• 12:25 - More on the BBC's change of tack on 'balance' in climate reporting, from the Guardian. 
• 13:20 - The thoroughly unedifying Climategate affair, 10 years on. 
• 15:46 - the audio here is from a great interview with Prof Brian Cox from Champion Speakers on Youtube. 
• 17:37 - Helen Douglas's 2009 book.
• 28:45 - Lydia's 8 tips for climate science communication. 

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis. Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find  @powellds on Twitter. 

YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me.  Other music in this episode by Daniel Cutter.  Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com. 

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 about what the science has to say about the very many ways getting too hot can fry your state of mind - and why it's time to give mental health a proper seat at the climate table. 

Owl noises: 

• 06:38 - Whole Body Hyperthermia as a treatment for depression - a metareview.  
• 07:57 - I meant the wet bulb, and we didn't explain what it is. 
• 08:38 - Schizophrenia as a key factor in heat deaths.  
• 11:00 - more on temperature vs asylum judges. 
• 13:31 - the links between poverty, depression and anxiety. 
• 16:51 - a review of ambient temperature (including humidity) and mental health
• 17:46 - the Lancet Countdown set of indicators on climate & health. 
• 18:53 - you must read Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. it will radicalise you 
• 20:00 - more on the relationship between sleep loss and heat. 
• 22:26 - Looky at what trees do to cool streets down. 
• 35:04 - We've come across hyperobjects before, like in my chat with Jonathan Rowson. 
• 36:22 - How health framing boosts support for climate policies. 
• 42:35 - South Australian heat warning system & mental heath. 

I also mentioned at the end the study I'd read about a piece in the Times that conservative voters have larger fear centres (the amygdala). That's here.

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis. Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find  @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

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 Saltmarshe, Director of the Long Time Project and co-founder of Internarratives. She's also the host of the Long Time Academy podcast and a general all round nice egg.  We talk about how to be a good ancestor, and yes: how to talk to pigeons. 

Owl noises: 

• 14:25 - Here's present bias in a nutshell. 
• 20:55 - a New York Times article by Seligman about Homo Prospectus. 
• 28:40 - Decca Aitkenhead's Times article on taking smartphones off her kids.  
• 29:02 - Jonathan Haidt's campaign to stop kids having smartphones.  
• 38:46 - Artist Katie Paterson.  
• 39:51 - A Guardian review of Martin MacInnes's In Ascension. 
• 40:20 - Here's the Marshmallow Laser Feast collective, including Treehugger.   
• 43:48 - The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Imagination Infrastructures project. 

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency.  Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

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 where (and when) you were born.  That's a big idea to get your head around and it runs counter to most things our society tells us. And it's as true about climate change as anything else - what it means to us, and how important we think it is. 

Joining Dave this episode are Will Snell and Anita Sangha from the Fairness Foundation.  They talk all about their brilliant and challenging report, Rotten Luck. You'll never look the same way at someone down on their luck again.

Owl noises:
— 14:23 - Branko Milanovic says here “80% of your income can be explained by the two factors of your country of birth (60%) and your parents’ income position (20%)”. 

— 19:38 - Just World Theory, courtesy of the excellent Decision Lab. 

— 31:02 - Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future: “chilling yet hopeful”. 

— 36:18 - The Welsh Well-being of Future Generations Act is here. 

— 36:49 - all rise for the UN’s Summit of the Future, September 2024. 

— 40:45 - Over to Wiki for more on luck egalitarianism (or read Will’s report). 

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency.  Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

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 all the rest of it. But it is evidently bloody hard. Because although most people say they care about the planet, the plastic and the carbon emissions and the dead stuff keeps on piling up.   So what is the values action gap all about, and how do we actually leap it? 

Joining Dave this week is Dr Gail Hochachka from the University of British Columbia in Canada.  She explains her brilliant research which picks apart the values action gap in all its complexity, and gives us abundant reasons to be cheerful: perhaps the gap isn't as large as all that.  Gail's paper on the gap (referenced throughout) is here.

Owl noises:

--  12:28: This owl is a plug for Gail's paper, linked above.
--  13:16: We've talked about hyperobjects on YBOC before, can't remember where. Read this.
-- 49:52: Gail has a fantastic new initiative, SALT.

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency.  Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

Mindfulness: a technique for training your brain to reflect on what it thinks and why.  It can help us make smarter decisions, and can even get the House of Commons to stop shouting at each other quite so much.  Magic! But can it save the planet? 

Today's guest is Jamie Bristow, co-founder of the Mindfulness Initiative - an amazing organisation bringing the technique to the heart of policy and parliament.  Jamie's trained MPs on skills of compassion and self-reflection, and thinks (as do I) that we could all benefit hugely from a bit more time spent thinking about thinking.   He's also part of the team that's devised the Inner Development Goals.

We talk about Jamie's report - Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out - a compelling and comprehensive guide to how mindfulness can help society change how we live on planet Earth.   

**EDIT: In introducing Jamie I wrongly say he started the mindfulness programme in the UK parliament. He didn't, he founded the associated institute. Jamie's asked me to correct that - happy to. *** 

Owl noises:

--  13:40:  a short video in which Jon Kabat-Zinn talks about homo-sapiens-sapiens.
-- 18:12: the Reconnection... report is linked above.
--  28:45: if you've never read The Unbearable Automaticity of Being, you should.
-- 37:55:  the Apolitical Foundation's Mere Mortals report.
-- 41:58: A nice primer on Bob Kegan's levels of human development work.
-- 48:38: The excellent Common Cause  is a good place to read about intrinsic v extrinsic values.
-- 51:55: I was going to link to some stuff I found on google about nature connectedness but you can google it yourself. Instead a plug for my chat with Lauren Hall Ruddell about this very thing.
-- 53:16: Ian McGilchrist is a very clever man. I'm reading his The Master & His Emissary right now.

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency.  Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

Or: how chinwags can save the world.

Imagine I could give you a superpower. The ability to make people trust you who currently don't. To help them change their own mind, on their own terms. And to maybe even heal society, perhaps just a little bit. WELL I CAN. It's called 'having a grown up conversation', and it's perhaps the most underrated thing we can all do about climate change.

Joining me to talk about all things chatting, nattering and deep canvassing is the charming Alex Evans, founder and director of the charity Larger Us.  We (yes) have a conversation about the best ways to have a good ol' chinwag, why we're all shouting at each other more, and the psychology behind why we perhaps we don't disagree anywhere near as much as we might think.

Plenty owl noises this week:
--  05:19: Climate Outreach's Britain Talks Climate research toolkit, which is fab in which I have precisely no vested interest whatsoever.
-- 11:18: Dave Fleischer's TED Talk about deep canvassing.
-- 15:23: George Marshall's brilliant book, Don't Even Think About It.
-- 23:55: Bill Bishop came up with the Big Sort idea back in 2004.
-- 28:00: Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism, via Wiki.
-- 30:52: Bobby Duffy's Divided Britain report.
-- 36:30: Oil and gas workers team up with greenies.

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency.  Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

So much of our silly short lives is spent chasing after trophies or money or glory. Success!

But it's never really enough. We just want more trophies and more more money and one day we die and so does everything else, the end. As a culture, we've got success wrong.

Today's guest says we should instead see success as learning to lose ourselves in things - whether that's playing the piano, or sport, or listening to jolly interesting podcasts.  Pursuing, and cherishing, a flow state - the only state in which we are truly contented. And perhaps if we all did that a bit more, we might bugger up the planet a little less.

Simon Mundie is a BBC sports reporter, host of the magnificent The Life Lessons Podcast, and author of the new book Champion Thinking: How to Find Success Without Losing Yourself.  He's had just about every sports star you can think of on his show, and has learned more than just one book's worth of wisdom about what success really means, from those who've chased it, won it, and lost it.

Owl noises:
-- 12:48 - you can find Simon's episode with Caitlin Jenner here, and here's some words about it.
-- 21:14 - Goldie Sayers chucks it long.
-- 44:17 - Dacher Keltner's stuff on awe. I'll get him on here one day. 

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency.  Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.  

Frazzled? Go for a walk in the woods. It'll calm you down, fill your nose with lovely smells, and reset your eyes to room temperature. But why?  According to today's guest, humans evolved to need to chill out in natural environments. It gives us nice chemicals like serotonin, is good for long term mental health, and generally resets our stress alarms. This is the idea of Biophilia, and it's rather nice.

Joining Dave this episode is Dr Lauren Hall Ruddell - a  journalist and naturalist  who has spent many years thinking  about the restorative power of being in nature.  We talk about all things biophilic, and how losing the nature we evolved to need is one of the biggest tragedies of the climate crisis.

The opening poem thingy is an extract from "A Transparent Eyeball" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, read by Ruth Everett.

Owl noises:
-- 08:43 - Attention Restoration Theory - a fascinating, still-developing field which posits that being in nature can restore your, well, attention.
-- 12:12 - Default Mode Network - the surprisingly large amount of brain activity that goes on when you're not thinking about anything in particular.
-- 18:53 - Savannah Theory crops up in this interesting article about why so many companies put pot plants all over their offices.
-- 19:40 - Cows face north!

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency.  Contact the show:  @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me too.

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.