By Dave Powell
5
77 ratings
The podcast currently has 33 episodes available.
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:
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.
Some people think climate science is made up. This annoys other people. But calling each other dullards is unhelpful, and it misses the deeper questions. What determines who and what we trust, including science? And what can be done to make people and politics - particularly, Lord help us all, American politics - a bit less squabbly about it all?
Joining Dave this episode is Laur Hesse Fisher, programme director for MIT's Environmental Solutions Initiative. Laur's an expert in climate science communications that bridge political divides, which sounds like a very useful person to be. She's also the host of TILClimate. Listen. It's good.
Owl noises:
-- 15:22: Elke U Weber's 2006 paper on psychological distancing is here.
-- 16:25: Far be it from me to blow my own trumpet, but I once interviewed that Katharine Hayhoe on Sustainababble...
-- 32:38: Find out more about Americans being alarmed about climate change, via Yale.
-- 34:37: Your political identity is a form of group attachment, it says here.
-- 38:16: ... Toot toot! And here's my Sustainababble interview with the fabulous Naomi Oreskes.
-- 43:47: important, un-great news: the Gen Z gender / ideological gap.
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.
WE need to take action on climate change. WE need a revolution. WE need to unite and tackle the problem. Etc. But who is this "we"?
Politicians and campaigners love to invoke it. It has powerful rhetorical force. But does this confusing "we" give us any sense of what each of us can actually do? Is it a linguistic problem or something more profound about how our brains think about collective agency? And how the heck do "we" actually go from not doing enough, to doing so?
Joining Dave to talk about all things "we" and collective agency is Jonathan Rowson. He's CEO and founder of Perspectiva, a charity working on the relationship between system, souls and society. He is also an author and a chess grandmaster (who once thrashed Dave at chess while being interviewed).
Owl noises:
-- 15:01 - Jonathan's Substack piece that prompted this interview.
-- 18:46 - The United Nations High Seas treaty.
-- 22:05 - More from Jonathan on the metacrisis.
-- 27:08 - Hyperobjects.
-- 29:07 - Off topic it may be, but here's the Jeavons paradox.
-- 29:43 - A chat between Jonathan and John Vervaeke about the agent in the arena.
-- 37:42 - I chatted to Rupert Read about the Climate Majority Project a few episodes back.
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.
Are we responsible for how we behave? If so, should we feel bad about it? And if the answer to those two is 'yes' and 'yes' respectively, how do we change our behaviour? How much of 'behaviour change' is about nudging or encouraging individuals to change, versus how much is banning bad things and making good things easier and cheaper? And are simple answers stupid? (Spoiler: yes.)
Joining Dave this month is the esteemed Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh MBE. Lorraine is Prof of Environmental Psychology at the University of Bath, UK, and runs the Centre for Climate and Social Transformations (CAST). She's an expert in a hundred thousand things, several of which help her know how to change our behaviour and whose job it is.
Owl noises:
-- 07:34 - The Climate Change Committee advises the UK government on, er, climate change. It says about 60% of emissions cuts to come require behaviour change in some form. You might also like this report Lorraine wrote for them about how to do that.
-- 20:25 - An excellent primer on nudging from the Decision Lab. And at 25:18, here's them on sludging.
-- 24:01 - The Austrian nudging experiment.
-- 32: 24: Fly lots? Pay disproportionately more tax. Here's the Frequent Flyer Levy idea.
-- 43:17: Lessons from Covid for climate, from CAST.
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.
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