Would you rather have a fiver today or a tenner this time next year? That kind of calculation is called 'discounting', and the more you'd rather have the fiver today, the more you are discounting the future.  Humans are hardwired to lean towards getting things now, unless the deal is sufficiently sweet. 

That preference makes sense when you evolved to not know where your next antelope was coming from. But our bias towards discounting the future is one of the reasons we haven't done enough about climate change. So.... we'd better learn to hack it.  

On this Micro episode, I revisit my chat from 2023 with cognitive scientist Adam Bulley. We chatted then all about foresight; the brain's amazing ability to jump forward (and backward in time) to make calculations about what to do today - and how it's a deeply imperfect but very human part of what made us the species we are today. 

OWL at 3:00: here's more about economic discounting. 

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.  

Climate change is REALLY SCARY, right, but that doesn't mean you have to wibble helplessly in the corner. While the go-to currency of most climate awareness campaigns is 'hope' – does fear get a bad press? It turns out fear is a great motivator of climate action too, as long as we learn how to use its power for good, not the dark side. After all, if you think climate change isn't a bit alarming, you're not paying attention. 

Joining me on this episode is Professor Sarah Jaquette Ray. Sarah's written and thought loads about how fear, and its twin emotion of disgust, are used by bad people to divide us and scapegoat on climate change and the environment. But she's also thought loads about how to hack your fear: dosing yourself up just enough to make good things happen, without giving in to the terror entirely. 

Sarah is also the host of the fab Climate Magic podcast. 

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: 

• 11:57. The 2003 film, the Fog of War. 
• 18.26. Christiana Figueres: stubborn optimism. 
• 21.49: Greta: cathedral thinking. 
• 22.44: Hannah Proctor's book, Burnout. 
• 26.55: Check out my episode about Risk, with Adam Corner... 
• 35.01: ... and my chat about Disgust, with Yoel Inbar. 
• 36.48: Mary Douglas's book Purity and Danger. 
• 40.20: Don't Mess With Texas! 
• 48.31: Tending and befriending. 
• 50.03: Joanna Macy's three narratives / stories of now. 
• 58.58: Thích Nhất Hạnh's ideas about nutriments.

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. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

A few years ago I learned the Dutch word 'goedprater': the excuses we give to justify something to others, which we can barely justify to ourselves. I do it all the time and I bet you do too, whether it's not going for that run you planned (ow, leg suddenly hurt) or caring about climate change but taking loads of flights (well, they were just going to go anyway, right?) 

In this micro episode, I learn all about goedprater as part of understanding the BYSTANDER EFFECT. I revisit a snippet of my 2023 chat with Professor Gerdien de Vries. Within, Gerdien explains the three reasons we walk by on the other side, when doing our bit would probably be the right thing to do.  

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.  

Hope! What is it good for? (Absolutely every'thin). 

We ain't doing much about the climate crisis without it. Movements are founded on it, and most campaigns are about wanting us to feel it. Which is exhilarating for those who feel it most urgently - but what about everyone else? 

The good news is it turns out there are lots of different ways to have climate hope, even ones that might not look like it. Raising kids in the age of climate breakdown; doing a strange little climate podcast; even being a mopey wee doomer: this episode, we learn about how all these things are types of hope. 

Joining me on this episode is researcher Pancho Lewis, who's got a brilliant paper all about the many different types of climate hope there are. We talk about how politics is all about the feels, why being a Man U fan has tested Pancho's hope reserves no end - and how to truly have hope in the dark. 

All that, and a bit of Terry Pratchett too. 

(last minute edit: The term 'slow hope' was coined by Christof Mauch. Forgot to owl that)

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: 

• 13:33: My micro chat with Geoff Beattie about optimism bias. 
• 16.38: Pancho's paper about fluid hope. 
• 34.21: Over to Wiki to explain collective effervescence.
• 40.17: Jonathan Lear's book about radical hope. 
• 45:20: Mathias Thaler's paper about eco-miserablism. 
• 45.30: an owl is necessary to explain the Dark Mountain Collective. 
• 50.46: Andreas Malm hates doomsters: see his book. 
• 57:02: Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark. If you read nothing else, etc. 

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. Thanks as always to Ruth Everett for the voices. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

Your brain is literally made of the food you eat. And *how* you eat it - slowly, or wolfed down at your desk - will affect how well you digest it. So way before any of the psychology stuff, getting a proper lunch might be the most important way to start getting your brain to be useful, in doing something about climate change. 

In this micro episode, I revisit my chat with the brilliant Kimberley Wilson from 2021. Kimberley's an author, mental health expert, nutritionist and science communicator, who knows more about the value of a hot dinner than you've had hot dinners. 

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.  

The history of humans arguing about climate change is often just people throwing large numbers at each other. So it's time for an episode about how we think about numbers, why our brains are prone to falling for dodgy sums dressed up as facts, and how we can all learn to maths up a bit.  

Joining me on this episode is Rob Eastaway - maths author, cricket nerd, and all round nice bloke. You might have heard him on shows like BBC's More or Less, or read his books like Maths on the Back of an Envelope. He's passionate about helping everyone young and old more conquer their fear of maths and to take back a bit of control over those that would use numbers to beguile or bewitch us. 

Loads of people say they have a fear of numbers. Many of us struggle with probabilities, percentages or simply confidence in adding up in our heads. Rob says that's not just bad for our basic life skills, but it leaves us vulnerable to those who would use big numbers to make us believe things that aren't true. 

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: 

• 18.22: My episode about Common Sense, with Danna Young, featuring the Monty Hall problem and much more. 
• 29:00: A report I once commissioned challenging the (questionable) sums the then government used to slow down climate action. 
• 34:50: badger costs, including policing. 
• 37:50: Matt Parker mathematically ranks insect stings. 
• 43:27: BBC's More or Less. 

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.  Ruth Everett does all other YBOC voices. 

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

I recently had the honour of being interviewed about what I've learned from 4+ years of doing this show - about human brains vs the climate crisis and how to bring them closer together. 

This is me on the Climate Magic podcast, under the benign grill of Sarah Jaquette Ray, herself very much not a slouch in the 'being clever about climate psychology' stakes. 

I hope you like. 

If you like this show, 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.   

Brain-eating amoebae are only the start of it. Just you wait until Clayton Aldern talks you through the ways big and small that climate change is changing what it means to be you. From your mood to your expectations and even your mental model of the whole world - your consciousness itself, for Chrissakes - Clayton explains with brilliant clarity how your brain is climate. 

Clayton Page Aldern is the author of the compelling The Weight of Nature. Its strapline is "How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains and Bodies" - so bang on the turf of this show, I simply had to get him on. But as he says in the chat, it's not really a book about climate change at all. Instead his book - and this episode - are about what it really means to be a lifeform embedded in the world around it, whether you're a bat, a cat, or a human. 

I loved the book and I hope you enjoy this chat. 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: 

• 12.07:  US Department of Defence's 2015 report, amazingly still on its website, on how climate change is exacerbating conflict.  
• 18.44. George Marshall's Don't Even Think About It. Yes, again.  
• 20:40. Karl Friston's free energy principle idea which is, I warn you, hard.  
• 31:16: Tim Morton's Hyperobject idea. Yes, that again too.  
• 39:02. James Gibson's affordances.  
• 42:09: Thomas Nagel: What Is It Like To Be A Bat? 
• 44:55: Andy Clark interviewed about embodied cognition and the extended mind.  

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.  Ruth Everett does all other YBOC voices. 

Show logo by Arthur Stovell at https://mondial-studio.com/.   

Happy New Year! And before your resolutions crumble into ash, here's a short episode about why change is hard - but yet it's the only thing we ever really do. 

Back in 2021 I chatted to Andrew Simms about change: how humans constantly trip the fandango between wanting to upend everything, and to keep things exactly the same. Tragedies are written about it. And yet in a world where it can feel like not enough is changing fast enough, sometimes we don't stop to notice the huge changes happening right before our eyes. 

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.  

Predicting the weather is really hard, not least because of all those butterflies in the Amazon flapping their wings about. So an even-vaguely-right forecast is a scientific marvel and a masterclass in risk communication. And how people do and don't take it in is a similarly fascinating dive into human brains and how they deal (or don't) with uncertainty.  

But these days you can't talk about our changing weather without talking about our changing climate - even if (too) many people still don't see the link. And what happens when innocent weather forecasters wade by mistake into the culture war? 

In this episode of Your Brain on Climate, I'm joined by the brilliant socio-meteorologist (it's a thing), Helen Roberts, from the UK Met Office - the Weather People. Helen explains all about how the modern miracle of meteorology is done - and everything she's learned about how to bring climate reality into the weather forecast, even if some don't want to hear it.  

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: 

• 17:35: Lewis Fry Richardson, the 'father of weather forecaster'. 
• 20:41: that video of the wandering dog explaining climate vs weather. 
• 36:06: Helen thought it was 65% of people see the link between weather and climate - the link I found said 76%. Right ballpark. 
• 41:13: Availability Bias: I'm sure we've talked about it before but I don't (ha ha) have to hand. So here's Decision Lab on it. 
• 43.18: Climate Outreach's Climate Visuals resource.  
• 45.08: I'm talking about my episode all about heat and violence - one of my faves. 

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/.