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.   

Try running for a few miles, and then a few miles more, and then several hundred few miles more. That's proper endurance that is, the kind demonstrated regularly by Damian Hall: ultrarunner, climate activist, author, and all-round lovely chap.  He's the holder of the men's record for the 268-mile Spine Race, so he knows a thing or two about keeping going when things look grim.   And when it comes to climate change, heaven knows we need a bit of that.

What can running very long distances teach us about perseverance despite increasingly grim climate news? What has Damian learned about climate activism from running up mountains all day long? And is running REALLY as bad for the planet as Formula 1? (Spoiler: no).
 
Damian is the co-founder of the Green Runners. Run? Join.

Owl noises:
--  Race owls: 07:20 - the Spine Race;  19:38 - the Barkley Marathons. 20:29 - UTMB.
--  26:37 - here's Michael Mann on Twitter, and if you want to hear Dave nattering with Katherine Hayhoe, you're in luck.
-- 28:45 - herewith all of Damian's books.
-- 36:36 - in case you missed it, what Rishi did.

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.   

The climate crisis needs all the ideas and imagination it can get. But today's guest says that liberalism - the system many of us live in, which cherishes individual freedom above pretty much all else - is a straitjacket on our imaginations, and our ability to think and act big. If it really is harder to imagine the death of capitalism than the end of all life on Earth, does that explain why most visions of the future are so, well, crap? 
 
Joining Dave this ep is Dr Christopher Shaw, author of 'Liberalism and the Challenge of Climate Change'.  Chris has a very large brain and tells us why the rules of the system we live in have a huge influence on how we think about what's possible. Follow him on twitter @kalahar1.

Owl noises:
-- 10.01: One of the people credited with the phrase is the late Mark Fisher in his very influential (including I bet on Chris) Capitalist Realism.
-- 11.34: Not cheery, but here's more in Science about the transgression of six of the nine planetary boundaries.
-- 15.47: Chris means Hope in the Dark, a book I commend to you in the strongest possible terms.
-- 32.35: Freud and his repression. For plenty more on Freud, check out episode 11 with Dr Aaron Balick.
-- 40:44: The shortcut to Chris's Twitter thread.

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.   

Our ideas about climate change are filtered through layers of Stuff, and for us in the West quite a lot of that Stuff is inseparable from being gits to other countries for centuries.  We've nabbed land, exploited populations and perhaps most enduringly of all, seen the world as basically being for 'us' to do with as we want. That Stuff dies hard, and, this episode's guest argues, shapes how we think even about what climate change is, never mind how and in whose interests to solve it.

Joining Dave this ep is Dr Ayesha Siddiqi, lecturer in human geography at the University of Cambridge. Ayesha's a postcolonial geographer, which means she 1) is clever and 2) understands how the impacts of things like climate change overlap with legacies of politics, power and security.  Most usefully of all for this episode at least, she talks warmly and accessibly about the need to decolonise research and the Western framing of climate change. So: learn stuff.

Owl noises:
-- 06:33 - the wet bulb test, and why it's scary.
-- 40:40 - the Matthew effect of accumulated advantage, and why Matthews have it even easier than Daves.

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 by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me, and I twiddle all the production knobs too.

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

The death of everything: no ROFLing matter. Right?  Well probably yes. But can chuckles save the planet?  Does laughing at humans being silly confused bags of water help the climate fight or take the heat out of it? And just why is so much climate comedy, well, crap?

Joining Dave this episode is a right proper comedy mastermind, Stuart Goldsmith.  Stuart's spent aeons both behind the mic as a stand-up, and peering at other comics via interviews in his legendary The Comedian's Comedian podcast. He's drunk heavily from the comedy well, and knows more about the art (science? craft?) of rib-tickling than just about anyone.   And - [applause, cheers] - Stuart now reckons he might spend the rest of his career doing comedy about climate change, such is his commitment to the cause.

See Stuart's show  Spoilers at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.

Owl noises:
-- 11:11 - The rule of three in comedy. 
-- 12:33 - This really is a most excellent, warm and wise interview with John Lloyd from the folks at Rebel Wisdom.
-- 13:23 - Here's a TED talk - Why We Laugh - off of Professor Sophie Scott.
-- 27:24 - Ayana Elizabeth Johnson's climate Venn diagram.

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 by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Twitter.  Original music by me, and I twiddle all the production knobs too.

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