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Your Brain On Climate

Your Brain On Climate

By: Dave Powell
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Psychology vs climate change: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency. Each episode host Dave Powell interviews experts in how our brains work - from PhDs in psychology to writers, activists and beyond. They'll talk about how their brains and our brains do (and don't) work, and how all of that might help make sense of the climate crisis - and possibly what to do about it.© 2026 Your Brain On Climate Earth Sciences Hygiene & Healthy Living Philosophy Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Bonus episode: Climate Magic, featuring me
    Feb 1 2026

    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.

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • The Weight of Nature, with Clayton Page Aldern
    Jan 18 2026

    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 - hello@yourbrainonclimate.com.

    • 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/.

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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Change It Up
    Jan 1 2026

    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.

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    9 mins
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