They F*** You Up, Your Mum & Dad Artwork

Your Brain On Climate

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.

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Your Brain On Climate

They F*** You Up, Your Mum & Dad

July 13, 2025 • Episode 43

How should you bring up baby in the age of climate breakdown? Should you tell them what's happening or not? And given how messed up is the planet we're passing on - is it even fair to *have* kids?

In a YBOC first this episode is a 3-way chat. Dave meets Nina Alexandersen and Sophia Cheng - respectively someone who became a climate activist through fear for her kid's future, and someone whose activism made them very ambivalent about becoming a mum, until something changed.

We talk about all things motherhood and parenthood - like what it does to your brain, and whether you still have as much time to care about things like climate change. And we discuss people who don't want to have kids because of the state of the planet: are they doing the right thing, or missing out on something core to being human?

Let me know your thoughts on the show - hello@yourbrainonclimate.com.
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Owl noises = references:

18:57: More on matrescence. And 19:09: Matrescence, including Lucy Jones, in Time Magazine.
20:02: Lucy Jones wrote a brilliant book about foxes.
23:33: The (wrong) finite pool of worry hypothesis talked about in this from Vox. And 24.57: Sisco et al take apart the finite pool of worry idea.
26.15: Steve Akehurst discusses the importance of keeping climate in the news.
29:10: A discussion of Joanna Macy's Three Dimensions of the Great Turning.
38:55: Jo McAndrews's work.
45:55: Alice Brown, then of the Birthstrike movement, on Sustainababble.

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/.