Your brain on climate change: Why we fight the impulse to go green
The world is now spending billions of dollars investigating the causes of climate change. Scientists are quickly putting together physical and biological experiments and projects, hoping for solutions and models that will show us how to slow warming and save the planet. But there’s another body of work underway that’s focused on the human brain. This research argues that climate change policy and solutions for global warming won’t be worth much until we know how to influence the individual decisions that cause global warming. To help us figure out why it is so hard to get our brains to choose green options we are joined by Jon Gertner, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. His article on this will be available in the Times Magazine on Sunday.
The story you just read is accessible and free to all because thousands of listeners and readers contribute to our nonprofit newsroom. We go deep to bring you the human-centered international reporting that you know you can trust. To do this work and to do it well, we rely on the support of our listeners. If you appreciated our coverage this year, if there was a story that made you pause or a song that moved you, would you consider making a gift to sustain our work through 2024 and beyond?