Your brain spends every microsecond sorting information into two buckets: useful and believable; and everything else. Alas, if you're a bit of data about the world and you're you're not in the first bucket, you ain't getting heard. So much noise! Like the background throng of a pub, or the hundreds of adverts we see and immediately discount every day. 

So what happens to ideas about climate change if they don't feel like they make sense to the reality of our lives? We quickly 'clock them', dismiss them, and chuck them in the 'f**k it bucket'. (As friend of the show Stuart Goldsmith likes to say.) But while it's relatively easy to see where people have hostile views against things like climate policy, it's much, much harder to see what it feels like when people just feel a bit 'meh' about it. 

Joining me to talk about the surprising emotional literacy of normal people is Professor Colin Strong. With Tamara Ansons* he writes the brilliant Frontline BeSci blog, which included the piece about 'clocking it' that landed so firmly in my Interesting Bucket when I first saw it. 

(* not 'Anson' as I mistakenly said on the show). 

This chat was recorded in June 2026. 

Let me know your thoughts on the show - hello@yourbrainonclimate.com. 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 below.

• 00:40 - the Harvard selective attention test (video).
• 12:38 - Dan Sperber's work on epistemic vigilance. 
• 16:57 - Sam Friedman and studied ordanariness. 
• 26:50 - a great paper on the 'third person effect' (we assume other people are more gullible than we are) 
• 34:13 - my chat about the 'war on net zero' with Becca Massey-Chase

Your Brain on Climate is a show about human brains vs the climate crisis. It's  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/.