As our environment changes, so do our brains. Climate changes impact our physical environments is many noticeable ways, but it's also changing us on the inside as well. Clayton Page Aldern is a neuroscientist turned environmental journalist who has unpacked this phenomenon in his new book, The Weight of Nature: How A Changing Climate Changes Our Brains. He joins the show this week to discuss how our brains adapt to climate change and limits we face, how shifting baseline syndrome impacts climate action, what's happening to our brains under rising temperatures, and what climate changes tell us about broader ideas surrounding free will.

Clayton's work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Vox, Newsweek, The Economist, Scientific American, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter.

Read The Weight of Nature: How A Changing Climate Changes Our Brains

As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

For 57 years, Ed Begley Jr. has been in literally hundreds of your favorite movies and television shows. And during those years, he's also established himself as one of the most prominent voices in Hollywood on environmental sustainability and climate action. Now, he’s with a new memoir, To the Temple of Tranquility…And Step On It!, which recounts his life in both entertainment and environmental and climate advocate. Ed joins us on the show this week to discuss his life and career. We talk about his early days as a stand up comic, how he initially got into activism, his friendship with Cesar Chavez, mulling over bizarre clean energy ideas with Marlon Brando, finding common ground with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and why 1970s Los Angeles was such a great time and place for activism in entertainment. We also discuss his more recent roles in shows like Better Call Saul and why more great climate storytelling is happening, like with his friend Paul Schrader's 2017 film First Reformed.

Read To the Temple of Tranquility…And Step On It!

As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

The climate movement faces mounting pressure in 2024. Record-setting temperatures and extreme weather disasters continue to devastate over a turbulent summer. Prominent plans to roll back environmental regulations and stiffle climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives have movement leaders pushing back on attacks. Is the climate movement able to handle the pressure at this critical moment?

Few people are as equipped to answer that question as Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. Over his decades of climate and progressive leadership, Rev. Yearwood has advanced climate solutions with policymaking, culture change, direct action, and more. And he's part of a new initiative to educate people on critical issues like climate change during this transmorative year.

The “2024 & Beyond: Creating Our Shared Future” campaign is reaching out with open town halls to educate and debate on key political issues and building a network of experts and organizations like Center for Climate Justice, Center for Popular Democracy, Hip Hop Caucus, Greenpeace, and Center for Oil and Gas Organizing.

Rev. Yearwood Jr. joins the show this week to discuss his life and work, how change actually happens in the climate movement, why the climate movement needs to address its own weaknesses, and what strategies will be most effective in advancing progress and fighting off attacks.

Rev. Yearwood Jr. is the President & CEO of Hip Hop Caucus. He is the host of the award-winning climate and environmental justice podcast The Coolest Show, Senior Advisor of Bloomberg Philanthropies Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign, and one of the most innovative advocates and strategists for racial justice and climate justice. He is a White House Champion of Change for Climate leadership and according to Rolling Stone he is a “New Green Hero.”

Related Links:

2024 & Beyond: Creating Our Shared Future

Hip Hop Caucus

As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.