Minding the Climate: How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis

Ann-Christine Duhaime

Published by Harvard University Press 2022

Minding the Climate

How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis

Ann-Christine Duhaime

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674287617

Overview
Contents

About this book

The human brain evolved to prioritize short-term rewards over long-term goals. But while this adaptation served our ancestors well, it is maladaptive in the face of a slow-moving climate crisis. Luckily, brains can adjust. Ann-Christine Duhaime explores how we can reframe what we find rewarding to counteract climate change.

Reviews

A fascinating book. Dr. Duhaime reveals that the vexed nature of the human brain complicates our response to our greatest crisis. By linking neuroscience and environmental studies, this book offers key insight into how we might leverage our brains to fight climate change.
-- Bill McKibben, author of Falter and The End of Nature

Original, thoughtful, and inspiring. Dr. Duhaime explains how our brains seek rewards, and if we take the time to understand how and why this affects our behavior, we will be able to live healthier lives—for ourselves and for our environment.
-- Peter Sterling, author of What Is Health?

Minding the Climate provides key insights on how the physiology of the human brain shapes our capacity to address the existential threat of climate change. This work is essential if we are to have any hope of surviving as a species and preserving a habitable planet for future generations.
-- Brad Campbell, President, Conservation Law Foundation

For decades climate science has been ignored, undermined, and denounced. Dr. Duhaime takes us deep into the brain to understand why we fail to do what is in our and the planet’s best interest. This is an important book.
-- Rachel Kyte, Dean, Fletcher School, Tufts University

While our brains are motivated by short-term incentives and immediate satisfaction loops, we can change the ways we think about the threat of global warming and, consequently, spark our collective sense of urgency and action. Minding the Climate presents a groundbreaking look at how to do that.
-- John Judge, President and CEO, Trustees of Reservations, and author of The Outdoor Citizen

A beautifully written look into why changing behavior in response to the climate crisis is so challenging. Like the great neurosurgeon she is, Dr. Duhaime methodically and carefully unpacks the fascinating evolutionary roots of human decision-making, why that decision-making so often falters in the face of modern threats, and how to use that understanding to guide future action. Highly recommended!
-- Howard Frumkin, Senior Vice President, Trust for Public Land

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: The Human Brain and Climate Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 1: Neural Origins
1 Brain Evolution and the Anthropocene Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2 Brain Rewards as a Design for Learning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
3 The Universe of Human Rewards Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
4 Biophilia and the Brain Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
Part 2: The Twenty-First- Century Brain
5 An Acceleration of Consumption Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
6 Which Behaviors Matter Most Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Part 3: Changing the Brain
7 Behaviors That Are Easy and Hard to Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
8 Strategies for Pro-Environmental Shifts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	164
9 The Green Children’s Hospital Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Conclusion: A Sustainable Brain Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	305
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	307