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Minding the Climate

How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis
  • Ann-Christine Duhaime
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2022
View more publications by Harvard University Press

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

A waft of fresh air in a stifling ecosystem running out of new ideas. It is an apposite scholarly intervention amid a civilisational impasse…Blending a scientist’s discipline, a surgeon’s precision, and an activist’s passion, Duhaime unveils innovative vistas for vanquishing an intractable problem.
-- Badrinath Rao Economic & Political Weekly

Duhaime covers many issues in a thoughtful way, including the gap between people’s stated intentions to perform pro-environmental behaviors and whether they actually do so; the limits of survey-based research about attitudes, beliefs, and behavior versus seldom-done field studies; and all the ways in which reward is pertinent for behavioral change. She succeeds in suggesting that neuroscience is indirectly relevant to understanding our current climate predicament.
-- Adam R. Aron Science

Surprising…Using insights provided by research at the intersection of neuroscience, environmental sciences and a number of other fields, Minding the Climate invites us to think about what a ‘sustainable brain’ might look like and how to achieve it.
-- New Books Network

A unique look at how to meaningfully address catastrophic climate change…Duhaime’s original angle sets her work apart from the pack, and she easily translates complex neurology for nonspecialists. Climate-minded readers will find this full of insight.
-- Publishers Weekly

Minding the Climate is a groundbreaking work on how we might leverage our brains to fight climate change.
-- Sudhirendar Sharma The Hindu

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


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Part 1: Neural Origins

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Part 2: The Twenty-First- Century Brain

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Part 3: Changing the Brain

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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 18, 2022
eBook ISBN:
9780674287617
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
336
Downloaded on 27.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.4159/9780674287617/html
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