both hemispheres can figure out the meaning of words and sentences – and that they have differing strengths and weaknesses when it comes to comprehending.

Fundamental features of human psychology can constrain the perceived personal relevance andimportance of climate change, limiting both action and internalization of the problem. Cognitiveshortcuts developed over millennia make us ill-suited in many ways to perceiving and respondingto climate change (152),including a tendency to place less emphasis on time-delayed and physicallyremote risks and to selectively downplay information that is at odds with our identity or worldview(153). Risk perception relies on intuition and direct perceptual signals (e.g., an immediate, tangiblethreat), whereas for most high-emitting households in the Global North, climate change does notpresent itself in these terms, except in the case of local experiences of extreme weather events.

it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses

What’s more interesting, I think, is similarities between ecology/evolutionary biology and the humanities. Stephen Jay Gould pointed out many years ago that some lines of scientific inquiry were more like historical research than “real” science. That idea has stayed with me throughout my career, which I think is why I’ve such an interest in how a historical perspective informs our present day understanding of the subject.