This Will Change Your Mind

From the late 1970s through to the early 1990s, pop culture often gave a starring role to bright green goop. Why? From nuclear fallout through Silent Spring, Love Canal, Captain Planet, and beyond, how a media trope reflected changing environmental anxieties in the 20th century. Written and presented by Chiquita Paschal and Ian Steadman Produced by Sarah Myles  

In 2009, someone hacked a major climate research center and released thousands of private emails. One word in particular was key to the controversy that followed: “trick.” A look at how climate denialists exploit the differences between how scientists talk to each other, and to the public, to deliberately sow confusion. Written and presented by Chiquita Paschal and Ian Steadman Produced by Sarah Myles

In the 1970s, an American scientist gathered evidence that everyone in the world experiences the same six basic emotions. It’s a simple, compelling theory—and it might be wrong. Yet from emotion-detecting AI to Pixar’s Inside Out, the six basic emotions might be inadvertently making us feel less. Written and presented by Chiquita Paschal and Ian Steadman Produced by Sarah Myles

“The hole in the ozone layer” is one of the most influential metaphors in modern history, shaping public and political reactions to an unfolding environmental disaster—but nobody’s really sure who coined it. We search for who did, and discuss its broader impact. Written and presented by Chiquita Paschal and Ian Steadman Produced by Sarah Myles  

In Washington D.C., there’s a think tank that designs new metaphors, with the aim of making us think differently about the world’s problems. We speak with writers and cognitive scientists who specialize in hacking language to change minds. Written and presented by Chiquita Paschal and Ian Steadman Produced by Sarah Myles

Do you really understand why you last changed your mind? Ideas can change the world, but world-changing ideas can take many forms: political speeches, turns of phrase, ad campaigns, activist slogans, scientific theories, cultural tropes, and more. In This Will Change Your Mind, we explore where persuasive new concepts come from, as well as how they move into wider culture, changing the ways we think and act. Written and presented by Chiquita Paschal and Ian Steadman Produced by Sarah Myles