Why Fear Doesn’t Move People on Climate

Fear has dominated the way we talk about climate change for decades. But fear doesn’t motivate most people to act—it overwhelms them. In this episode of the Scientista Podcast, Sweta Chakraborty and Monica Medina are joined by Anne-Therese Gennari, known as the Climate Optimist, for a conversation about why fear-based climate messaging fails—and what works instead. Drawing on behavioral science and lived experience, we talk about how motherhood reshapes the way people think about risk, responsibility, and the future, and why mothers can be powerful drivers of climate action in their own communities. The episode explores climate communication through a human lens: how people make decisions under uncertainty, why proximity matters more than abstraction, and what changes when climate action starts close to home. This conversation is about communicating climate in ways that reflect how people actually think—and act. Thank you for listening! Learn more about Scientista here: www.scientista.world