This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
The peak of summer usually means time spent outdoors, the mountains, the beach.
And for those of us who've spent most of the past 15 months within the confines of our homes, getting out feels more urgent than ever.
But as wildfire smoke cloaks the american west, blizzards lash Australia, and deadly droughts strike South Africa and Madagascar.
You might feel like turning right around and going back in sight.
Scientists have been warning us for years about the looming threat of a warming planet.
And yet it's really hard for many of us to wrap our minds around this existential threat.
Why is that?
This week on Hidden Brain, a favorite episode, where we visit the glaciers of Alaska to find out why our brains struggle to grasp the imminent dangers of global climate change.
This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
Last year, my family and I took.
A vacation to Alaska.
This was a much needed, long planned break.
The best part, I got to walk on the top of a glacier.
The pale blue ice was translucent.
Sharp ridges opened up into crevices dozens of feet deep.
Every geological feature, every hill, every valley.
Was sculpted in ice.