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The Weight of Nature
The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains | Clayton Page Aldern
17 posts | 2 read | 10 to read
A deeply reported, eye-opening book about climate change, our brains, and the weight of nature on us all. The march of climate change is stunning and vicious, with rising seas, extreme weather, and oppressive heat blanketing the globe. But its effects on our very brains constitute a public-health crisis that has gone largely unreported. Based on seven years of research, this book by the award-winning journalist and trained neuroscientist Clayton Page Aldern, synthesizes the emerging neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics of global warming and brain health. A masterpiece of literary journalism, this book shows readers how a changing environment is changing us today, from the inside out. Aldern calls it the weight of nature. Hotter temperatures make it harder to think clearly and problem-solve. They increase the chance of impulsive violence. Immigration judges are more likely to reject asylum applications on hotter days. Umpires, to miss calls. Air pollution, heatwaves, and hurricanes can warp and wear on memory, language, and sensory systems; wildfires seed PTSD. And climate-fueled ecosystem changes extend the reach of brain-disease carriers like mosquitos, brain-eating amoebas, and the bats that brought us the mental fog of long COVID. How we feel about climate change matters deeply; but this is a book about much more than climate anxiety. As Aldern richly details, it is about the profound, direct action of global warming on our brains and behaviorand the most startling portrait yet of unforeseen environmental influences on our minds. From farms in the San Joaquin Valley and public schools across the United States to communities in Norways Arctic, the Micronesian islands, and the French Alps, this book is an unprecedented portrait of a global crisis we thought we understood.
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A neuroscientist turned journalist shares years of research about how climate change effects our brains. It‘s not good news, but it‘s a great book.

dabbe And so is your puzzle! 🤩🤩🤩 3mo
AmyG Great puzzle! 3mo
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"Vocabulary is like this. New words give access to a precision of experience that old words do not."

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...ical impacts of open-pit mining on local communities in New South Wales. Where surface mines go, solastalgia follows. Paige Cordial, a clinical psychologist in Southwest Virginia, explains the idea like this: "It's homesickness, but you haven't left home. You're homesick because the landscape has changed around you."

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Ddzmini I love that last sentence and I‘ve added this to my tbr 🙌🏽👏🏼 6mo
keithmalek @Ddzmini Glad to hear it! It's very interesting! 6mo
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