New Book claims ‘the climate crisis is physically changing our brains—without us realizing it’ – THE WEIGHT OF NATURE by neuroscientist-turned-environmental journalist
By Marc Morano
March 26, 2024
12:36 pm
https://randomhouse.app.box.com/s/phuwz95j595kdclnbk6uli4l29m8sssoDecember 2023
Dear Editor/Producer,
In August 2020, I was in the Bay Area when the skies turned orange from the August Complex—the largest wildfire in California’s history, started by lightning from a stray thunderstorm that sparked in the draught-ridden mountains. The experience was horrifying, mesmerizing, and haunting—I am now intrinsically fearful every time I hear thunder or smell smoke. When I read THE WEIGHT OF NATURE: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains (Dutton; on-sale April 9, 2024) by neuroscientist-turned-environmental journalist Clayton Page Aldern, I quickly learned that I wasn’t alone in experiencing these psychological aftereffects from a devastating weather event—and that, in fact, this is but one part of a public health crisis that has largely gone unreported: how the climate crisis is currently changing us all from the inside out.
Aldern is a highly accomplished journalist, a self-described “recovering neuroscientist” with master’s degrees from the University of Oxford in both neuroscience and public policy, and a Rhodes Scholar and Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow. Currently a senior data reporter for Grist, Aldern has written for The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and more, and his work has been presented on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In THE WEIGHT OF NATURE, Aldern shows in three parts how we are unknowingly changing along with the environment: its effects on our cognition and behavior, its actions on our physical brain health, and its subtler influence on sensory systems, culture, and language—and how we must empathize with and react to the world as it exists now, while also collectively preparing for an ever-changing future. Aldern explains the far-reaching effects of this crisis: • As temperatures rise, opportunity falls: Our brains are sensitive machines, and research has shown that heat makes us more impulsive and less intelligent. In New York City, China, and India, a hotter day has been linked to worse test scores. Judges presiding over asylum applications are less likely to give approval when temperatures rise. Even sports are affected: baseball pitchers are more likely to intentionally hit batters when it’s hotter.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/03/26/new-book-claims-the-climate-crisis-is-physically-changing-our-brains-without-us-realizing-it-the-weight-of-nature-by-neuroscientist-turned-environmental-journalist/
