The Weight of Nature - How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains

Informationen zum Autor Clayton Aldern is a neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Vox, Newsweek, The Economist, Scientific American, and Grist , where he is a senior data reporter. His climate change data visualizations have appeared in a variety of forums, including on the US Senate floor in a speech by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. A Rhodes Scholar and a Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow, he holds a master’s in neuroscience and a master’s in public policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington, a grantee of the Pulitzer Center, and has contributed to reporting teams that have won a national Edward R. Murrow Award, multiple Online Journalism Awards, and the Breaking Barriers Award from the Institute for Nonprofit News. See claytonaldern.com or follow him on Twitter @compatibilism. Klappentext "... this book shows readers how a changing environment is changing us, today, from the inside out. Aldern calls it the weight of nature. Newly named mental conditions include: climate grief, ecoanxiety, environmental melancholia, pre-traumatic stress disorder. High-schoolers are preparing for a chaotic climate with the same combination of urgency, fear, and resignation they reserve for active-shooter drills. But mostly, as Aldern richly details, we don't realize what global warming is doing to our brains. More heat means it is harder to think straight and solve problems. It influences serotonin release, which in turn increases the chance of impulsive violence. Air pollution from wildfires and smokestacks affects everything from sleeplessness to baseball umpires' error rates. Immigration judges are more likely to reject asylum applications on hotter days. And these kinds of effects are not easily medicated, since certain drugs we might look to just aren't as effective at higher temperatures. Heatwaves and hurricanes can wear on memory, language, and pain systems. Wildfires seed PTSD. And climate-fueled ecosystem changes extend the reach of brain-disease carriers like the mosquitos of cerebral-malaria fame, brain-eating amoebae, and the bats that brought us the mental fog of long Covid. From farms in the San Joaquin Valley and public schools across the US to communities in Norway's arctic, Micronesian islands, and the French Alps, this is a disturbing, unprecedented portrait of a global crisis we thought we understood"-- Leseprobe This book is about the neuroscience and psychology of how a changing world changes us from the inside out. It is not a book about climate anxiety—about worrying about climate change—though we’ll touch briefly on the seriousness of the subject later on. It is also not a book about climate communications or climate politics and the manners in which the psychological dimensions of the climate problem lend themselves to complicating those arenas. That’s important stuff; you can read about it elsewhere. I also won’t wade too deeply into the trenches of consciousness, though a useful reminder- mantra might be: The mind is grounded in the brain and the body. Mental energy is physical energy. There; that’s about all you’re going to hear from me on neurophilosophy. In this book, instead, you’ll only find evidence of direct interventions of environmental change on the brain and mind. That is the scope of this thing.  Here is who I am and why I care about any of this mess. These days, I often introduce myself as a recovering neuroscientist. Back in 2015, when I first conceived this project, I had just finished a short graduate program in neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and I was spending much of my time fiddling with a programming language called MATLAB, trying to replicate in a computer the results of an experiment someone had conducted on zebra-finch br...

About the author

Clayton Page Aldern

Summary

A New York Times Editors' Choice

A Next Big Idea Club and Sierra Magazine Must-Read Book

A Behavioral Scientist’s Notable Book of 2024

A Financial Times Best Summer Book

A Bookshop Most Notable Science Book of 2024

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 behavior—and 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 Norway’s Arctic, the Micronesian islands, and the French Alps, this book is an unprecedented portrait of a global crisis we thought we understood.

Product details

• Authors: Clayton Page Aldern
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 09.04.2024
• EAN: 9780593472743
• ISBN: 978-0-593-47274-3
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 235 mm x 29 mm
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Biology > Ecology; Non-fiction book > Psychology, esoterics, spirituality, anthroposophy > Applied psychology; SCIENCE / Global Warming & Climate Change, Climate Change, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Neuroscience, PSYCHOLOGY / Physiological Psychology, Physiological & neuro-psychology, biopsychology, Neurosciences, Physiological and neuro-psychology, biopsychology