The Weight of Nature

Praise

“This is your brain on climate change…. As Aldern demonstrates throughout this distressing yet urgently necessary book, climate change is affecting the very duration of our lives. This is a unique—and uniquely disturbing—addition to the literature. A lyrical and scientifically rigorous account of the emotional and physical toll climate change is taking on the human brain.”—Kirkus, *starred review*

“Aldern is the rare writer who dares to ask how climate change has already changed us.” —New York Times Book Review

“The Weight of Nature is science-based journalism at its zenith. Neuroscientist and environmental journalist Clayton Page Aldern has authored a powerful and portentous book about the impact climate change is having on our brains and behavior. This book is a must-read for those concerned about the implications of climate change on our personal and public health. . . . And it is filled with hope. While climate change has an adverse impact on us, we are beings with the capacity for empathy, feeling, embodiment, and awe. By seeing the magic that is around us, we can be motivated to respond to the climate crisis.” —New York Journal of Books

“Research on the deleterious psychological effects of severe heat offers a unique perspective on how humans will be changed by a warming world. Readers will be troubled.” —Publishers Weekly

“​Aldern’s book — which, in spite of its author’s technical background, is immensely readable and literary — pushes far past the familiar, touching on topics as wide-ranging as brain-eating amoebas, language death, and free will. The common theme throughout, though, is that climate is our unseen ‘puppeteer.'”​ —Heatmap News

“Clayton Page Aldern’s writing is so engaging, his research so novel, and his inquiry into our brains and bodies so timely and revealing that this is a rare climate change book you’ll actually savor.”—Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown
  
“It’s hard, at this late date, to write something profound and new about the overarching crisis of our times. But Clayton Aldern has succeeded—this book is a triumph, rigorous in its reporting but also in its thinking and feeling. I learned an awful lot.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

“This important watershed book has powerful immediacy as it explains in a clear, warm voice precisely how climate change is making tiny incremental changes in our brains and bodies. Many believe that human brains and bodies can resist or adapt to a warming world. But we learn here that there are limits. Penetrating, intensely personal, and impossible to put down, this is a book you need to read.”—Annie Proulx, author of Fen, Bog and Swamp

“What a book! Profound, revelatory, exquisitely written – the Weight of Nature is an unnerving insight into the effects climate change is having on us, as human beings, right now. This is vital, urgent reading, a lifeline to lead us out of the labyrinth.” —Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

“The Weight of Nature is a funny, moving and extraordinarily necessary tour through an area of science that might be more important than any other. It is beautifully researched, fascinating and deeply awe-inspiring: showing how much more connected we are to our physical environment than I could possibly have imagined. I defy anyone not to come away moved, entertained, and changed.” —Xand van Tulleken

“The Weight of Nature, [Aldern’s] elegant, convincingly argued book about how climate change is altering our minds, bodies and brains, didn’t make me want to curl up silently; it made me want to shout, to rouse people from their slumber. . . . The book is lifted by the lightness of Aldern’s prose, his honesty and the maturity of his reflection. He refuses to romanticise the past or to disregard people’s fears. There are solutions to cut emissions and better ways to live, but climate change is here and we will have to manage its impacts. Aldern’s is a calm voice in a world of chaos.” —Philippa Nuttall, The New Statesman

“Arresting revelations … this is not another book about climate anxiety.” —Financial Times

“For anyone worried about the consequences of climate chaos, there’s a consolation of sorts embedded in the physicality of cognition. We may not be able to think our way out of cascading environmental crises, but we may be able to feel our way forward to a more sustainable way of living. After Aldern’s long litany of terrors, this insight allows him to end on a high note.” —Sierra Magazine

“Aldern is an excellent storyteller, drawing on interviews and personal experience, with an elegant prose style that only occasionally takes a folksy (“critters”, “our noggins”) turn. He does a fine job navigating the dense technical research where acronyms proliferate like algal blooms, and his background in neuroscience puts him on a strong footing to explore the mechanistic impacts of climate change on brain function and chemistry.” — George Marshall, The Times Literary Supplement

“In The Weight of Nature, Clayton Page Aldern comes closer than anyone in a long time to articulating why so many of us feel queasy about climate change: it is altering not just the landscape but also us. . . . Beautifully written, this heatwave reading will give you the chills.”
—Anjana Ahuja, Financial Times

“One of the reasons I like it is because it’s so unexpected. . . . Beautifully written look at the emotional and physical effects of climate change on the planet, our health, and the way we see the fragility of the world around us.” —Deborah Blum, author and director of the Knight Science Journalism program, MIT

“Groundbreaking . . . Aldern revealed how heat exposure impaired executive functions, weakened neural networks, and disrupted sleep patterns—all critical factors in cognitive health, especially for older adults. Climate change isn’t just a future threat anymore. It’s a clear and present danger.” —Neal K. Shah and Mary Furlong, Newsweek

“While we are so often attuned to an individualistic separateness of self, The Weight of Nature offers a new way of understanding our relationship with the Earth through a grounded notion of planetary empathy.” —Manon Martini, Resurgence & Ecologist