The Weight of Nature

Elegant, convincingly argued … a calm voice in a world of chaos … impossible to ignore – Philippa Nuttall * New Statesman *A neuroscientist shows the myriad ways that our warming climate is making us cranky, dopey and sick… Aldern has managed to do something that most books about climate change fail to: cast the problem in a new light, revealing it to be more insidious than it first appeared – Ben Cooke * The Times *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 the landscape but also us… Beautifully written, this heatwave reading will give you the chills – Anjana Ahuja * Financial Times *Arresting revelations … this is not another book about climate anxiety * Financial Times *Aldern is an excellent storyteller, drawing on interviews and personal experience, with an elegant prose style… 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 * TLS *Aldern is the rare writer who dares to ask how climate change has already changed us * The New York Times, Book Review *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, winner of the Pulitzer PrizeIt’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 McKibbenWhat 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 TreeClayton 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

Clayton Page Aldern is a neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Guardian, the Economist and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, 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.