For those who have long considered climate change a "natural problem," the examples presented in this book will be quite shocking.
"The evidence of climate change isn't heat waves, wildfires, typhoons, or droughts, but 'our own bodies'?" This book overturns the complacent mindset that has viewed climate disasters as near-future events or apocalyptic spectacles, exposing the reality of climate disasters currently unfolding within our very bodies.
Author Clayton Page Alden, a neuroscientist and environmental journalist, uses neuroscience, data science, and cognitive psychology to explain how climate change is causing devastating problems across our brains, bodies, and minds.
From memory loss, to the onset of violence, to the rise of neurodegenerative diseases, to the resurgence of infectious diseases, to the explosion of trauma and depression, the silent approach of the "climate monster" that controls humanity is revealed in detail.

By summarizing the contents of this book, we will be able to recognize one truth about climate change that we, as scholars, politicians, and individuals, have ignored without even realizing that it is eating away at our own lives.
Despite the serious public health crisis that climate change poses on our brains, little has been reported on it.
In fact, it is already too late to take action.
Immigration officers are more likely to reject asylum applications on hotter days.
Some medications that act on the brain become less effective as temperatures rise.
Frequent forest fires take away people's homes.
Chronic stress has become a disease.
As the climate changes, so do ecosystems, allowing previously unheard-of disease vectors, from malaria-carrying mosquitoes to brain-eating amoebas, to expand their reach.
As natural landscapes are lost, rates of severe depression also soar.
Students taking tests on hot days are more likely to get a few questions wrong.
In this way, we are suffering from the climate crisis, knowingly or unknowingly.
It's a terrifying reality.
No, it is a reality that must feel terrifying.
--- From the "Prologue"

According to Frankland, the rate at which forgetting occurs depends in part on how predictable the environment is.
“In dynamic environments, the usefulness of existing information decreases over time, whereas in static environments, the usefulness of existing information is maintained, so forgetting may occur less frequently.” If the purpose of performing active forgetting is to accurately model the world, then when the environment changes, there also arises a need to adjust certain beliefs that conflict with reality.
In other words, the brain tries to suppress inaccurate knowledge.
Frankland also points out this:
“Not all memories fade equally.”
--- From "Chapter 1: Memory: When I Forget the Climate Within Me"

A team of researchers at the University of Ottawa, led by economist Anthony Hayes, wanted to test how the asylum process would behave under stress.
Could this kind of judgment—a judgment "largely unrelated to the temperature at the time"—be influenced by seemingly unrelated factors? Like any outstanding economist, Hayes collected hundreds of thousands of relevant cases.
After collecting four years' worth of 200,000 decisions and isolating the impact of temperature, they found that for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit increase in outdoor temperatures, the likelihood of an asylum officer making a favorable decision fell by nearly 7 percent.
The researchers added.
“In other words, if we look at this sample from a lenient perspective, the difference in approval probability between the top 25% of judges and the bottom 25% is 7.9%.” Objectivity was an illusion in the face of temperature.
--- From "Chapter 2 Cognition: The Brain is Embedded in Nature"

Narayan wanted to understand which aspects of the workplace and its surrounding socioeconomic context influenced instances of discrimination and harassment.
In other words, we wanted to measure the impact of each work environment and each employee's background on the likelihood of committing discriminatory acts.
After months of analyzing 250,000 EEO (equal employment opportunity) data sets using a variety of statistical techniques, Narayan published his rigorous and precise findings in the 2022 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Among the factors that influence discrimination, temperature was also one of them.
Assuming all other things are equal, EEO complaints increased by 5% on days with a high temperature above 32 degrees Celsius compared to days with a high temperature between 16 and 21 degrees Celsius.
As temperatures rose, the number of union complaints also increased by nearly 4 percent.
Also, as with Anthony Hayes's investigation of immigration officers, the effects of heat were found to persist indoors.
Because whether they were postmen or office workers, they were equally affected.
--- From "Chapter 3 Action: Who Killed Tyson Morlock"

A shocking pattern of mass outbreaks has been revealed.
Nine of the cases were recorded near Lake Mascoma in western New Hampshire, where a summer blue-green algae bloom occurred.
Worldwide, only about 2 to 3 people per million are diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) each year.
So, nine people getting sick near the lake represents an outbreak rate that is 10 to 25 times higher than average.
The patients were not related, so the cause was not genetic.
Moreover, outbreaks were mostly concentrated along the coast, which is affected by prevailing winds.
Even among the patients were the landlord and the gardener, and it was revealed that the two often visited the same place.
Stomel emphasizes this:
“That doesn’t mean that cyanobacteria cause ALS cases.
However, it does mean that being near murky water puts you at risk for developing ALS.”
--- From "Chapter 4 Neurodegeneration: The Bloom of Toxic Substances"

The theory that vampire bats are causing rabies due to climate change goes like this.
Vampire bats are creatures that play a complex ecological role.
It means that our very existence is intertwined with the delicate balance of the ecosystem.
But as climate change takes hold, vampire bats face a double threat.
Because the changeable weather and rising temperatures affect not only habitats but also food.
Even vampire bats are ultimately climate refugees.
As the animals are forced out of their original habitat, the rabies virus moves with them.
--- From "Chapter 5 Infection: The Great Revenge of Disease"

As we have seen, PTSD often causes temporal dislocation.
Past trauma seeps into the present, overwhelming our sense of security and control.
But meditation helps us navigate the darkness by grounding us firmly in the continuous flow of sensory experience.
The forest of the mind can be a place filled with danger and uncertainty, but it is also a place of wonder, beauty, resilience, and adaptability.
Through meditation, we can see trauma as part of the landscape, rather than as a disaster that fills the landscape.
By caring for your own wounds with compassion and enduring your inner storms with grace, you can regain your capacity for growth and adaptability.
You can make peace with the trauma you've experienced and integrate it into the larger narrative of your life.
--- From "Chapter 6 Trauma: When the Whirlwind Rises Inside Your Body"

The magic of surprise minimization theory is that it provides tools to read the dynamics of nature in the same language at all scales of analysis.
We can use the same language for mitochondria, cells, organisms, species, and ecosystems.
If that sounds too arbitrary, it's because you're not yet used to thinking that way.
It's hard to believe that the same mechanisms for sustainable existence apply to a single brain cell, an individual bonobo, or an entire forest colony of apricot mushrooms.
Priston's research doesn't simply dismantle boundaries and claim, "We're all connected."
Rather, the surprise minimization theory is intended to limit individual existence.
To make sense, individuality is ultimately necessary.
Of course we are all connected.
But it's boring.
What's not boring is that, despite the boundaries that intricately separate us and the interconnectedness between objects and their environments, we share a definition of success with everything else that physically exists.
“Sustainability” means the same thing to everyone.
--- From "Chapter 7 Senses: The Power that Connects the Brain and the World"

Pain reminds us that our brain exists in our body and that our body exists in space.
We have to eat.
We must exercise.
We should treat our bodies like bodies.
Think about how your hand flinches when it touches fire.
The movement itself is not a separate response to a painful stimulus.
It is a movement of self-preservation.
It is a story realized through danger and escape.
Hands not only convey the sensation of pain, but also express it through action.
A specific story of suffering is recorded in that movement.
Our painful experiences are also deeply intertwined with our emotions, thoughts, and memories.
Painful experiences can trigger painful memories from the past, trigger feelings of fear or stress, and trigger thoughts of harm or threat.
Pain is a complex intertwining of sensations, emotions, cognitions, and memories.
When we embody awareness by remembering our bodies as bodies, suffering reveals itself as a complex part of our being, demonstrating the deep interconnectedness of mind, body, self, and world.
--- From "Chapter 8 Pain: A Call for Empathy"

The words we use, the dialects we choose, and the stories we tell change and move with us as we navigate the winding paths of life.
Personal and collective experiences are etched into the language we use, which in turn shapes the linguistic environment for future generations.
Northern Sami may have a word for snow that a Hawaiian might never know, and Hawaiian may have a word to describe a subtle aspect of the ocean that would forever be foreign to a Northern Sami speaker.
Our language is both a map and a mirror.

--- From "Chapter 9 Language: The Grammar of the Earth Left Behind by the Sami Language"