THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Living on our HEATING PLANET doesn't just affect our lungs, hearts, and immune systems but also can HARM OUR BRAINS' HEALTH, affecting our moods and behavior. Read on to know WHAT TO LOOK FOR AND HOW TO COPE.

- MERYL DAVIDS LANDAU

You're standing outside your office building on a sweltering summer day when someone passes you a little too closely. It's not a big deal but, sweating and uncomfortable, you suddenly feel like screaming "Watch where you're going, #%*!" But they're already down the block, so you stand there steaming, literally and figuratively. How unlike you! Yes, well, what you're like-what we're all like-may be shifting because of climate change. There's been a lot of attention devoted to how a warming world affects our physical health, from additional heart and lung disease to increases in waterborne illnesses, ragweed allergies, and more. But less has been paid to the way climate change alters the mind.

In fact, with temperatures and other climate effects continuing to rise, more people will find themselves suffering psychologically; a growing number of scientific studies underscore the link between climate change and mood disturbances, aggression, learning and productivity loss, and mental illness and infectious disease. Even Alzheimer's disease has a climate connection. 

This makes perfect sense when you stop to think about it, says Clayton Page Aldern, author of the new book The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains. "When we say changing climate has a bearing on cognition, behavior, decision-making, and psychological well-being, we're actually describing another physical effect on our bodies. This is brain health," he says.

The change to our psyches, says Aldern, stems mostly from ever hotter average temperatures and longer-lasting heat waves with more extreme temperatures. Other documented culprits include increases in pollution particles in the air, harmful algal blooms, and brain-disease vectors like ticks and mosquitoes traveling farther, all of which are influenced by heat.

WHAT TO EXPECT