The impacts of climate change are front and center. Rising temperatures, volatile weather events, and poor air quality affect our physical and mental health in dangerous new ways. From increasing the risk of infectious disease to amplifying emotional stress and anxiety—even the healthiest among us are at risk. Bonnie Schneider has tracked environmentally linked physiological impacts throughout her career as a Peabody Award-winning TV journalist, meteorologist, and founder of Weather & Wellness©—a platform that explores the connection between weather, climate change, and health. In this episode, host Gil Jenkins speaks with Bonnie about her most recent book, Taking the Heat, How Climate Change Is Affecting Your Mind, Body, and Spirit and What You Can Do About It. In Taking the Heat, Bonnie provides crucial and practice advice from a broad range of science experts and medical professionals.
The impacts of climate change are front and center. Rising temperatures, volatile weather events, and poor air quality affect our physical and mental health in dangerous new ways. From increasing the risk of infectious disease to amplifying emotional stress and anxiety—even the healthiest among us are at risk. Bonnie Schneider has tracked environmentally linked physiological impacts throughout her career as a Peabody Award-winning TV journalist, meteorologist, and founder of Weather & Wellness©—a platform that explores the connection between weather, climate change, and health.
In this episode, host Gil Jenkins speaks with Bonnie about her most recent book, Taking the Heat, How Climate Change Is Affecting Your Mind, Body, and Spirit and What You Can Do About It. In Taking the Heat, Bonnie provides crucial and practice advice from a broad range of science experts and medical professionals.
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Episode recorded: April 7, 2022
Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at climatepositive@hannonarmstrong.com or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.
Chad Reed: This is Climate Positive – a show featuring candid conversations with the leaders, innovators, and changemakers driving our climate positive future. I’m Chad Reed.
Hilary Langer: I’m Hilary Langer.
Gil Jenkins: I’m Gil Jenkins.
Bonnie Schneider: this book if anything, proved to me that the weather and climate really is intertwined with our health and wellness. Now, I'm using that data to do predictive outcomes to mitigate risk and to make things better for people that are in the mental health or physical health that are providers.
Gil:The impacts of climate change are front and center. Rising temperatures, volatile weather events, and poor air quality from rampant wildfires affect our physical and mental health in dangerous new ways. From increasing the risk of infectious disease to amplifying emotional stress and anxiety—even the healthiest among us are at risk. Bonnie Schneider has tracked environmentally-linked physiological impacts throughout her career as a Peabody Award–winning TV journalist, meteorologist, and the founder of Weather & Wellness©—a platform that explores the connection between weather, climate change, and health.
I have been thinking a lot about how the climate breakdown is impacting both our health lately, so it was a real pleasure to talk to an expert like Bonnie and unpack some the lessons she learned from her new book, Taking the Heat: How Climate Change Is Affecting Your Mind, Body, and Spirit and What You Can Do About It
I was also intrigued by her unique background and perspective as a meteorologist, which I think took the conversation into some interesting places.With that, here’s my conversation with Bonnie.
Hilary: Climate Positive is produced by Hannon Armstrong, a leading investor in climate solutions for over 30 years. To learn more about our climate positive journey, please visit hannonarmstrong.com.
Gil: Bonnie, welcome to Climate Positive.
Bonnie: Oh, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.
Gil: Well, let's jump right into your new book. I thought one of the most enjoyable aspects of Taking the Heat was how you balance this rich data and scientific insights along with practical first-person stories and tips to give readers a real guidebook for coping strategies. We're going to get into a lot of that today, but first, could you tell us more about your, what I think is unique background as a meteorologist and a TV journalist and how that ultimately led you to writing this book?
Bonnie: Well, I've been working as a meteorologist for two decades at least in as small TV stations to large markets and national cable news at CNN, MSNBC, the Weather Channel, and Bloomberg. I've had the chance to cover all types of disasters through the years, and just experiencing that from the studio and then sometimes in the field, you get a feeling for the human toll that happens after these storms.
I wrote my first book 10 years ago called Extreme weather, which was a guide to surviving natural disasters, but as time went on and there was more evidence that linked climate change to an increased amount of extreme weather, and in certain cases, more intensity, I wanted to dive into that. I've always been interested in health and wellness personally so I wanted to see the emotional side of how these disasters affect people. That was really the beginning of Taking the Heat, but the book dives deeper into subjects like eco-anxiety and allergy season. The weather and climate really is woven into so many aspects of our health and wellness.
Gil: Let's get right into one of the things you just mentioned, this emergence of the issue of eco-anxiety and climate-[unintelligible 00:01:45] is another term, especially as it relates to children. Could you tell us a little bit more about this emerging trend and some of the recommendations for managing eco-anxiety that you covered from your interviews with experts in the book?
Bonnie: One of the things that I noticed was that eco-anxiety is a bigger problem than I think a lot of people realize. Because if you're, depends what I found was age made a big difference. For the younger generation, Gen Z that are in their upper teens to low 20s, this is a huge issue. There's been a lot of research recently that shows the majority of those surveyed.
There was a recent study that had 10,000 respondents internationally and the majority of them were very concerned about the climate crisis. This has led to anxiety issues. I interviewed several young people that were experiencing real anxiety symptoms, and I just think it's a growing problem. It is predominantly talked about for young people and even for children. Parents are looking for ways to address this with children, they want to do it in a careful way, and I talked about that in the book.
I think one of the things in terms of science research was there were a couple of things that stood out, which is one was reconnecting with nature. Any activity, it could be even gardening or getting involved in something like a beach cleanup, that seems to be helpful for people that have climate anxiety. Being back into nature seems to be helpful. Finding like-minded people that share their same concerns. That's one of the things that the university students I spoke to said that they found helpful.
Gil: I think it seems quite intuitive that to combat eco-anxiety there's ecotherapy. Truly there's restorative power in being with nature. Were there any other specific strategies beyond those you mentioned that you want to highlight?
Bonnie: Yes. I think that there's certain organizations like the Climate Psychiatry Alliance and the Climate Psychology Alliance, those are easy to find online and they are filled with directories for experts. In particular professional mental health experts that are familiar with climate anxiety and can address it. There are a lot of resources. There's also some great webinars that are free and resources where people can talk to, not just like-minded individuals, but mental health experts and see their research. There's quite a bit available in terms of resources for people to help them cope.
Gil: I want to ask you too, I found the chapter on how allergy season is getting longer to be very interesting. Could you talk about what you learned and reported on in your book from the experts that you talked to. Particularly the person from the USDA jumped out to me as having some very interesting insights.
Bonnie: Yes. He is the [unintelligible 00:04:29] guy that has done a lot of research in this area, Dr. [unintelligible 00:04:32]. It's interesting because allergy seasons are impacted in a number of ways. One is that we're seeing more frost-free days, meaning we're getting more days annually in different cities. There's been research by Noah and by Climate Central that has shown that allergy season has gotten longer.
We have more of a, I would say a longer period when there's no frost on the ground. It could be late spring to early fall, and having just more time to be exposed to allergies has had a lot of people almost anecdotally notice, "Wow, this allergy season seems to be starting earlier. It's ending later." You talk to people you'll hear a lot of people will say that, but there is science behind that.
When you have warmer weather for a longer period of time, your exposure to allergies goes up. There's interesting research being done with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and how that impacts plants. Generally speaking, you think with the process that we all learned from your science class about photosynthesis, that more carbon dioxide would mean supersize plants, that could be a good thing, but it's not necessarily true.
That was the research that Dr. [unintelligible 00:05:38] and some others as well did, they talked about the effects of carbon dioxide on plant growth. It's not just the plants that we like, that we enjoy, but plants that produce pollen that we're allergic to, like ragweed. There's some interesting impacts on allergy season, which is very important for those that suffer from allergies, and of course, those that suffer from asthma because an allergy attack can trigger an asthma attack.
Gil: Fascinating stuff. Let's talk about another thing that really struck me, was your chapter on heat, sleep, and memory. You wrote, the average American will experience four to eight times as many days above 95 degrees by the year 2030. What may surprise you is that the overnight low temperatures are going up faster than the daytime highs. That surprised me. Could you expand on this subject in your book and how the strategies for combating those highs is really highlighting inequities in terms of air conditioning? What are the other strategies for staying cool?
Bonnie: Yes. It's really interesting about heat because it's not just daytime high temperatures that are rising but it's also our low temperatures are at night. If you have consecutive nights where the temperature doesn't get below 80 degrees, and we have high humidity, then your body has no opportunity to cool. That's something that people in cities especially experience, because something called the urban heat island effect, meaning it's hotter in cities than in suburban areas due to asphalt and concrete, less trees. When you're in an area, especially that doesn't have air conditioning, and I think that most of US, we know, has air conditioning, but there are communities that don't.
Also, places that, like in the Northwest for example, where they've experienced more recent heat waves, and most people in Oregon and Washington State a lot of people don't-- Why would they have ever thought they needed an air conditioner until now?
Gil: My next question is about the Northwest. Having grown up in Portland, Oregon we didn't have ACs. It wasn't until I moved to the East Coast where that was standard in homes and apartments. Another section that resonated with me, and I was interested to see it in a book largely about addressing climate stressors, was your chapter on Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD, also known as winter blues.
I think that resonates with me because while undiagnosed, I think it's a large part of why ultimately left the rainy dark Portland, Oregon area for the East Coast for four seasons. When I was in New England and those winters were a little harsh and dark so I'm down somewhat south in DC. Could you talk about what you learned about seasonal affective disorder and strategies for coping with that as well?
Bonnie: Yes. I totally can relate to what you're saying. I also lived in New England for years and even in New York. I wrote that chapter during one of the coldest winters and dark winters and during the pandemic in February in New York. I was thinking as I was writing it, "Well, actually, I think I'm experiencing this." Tthere's a difference between seasonal affective disorder, that's the more extreme term for people that are suffering, and there's certain criteria that has to be met for that to be a diagnosis. Just being sensitive to the seasons is actually more common and having that sensitivity to weather.
One of the things for that chapter I did was I spoke to a doctor who really did the initial research and coined the term seasonal affective disorder, and he was from South Africa. His own experience sort of shaped how he did the research because he was from an area closer to the equator, so they had equal hours of daylight and darkness. Coming to New York, he'd never experienced such long summer days, which we know if you're in the Northeast or DC, when you have those days in the summer where it doesn't get dark till late, they just seem great, the day never ends.
Then you have the flip side of it, where you have getting dark at four o'clock in the afternoon, and that weighs on your mood and your energy levels. The science behind it obviously has to do with our circadian rhythm. Whether when we wake up are we seeing light, is it dark out when we're commuting to work, things like that. It can affect mood, it can affect your food cravings, people that have seasonal depression say that they have more carbohydrate cravings during the winter. It goes into a lot of things. I agree with you, I wanted to include this because I just felt that so many people want to know more about it. The way I related it to climate change had to do with daylight savings time, which actually [inaudible 00:10:13]--
Gil: I'm going to ask you about that later. Let's put a pin in that because there's been some news on that. Let's jump around the country because you've been a meteorologist all over and you've talked to a lot of different communities about climate change. What's that experience been like? When you were doing the book tour 10 years ago, what gives you hope as a communicator on these topics?
Bonnie: That's a really good question because the two experiences are a decade apart and so different. The first one I did a big national tour where I traveled and I was all over the country, and this one, because it was released during the pandemic I did mostly Zoom and things like that. I'm doing some in person but mostly it's online. It's been interesting because when I did the first book I only got a few questions about climate change, I'd say when I did like a live event.
Now since this book is really diving deep into the topic, it's all about that. Whereas before I think some people were-- They just weren't as aware of how climate change is affecting their health or the connections between climate change and extreme weather. I would say that now there's a greater understanding and a greater curiosity on both topics.
Gil: That's good, we can work with that. Staying on awareness and understanding, as an experienced journalist what do you think? Do you think the media does an adequate or good job covering the climate crisis, in particular, broadcast media? If not, what could they do better?
Bonnie: That's a great question I've been asked and I think it's interesting. Because from the perspective of a meteorologist I would say that most meteorologists, especially the television meteorologists are covering climate change because it might relate to the way they're telling the local or national weather story. It's often hand in hand depending on what you're covering obviously. It's not associated with every weather event but there's a lot of things where you're going to draw parallels and influences and things like that. For a meteorologist, I think it's even more accessible to include climate change as part of the story when appropriate.
There's a group called Climate Central that I used as a resource for this book and they actually have weather graphics that do explain to the public when there are connections. For a meteorologist, I would say the opportunities are only getting easier to do that communication to the audience when necessary. Just in news in my experience, I see an increase in news coverage from when I started to now. I can only speak to my own experience but I would say that it has an increasing amount of coverage in the media.
Gil: When you talk to your friends with cable anchors who do your leads and setups, are they then getting it? Also, having as much credibility as a meteorologist would, which I think often there's some research, you mentioned Climate Central there. The TV meteorologists are among the most trusted science communicators. I do sometimes think there's a little bit of disconnect when it goes to the host who's not as deep in climate science and weather science, but your thoughts on that?
Bonnie: I don't think that's something really specific to climate science. I've definitely had an experience where maybe somebody's introducing you and maybe they're not connected to what the weather of the day story is for example, because they're not the weather person, they're concerned about the news. Generally speaking, that's another thing that I've seen change where there was a much more of an interest from the news anchors.
They'll often talk to you in advance if you're covering a storm and they might ask you about, "What do you think about the connection to climate change for the storm?" I only see this connection and this interest from the news anchors developing an increase in amounts because most of them, they're doing stories on climate change as well outside of the weather news.
Gil: Let's come back to this daylight savings thing that you hit on in your book. Last month, Congress passed amazingly bipartisan, the Sunshine Protection Act. It's not clear that'll pass in the House but this would eliminate the ritual change in our clocks twice a year. No more springing forward or falling back and no more losing an hour of sleep in March. You wrote a little bit about how destructive those changes are to our body, could you outline for anyone out there that somehow thinks we should continue to have daylight savings time?
Bonnie: I followed this as well when it was in the news. I would say most people were supportive of this change but I saw some people saying, "Oh, I don't want it to be dark in the morning," and then other people said, "Well, it's better. It's safer to have it not dark in the afternoon when kids are coming home from school and things like that." Everybody does have an opinion on this for sure. One of the things I would say that you'd ask me in an earlier question was about coping when we do have those shorter days with sunlight.
I spoke to sleep experts and neurologists and also other psychiatrists about this, There's definitely a connection between light and our circadian rhythm. If you ever go to sleep in a room that's really bright and there's no shades, you find yourself waking up at dawn because the sunlight is streaming in. That's a natural way that we wake up, but because most of us are spending more time in artificial light versus being outside like our ancestors were, sunrise to sundown. One of the ways to cope and to deal with the time change, or just let's say, even jetlag if you're going to a different location, is to try to get some natural daylight first thing in the morning.
Which isn't always easy and it's harder during the winter but the experts that I spoke to said even sitting by a bright window just for 10 minutes or going out without your sunglasses for 10 minutes, it alerts your body that the day is starting and that can reset your system. It could also give you more energy in the afternoon, one of the experts I spoke to. Kind of makes sense if we take a break even from working from home, get outside, get a little fresh air, and some sunlight, you do feel better.
Gil: I think you highlighted the incidence of heart attacks jump. To me, that's a pretty good argument along with, I noticed a lot of other fellow groggy parents, we made the most recent switch. There's some serious direct health effects to the way we've been doing it.
Bonnie: Yes. I interviewed a woman in New York who has, I think at the time, she's nine, her daughter, 9 or 10, but really disrupted with her sleep and her mood every time they have the clock changed. She actually sent a letter to the governor at the time advocating this. Parents are on the frontlines of dealing with this, with sleepy kids. They seem to be happy about the change.
Gil: To cover the waterfront here, but what other topics in the book do you think are resonating most when you hear from readers on social media or email that we didn't cover?
Bonnie: Well, we talked about natural disasters a little bit and I mentioned that that was one of the reasons that led me to writing this book. Because these natural disasters are coming more frequently, more intense, they're affecting more people. I did find that from the first book to the second book, I interviewed a woman who was a Hurricane Katrina survivor, and that was in 2005 when that storm hit, I remember I was working at CNN at the time. This woman had been through the worst of it.
She was in the Lower Ninth Ward, her home was flooded, they had to evacuate. To this day, and this is a lot of years ago, anytime I put on social media about something with a hurricane warning, she'll send me a message that she's very concerned and her anxiety goes up. I researched it and there are many people that still have this continued level of stress and anxiety after they go through a natural disaster, even years later. Unfortunately, because of climate change that's affecting more people.
One of the things that the research showed is that it affects children more strongly than adults, particularly if they have to relocate if their home is disrupted, that can be very trying. There's some research with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico about that. It's not something to look lightly upon if someone has experienced a tropical system going through, not just their home, but even in their community that can affect them. If their home is fine but their neighbors' homes or their school was damaged, that definitely has a toll on it.
Gil: I see you wear a lot of hats, author, TV journalist, meteorologist, tell us about your weather and wellness platform and business?
Bonnie: Oh, I appreciate you asking because everything is just all happening now, it's exciting. I spent most of the past year working on the book and most of my career working as a television meteorologist, but now I have my own startup which is Weather and Wellness. On my website weatherandwellness.com I have video content and stories and articles about some of the topics we spoke of today.
On the technical side, what I'm doing is I'm working with climate and weather data and predictive data and I'm building a platform and software that works with environmental health to improve patient outcomes and improve hospitals in terms of their risk, and with doctors as well. It's an exciting new technology that I'm just now getting into and I've had a lot of interest from people in it. The initial research that I've done, and I've done some of this with really top climate scientists, is I found there's a direct correlation, for example, between psychiatric visits and heat based on weather. I have data to prove that.
It's really fascinating because anything, proved to me that the weather and climate really is intertwined with our health and wellness. Now, I'm using that data to do predictive outcomes to mitigate risk and to make things better for people that are in the mental health or physical health that are providers. Also, for patients, because the more we know, the better off we'll be. Whether you're a caregiver or someone on the receiving end of it. It's important that people know their risk when facing risk for climate.
Gil: Fascinating important work. Thank you. We'll follow that with great interest.
Bonnie: Thank you.
Gil: At this point, we'd like to turn, with all of our guests. We have a rapid-fire lightning round called The Hot Seat here on Climate Positive. The Hot Seat with our Taking the Heat author. The first set of questions is fill in the blank. The most important advice I have followed is?
Bonnie: Stay positive and be resilient. [laughs]
Gil: Okay. The word or phrase I most overuse is?
Bonnie: Like or really.
[laughter]
Bonnie: I think I use those words too much.
Gil: Okay. Give me the most obscure personal favorite weather event term. I'll admit that I've learned some new ones in the past five years like bomb cyclone or red colorful, or derecho. Give me one that we haven't heard and sadly we may hear because of how freakishly extreme our weather is.
Bonnie: There's one in Australia called-- I think it's called the willy-willy. That's a funny one.
Gil: [laughs] Is that just another word for--
Bonnie: Yes. It's just the dust devil. It's a dust storm.
Gil: A dust devil.
Bonnie: Yes. That's in South Australia. They call it a willy willy.
Gil: A willy willy? Of course.
Bonnie: That's a funny one.
Gil: Do you have a favorite type of weather?
Bonnie: Yes. I like the Mediterranean nice weather when it's sunny and not too hot.
Gil: 63.
Bonnie: Yes.
Gil: What's the best weather app?
Bonnie: I've worked with WeatherBug. I actually did some work for them. I've also worked for the Weather Channel, I worked for their app. There's a lot of them that are really good. Technology--
Gil: Which one do you use though?
Bonnie: I have them all. I'm a litmus test.
Gil: You have them all?
Bonnie: Yes. I have all of them and I check all of them because I like to run or walk outside. I look at all of them all the time. I know it's very geeky.
Gil: That must take forever but I suppose you want to check them. I like [inaudible 00:21:54] weather.
Bonnie: AccuWeather is another great one. I like all of them honestly. [laughs]
Gil: I'm sorry I have to ask this, but what's your best meteorologist joke?
Bonnie: Oh, that's easy. You can be wrong and you won't lose your job. I'm not saying [inaudible 00:22:14] but that's what people have said to me. If you go to a restaurant or a bar or something, that's what people will come up and say to you. "You have the only job that you could be wrong and not be fired." [inaudible 00:22:24] That's definitely one I get a lot.
Gil: I was Googling this before we talked. Mine is, why was the meteorologist so stressed?
Bonnie: Why?
Gil: The job is full of high pressure.
Bonnie: No. It's funny that one, yes. That's a good one.
Gil: There you go. How do you connect with nature?
Bonnie: I am outside as much as I can. I enjoy running and walking. I currently live in New York City so I go to Central Park as much as possible or the Hudson River. There's a nice walkway. You have to look for it when you live in a city but it's so important to find those green spaces and make it a part of your life as much as possible.
Gil: Overrated, underrated, or appropriately rated. Al Roker.
Bonnie: Appropriately rated.
Gil: Jim Cantore.
Bonnie: Appropriately rated. I know both of them and they're both terrific. They both get high praise.
Gil: Yes. Doomsday prepping.
Bonnie: It depends. To the extreme, maybe not. I'm all about preparing so it depends on the level. I would say doomsday but preparedness for a weather disaster, I'm good with.
Gil: Okay. Putting sad music on while you're sad to further your sadness.
Bonnie: Overrated. I don't think that's a good idea.
Gil: Okay. [chuckles] The last one we have duration, finish the sentence. To me climate positive means--
Bonnie: Being proactive and making healthy choices that are good for yourself and good for the climate.
Gil: Excellent. Bonnie. That's it. Thank you for coming on the podcast. I encourage all of our listeners to check out Taking the Heat wherever you get your books. Thank you, Bonnie.
Bonnie: I appreciate you having me on.
Gil: Climate Positive is produced by Hannon Armstrong. If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, please leave us a leave a rating and review on Apple and Spotify, which really helps us reach more listeners.
You can also let us know what you thought via Twitter @ClimatePosiPod or email us at climatepositive@hannonarmstrong.com.
I'm Gil Jenkins.
And this is Climate Positive.