How the increasingly frequent negative effects of climate change are affecting mental health.
By Anne Kuckertz
You’ve noticed it. How the news cycle has become one natural disaster after the next. Extreme wildfires raining ash down on cities in California. People freezing to death in their own homes during a Texas snowstorm. Heat wave in Washington kills many. Due to climate change, scientists expect the occurrence of freaky weather events to only increase, devastating livelihoods. It’s hard not to take a gloomy outlook on the state of our world when it seems to be imploding around us. It shouldn’t be surprising then, that climate change has taken its toll on our mental health too.
Consider the California wildfires that happened over the past year. The fires left their mark not just on the physical landscape but the mental one too. 33% of residents of areas affected exhibited symptoms of major depression and 24% of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As global warming increases, the frequency and/or intensity of these wildfires will only go up. The rising temperatures suck heat out of the ground and forest leading to perfect food for hungry fires.
With increased global temperatures comes increased frequency of heat waves as well. And with more heat waves comes negative effects on mental health. Psychiatric hospital admissions go up as does self-harm and suicide. Our collective mood takes a hit. An analysis of more than 600 million tweets showed we use more depressive language during periods of extreme heat in the United States. Considering temperatures are only expected to rise, this doesn’t bode well for our mental health.
But declining mental health may not be due to just natural disasters. The sense of dread and grief brought on by the impending environmental doom and gloom may be wreaking havoc too. On a national survey, US adults reported feelings of worry, helplessness, fear, and depression in response to global warming.
Although themes of climate change devastation pervade popular media, with films such as Interstellar, Wall-E, and Avatar, research on the chronic mental health effects on the general public is woefully lacking. There is a plethora of studies linking the natural disasters caused by climate with negative mental health outcomes, but scientific literature falls short on what is colloquially referred to as “climate anxiety”, “climate depression”, and/or “climate grief”. Climate change related worry is so bad for some that it’s stopping them from having kids, fearing the apocalyptic world children born now will grow up in. And yet we still don’t know the answer to many questions.
Climate related anxiety especially needs further research. Generally, anxiety can be broken down into to two categories, adaptive and maladaptive. Adaptive is a sort of good anxiety that keeps us alert or motivated to perform behaviors we need to survive. An example would be washing your hands and wearing a mask because you are worried about COVID-19. Maladaptive anxiety is when the worry becomes so excessive it interferes with your daily life in a harmful way, that’s when it becomes a disorder. Given that climate change is already hurting us, it’s unclear to scientists whether climate anxiety is an adaptive response, motivating us to address a very real threat or if it is clinical. A climate change worry scale is in the works, but that’s a far cry from a research driven diagnosis.
The most obvious solution to the climate related mental health crisis is to just stop climate change. Lower our carbon emissions, lower the earth’s temperature, lower the frequency of mental illness. Other solutions aren’t quite as clear. Programs focused on building resilience could generally help people cope with climate related challenges, but more climate specific treatments still need to be developed.
In the meantime, connecting with nature will, somewhat ironically, reduce stress levels. This could be as simple as literally going for a walk in the park. Considering that urban green spaces also help maintain air temperature and quality in cities, parks are an incredibly valuable resource.
And, as with most things, focusing on policy changes will help too. Currently climate change policy does not do much to address mental health. Including the psychological effects of climate change in the conversation could help allocate resources to the treatment of not only natural disaster survivors but also towards those affected by the chronic mental health changes brought on by climate change.
Apologies if this additional piece on the consequences of climate change only served to add to your climate anxiety but, if it’s any comfort, we are truly all in this together.
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