General Discussion

https://magazine.publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/climate-changes-psychological-impact

Climate Change’s Psychological Impact

Johns Hopkins Public Health

Extreme weather is amplifying mental health crises across the world. Solutions are needed now.

By Marilyn Perkins • Illustration by Patrick Kirchner
…

You always have this looming fear,” she says. Survivors of California’s 2018 Camp wildfire were diagnosed with PTSD at a rate on par with war veterans.

But slower-onset climate change effects—like drought, rising sea levels, land cover change, and increasing temperatures—can cause stress over time that can ignite into violence like the 2019 Fulani massacre.

What’s more, growing research shows that extreme heat can provoke aggression and increase suicide risk. In this way, climate change becomes a “threat multiplier” for mental illness, says Lasater.

“Where poverty, unstable employment, fragile infrastructure, conflict, geographic vulnerability to extreme weather events, or food insecurity exist, there’s a greater likelihood of loss of livelihood, loss of life, or loss of a sense of control, which all have negative mental health consequences,” adds Department of Mental Health chair Pamela Collins, MD, MPH.

… more …

(When they realize they can’t control the tides. Is this why they also hate solar and wind energy?)