hinder
So mental illness is mostly about how people fit into the world, how we see ourselves as fit in our environment. I have come to realize, and have been told, that climate change – the reality of climate change itself – is a huge driver of my illness and the struggles I’ve been through since.
I know a lot of people have been thinking about this. There is a lot of talk about mental health and climate change, but the terminology used is just plain wrong.So “ecological anxiety” seems to be the most popular term, while Oxford English Dictionary Introduce it into their lexicon before COP.
While this sounds like a good thing, they chose to define it as “unease” or “worry” related to ecological damage. Not only is this inaccurate, but it is also euphemistic and offensive to those who are sometimes crippled for life by climate change. I’m talking about depression, anxiety, PTSD, psychosis, substance use disorders, you know, the list goes on, eating disorders, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder.
I have been ecologist I’m writing a book about all of this and the terms I’m using are “climate barrier“Because I feel like it’s an umbrella term and I’m not a clinician, but as an umbrella term I feel like it encapsulates the way a disordered climate is disrupting our minds. There are two elements of that that I would like to outline briefly today.
One is despair,”climate despair”, which comes from thinking about climate change and the material impact on our minds. 45% of people around the world, young people around the world, say that thinking about climate change directly hinders their daily lives.
cure
I did my own survey – it’s on Twitter, so it’s not a scientific study – but nearly 2,000 people responded, 79% of whom said climate change was “moderately” or “severely” affected their mental health. Numerous cases have been documented around the world.
I only have time to really explain one, the first diagnosis of climate psychosis: this is a young man in Australia who refuses to drink water – a life-threatening illness – because he is convinced that if he does , millions of people will die. An article last week said therapists felt they were incapable of dealing with illnesses caused by climate change.
The second part I want to talk about is “climate trauma,” or mental illness that comes from directly experiencing the effects of climate change on the body. The first question I want to talk about is natural disasters, combining several different studies: Floods and storms can increase the risk of depression by 50%; wildfires can increase the severity of symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, and major depressive disorder A 50% to 75% increase; high temperatures, so just a hotter day, have been systematically linked to increased suicide risk, and 60,000 people have died by suicide in India due to climate change.
Conflicts will also get worse because of climate change. So for every half-degree increase we see, we could see a 10 to 20 percent increase in armed conflict, which could lead to hundreds of millions of climate refugees. We know that asylum seekers and refugees are five times more likely to need mental health support — and least likely to receive it.
The point I want to make is that these phenomena need to be clearly recognized and we need to come up with solutions and answers for them, dealing with symptoms while making sure they don’t happen in the first place. What I can share from my personal experience is that when it comes to understanding what causes mental illness, a personal and societal perspective also applies to therapy.
Dynamic
I have only been able to recover and stay healthy since the accident because I was actively involved in my recovery through a resilient network of relationships. So, it’s a more relational model, it’s a social model of recovery. These relationships don’t just extend to my therapist, my family, or my friends. I’ve also been expanding them into my community and reconnecting with nature, and all of these scientific studies have shown that it’s very, very helpful in helping to avoid mental illness and keeping people healthy.
The extra element of it is that I’m again re-engaging with these issues and movements as an active participant, engaging with issues that I really care about that can address climate change and mental health.
RSA supports a lot of these ideas, so I’m proud to be on this stage. This includes a climate-related universal basic income, more direct democracy, shorter workweeks, an inclusive Green New Deal, rewilding and different models of care. What binds these together are equal people and respect for nature.
Last night, I attended a presentation and someone said he thought Glasgow was having two COPs at the moment. One is representation, negotiation, and the other is the network of relationships built outside of them.
After I heard other people jokingly say there is a good COP, bad COP dynamic, I tend to agree. A good COP, building relationships, networking, and I really feel positive hope. And I know that no matter what those in power do, building resilient choices and relationships helps. In that spirit, if anyone wants to reach out to me and share their experience or discuss alternatives, then please do so.
this author
Charlie Hertzog Young is a researcher and author who studies climate, progressive politics and mental health. He tweets at @CHertzogYoung. Read the first part of his series: Diagnosing climate disorders.
If you are experiencing mental health problems, you can contact Samaritan or find out more from a charity mind.
