scholarly journals Clinical Ecopsychology: The Mental Health Impacts and Underlying Pathways of the Climate and Environmental Crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myriam V. Thoma ◽  
Nicolas Rohleder ◽  
Shauna L. Rohner
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Detrimental Impact ◽  
A Current ◽  
Existing Data

Humankind is confronted with progressing climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and/or destruction of the air, soil, water, and ecosystems. The climate and environmental crisis is probably one of the greatest challenges in the history of humankind. It not only poses a serious current and continuing threat to physical health, but is also an existing and growing hazard to the mental health of millions of people worldwide. This synergy of literature provides a current summary of the adverse mental health impacts of the climate and environmental crisis from the perspective of Clinical Psychology. Furthermore, it presents potential underlying processes, including biological, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social pathways. The existing data suggest that the climate and environmental crisis not only acts as a direct stressor, but can also exert a detrimental impact on the various pathways, with the potential to amplify an individual's biopsychosocial vulnerability to develop mental ill-health. This is a call for an increased investigation into this emerging research field of Clinical Ecopsychology by clinical psychologists and other researchers.

scholarly journals Mental Health and Weather Extremes in a Southeastern U.S. City: Exploring Group Differences by Race

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 3411
Author(s):  
Lisa Reyes Mason ◽  
Bonita B. Sharma ◽  
Jayme E. Walters ◽  
Christine C. Ekenga
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Sample Survey ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Winter Weather ◽  
Weather Extremes ◽  
Summer Heat

The connection between mental health and weather extremes is a public health concern, but less studied to date than physical health. This exploratory study examines the mental health impacts of two kinds of weather extremes increasingly linked to climate change—summer heat waves and extreme winter weather—in a low- to middle-income population in the Southeastern U.S. The distribution of mental health impacts, and potential pathways to them, are examined with a focus on race. Data are from a random-sample survey of 426 participants and are analyzed with bivariate statistics and path analysis. Self-reported mental health impacts, in both seasons, were common in our study, with White participants tending to report worse impacts than participants who identified with other racial groups. Physical health had direct effects on mental health across several models, overall and by racial group. For summer heat waves, concern about climate change and social cohesion had direct and indirect effects, respectively, on mental health in White participants only. For extreme winter weather, preparedness had a direct negative effect on mental health in White, but not Black, participants. Results suggest that there may be racial differences in the influence of human and social capital factors on mental health related to weather extremes, warranting further study of this critical topic and with larger racial subgroup samples.

scholarly journals Strategies for Delivering Mental Health Services in Response to Global Climate Change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Palinkas ◽  
Meaghan O’Donnell ◽  
Winnie Lau ◽  
Marleen Wong
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Services Delivery

This review examines from a services perspective strategies for preparedness and response to mental health impacts of three types of climate-related events: 1) acute climate-related events such as hurricanes, floods and wildfires, 2) sub-acute or long-term changes in the environment such as drought and heat stress; and 3) the existential threat of long-lasting changes, including higher temperatures, rising sea levels and a permanently altered and potentially uninhabitable physical environment. Strategies for acute events include development and implementation of guidelines and interventions for monitoring and treating adverse mental health outcomes and strengthening individual and community resilience, training of non-mental health professionals for services delivery, and the mapping of available resources and locations of at-risk populations. Additional strategies for sub-acute changes include advocacy for mitigation policies and programs and adaptation of guidelines and interventions to address the secondary impacts of sub-acute events such as economic loss, threats to livelihood, health and well-being, population and family displacement, environmental degradation and collective violence. Strategies for long-lasting changes include implementation of evidence-based risk communication interventions that address the existential threat of climate change, promoting the mental health benefits of environmental conservation, and promoting positive mental health impacts of climate change.

scholarly journals Worrying about climate change: is it responsible to promote public debate?

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-32
Author(s):  
Helen L. Berry ◽  
Dominic Peel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Population Mental Health ◽  
Regional Australia ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Some fear that provoking widespread worry about climate change may harm mental health. The Regional Wellbeing Survey, a large study of health, well-being and life in rural and regional Australia, examined climate change worry and attitudes. Most respondents were worried about climate change and agreed that fossil fuel use causes global warming, but there was no evidence to suggest that worry about climate change is linked to mental health in the general population. Respectful, calm, considered public debate about how to respond to climate change is unlikely to be harmful to population mental health. Individually focused clinical approaches are unlikely to be effective as a primary approach in managing the mental health impacts of climate change. Instead, collective, systems-based approaches will be needed.

Chronic Mental Health Impacts of Climate Change Extremes: A Case Study of the Largest Californian Wild Fire

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarita Silveira ◽  
Mariah Kornbluh ◽  
Mathew C. Withers ◽  
Gillian Grennan ◽  
Veerabhadran Ramanathan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Sleep Disturbances ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Mental Wellbeing ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Resilience Factors

Abstract Background. Weather-related disasters such as droughts and fires as accelerated by climate change have led to substantial growth in interest in impacted health outcomes. While physical health outcomes have been studied in this context, our understanding of climate change impacted mental health is at its infancy. This study focuses on the mental health impacts of the largest Californian wildfire to-date, the Camp Fire of 2018.Methods. We investigated a sample of 780 Californian residents with different degrees of disaster exposure, and measured mental health using clinically valid scales for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD); data were collected six months post-exposure to understand sustained chronic impacts. Data were modeled using multiple-regression analyses. Additionally, we included vulnerability and resilience factors in hierarchical regression analyses.Results. Our primary finding is that direct exposure to large scale fires significantly increased the risk for all three mental health disorders, PTSD, MDD and GAD. Indirect exposure, for those who witnessed but did not personally experience the fires, increased the risk for MDD and GAD. Inclusion of vulnerability and resilience factors led to significantly improved prediction of all mental health outcomes. Low socio-economic status, childhood trauma and sleep disturbances were identified as vulnerability factors, while self-reported resilience had a positive effect on mental health. Mindfulness was associated with lower MDD and GAD symptom scores.Conclusion. Overall, our study demonstrates that climate-related extremes such as fires severely impact long-term mental wellbeing. Additionally, pre-existing adverse life events, resilient personality traits and lifestyle factors play an important role in the development of psychopathology after such disasters. Unchecked climate changes of magnitude projected for the latter half of this century risk severely impacting the mental wellbeing of the global population.

11. Environment

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
The State ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the role of the environment in the history of political theory. The philosophy of nature is an ancient subject. From the pre-Socratics to the present, philosophers have sketched diverse pictures of nature and held various views about nature's relationships to human flourishing. For Aristotle, nature and goodness were closely allied. For Thomas Hobbes, the state of nature was something to be overcome, but the laws of nature directed us how to do it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau idealized the state of nature and thought that it was required for human flourishing. The chapter first considers the doom and gloom that pervaded academic writing about the environment in the late 1960s and early 1970s before discussing themes such as democracy and environmental crisis, global environmental change, climate change, environmentalism, liberalism, and justice. A case study on managing climate change is presented, along with a Key Thinkers box featuring Anil Agarwal.

scholarly journals Conversations on the Regime and the Institution: The Copenhagen Accord and Global Environmental Governance

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark S. Williams ◽  
Julie Rorison
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regime Theory ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Copenhagen Accord ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Current

<p>This paper presents an inquiry into the state of conversations in international politics on the prospects for the global environmental governance of climate change. The essay reviews the literature on regime theory and its discontents to provide a working understanding of the authors’ conception of global environmental governance for climate change as a regime. The most recent cases of global environmental governance on climate change are discussed, focusing on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the primary arena for governance-building discussions, leading up to the 2009 Copenhagen Summit. The paper then considers the conversations that posit the failures of Copenhagen and question a current existential crisis facing global environmental governance on climate change. Finally, it is suggested that these failures of the Copenhagen round can be understood within the context of regime theory and its limitations in International Relations. The experience of Copenhagen is representative of continuity with both regime theory and the recent history of global environmental governance on climate change. While the Copenhagen Accord may represent a failure as an international institution on climate change it is perhaps not a failure if interpreted more broadly as part of a governing global climate change regime.</p>

scholarly journals Extreme Weather Events and Mental Health: Tackling the Psychosocial Challenge

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jyotsana Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Public Mental Health ◽  
Extreme Weather ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
The Public ◽  
Weather Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Health Challenge

Climate change is an emerging challenge to the mental health of entire humanity. Several studies, in recent times, have brought to light the adverse public mental health outcomes of extreme weather events for the suffering communities. The general public and the policy making bodies need to gain awareness about these impacts. Through such awareness, communities and their governments can institutionalize mechanisms to provide psychological support to the populations affected by climate change, before it becomes a massive public health challenge and starts affecting the social and vocational lives of people. There is an urgent need for addressing these impacts. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the deleterious effects of climate change related extreme weather events on mental health, the worldwide response of several communities to such events, and preparedness of the public and government to deal with these adverse mental health impacts. Policy imperatives to prevent and mitigate these impacts have been suggested. It is hoped that the psychologists, governments, and communities will act earnestly to prevent the impending harm to human mental health due to climate change.

scholarly journals Mental Health Impacts of Climate Change: Perspectives for the ED Clinician

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 590-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrice K. Nicholas ◽  
Suellen Breakey ◽  
Bradley P. White ◽  
Margaret J. Brown ◽  
Jenny Fanuele ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change
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