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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Climate Change and "Environmental Grief"

Doc: Climate Instability Shakes Mental Health from Allegheny Front 
"For psychiatric doctor Steven Moffic, the health risks from climate instability and other abrupt environmental shifts include post-traumatic stress disorder, drug abuse, autism, and something called "solastalgia."  "It's sort of a corollary of nostalgia," Moffic says."But it's this kind of environmental grief where where you live gets changed, against your will, obviously. You can't leave, and you feel this sadness for what you've lost right in front of you..."
Of course the climate is making people crazy. Scientists are going to have to invent new adjectives to describe the weather, "severe" and "extraordinary" have become routine. The days of being concerned about the climate are already well behind us. Consider the Southwest U.S. drought story right now. I saw both lake Powell and Meade earlier this year. They are both two thirds empty. Las Vegas is just completing an $800 million tunnel up through the bottom of Mead to drain the remaining water. Talk about collective insanity!  It's like something out of a 1950's science fiction movie! And yet, intelligent and educated people generally discuss global heating as a problem of the future. Maybe what were seeing is the insanity of denial.
Posted by-hopeandespair

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