Mental Health

CURRENT NEWS

Axios

Water insecurity is stressing mental health

By Eileen Drage O'ReillyAlison Snyder 11/17/22

Hundreds of millions of people around the world lack reliable access to safe water — an escalating crisis with a potentially profound impact on their mental health. Why it matters: Similar to food insecurity, water…

The Conversation

Climate change’s impact on mental health is overlooked and misunderstood – here’s what can be done

By Sanae Okamoto and Nidhi Nagabhatla 11/08/22

Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and hurricanes increasingly feature in people’s lives and are predicted to become more frequent and intense in the coming decades. These events are having a significant yet often overlooked psychological impact…

The Washington Post

A new campus offering: Climate anxiety therapy

By Ta ' Leah Van Sistine 09/12/22

In early 2020, weeks before anxiety about another crisis roiled the globe, a small group of students gathered in a room at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire for a counseling session on worry and grief…

Houstan Public Media

“It’s destroying me”: Storm after storm, climate change increases strain on Texans’ mental health

By Erin Douglas 09/08/22

Tens of thousands of coastal Texas residents have survived repeated extreme weather events including Hurricane Harvey. For many, it has taken an emotional toll, and researchers warn that climate change could be “catastrophic” for our…

Iberdrola

Eco-anxiety: the psychological aftermath of the climate crisis

06/28/22

Climate change is a reality and threatens the future of the Earth. This can cause psychological impacts on some people, a phenomenon which is known as eco-anxiety. Below, we review what it is, what causes…

Eco Watch

Young Activists Disrupt Bonn Climate Talks to Call for Plant Based Treaty

By Olivia Rosane 06/13/22

A group of young activists believe the answer is a global shift towards plant-based diets, and they are not afraid to make their voices heard. The campaigners disrupted a meeting at the UN climate talks…

e360. yale.edu

For Gen Z, Climate Change Is a Heavy Emotional Burden

By Richard Schiffman 04/28/22

People who have come of age in recent decades — millennials and members of Generation Z — have been exposed to a steady stream of alarming news about climate change and ecological destruction. And a…

Eco Watch

7 Ways to Manage Climate Anxiety

By Linnea Harris 04/17/22

Many people are already experiencing the effects of climate change. Eighty-five percent the global population has endured weather events made worse by rising temperatures, and more than 40% are highly vulnerable to climate change based…

The Guardian

‘I was enjoying a life that was ruining the world’: can therapy treat climate anxiety?

By Moya Sarner 04/12/22

Pete Knapp, 36, who lives in London, has visited North Korea, travelled overland from Kenya to Cape Town, motorcycled through Japan and Cambodia and trekked by horse through China. Until a few years ago, “I…

The New York Times

Climate Change Enters the Therapy Room

By Ellen Barry 02/10/22

Something as simple as nuts. They came wrapped in plastic, often in layers of it, that she imagined leaving her house and traveling to a landfill, where it would remain through her lifetime and the…

Deadline News

Doctors union warn climate change is damaging patient health

By Wendy Brooking 11/01/21

A DOCTORS’ union has reminded world leaders of their “moral responsibility” to protect public health, warning that climate change is damaging patient health.

Healio

PCPs face mounting responsibility to address health effects of climate change

By Maria Marabito 10/29/21

Human influence has had an unequivocal impact on Earth’s climate, causing significant changes that threaten people’s security and physical and mental health, according to a landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

KEY RESOURCES

Climate Change and Mental Health

11/16/22

Nearly one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness. And a growing body of research suggests that climate change can worsen mental health and well-being.

Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance

03/01/17

“Things like depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, domestic abuse, all these things tend to go up in the aftermath of a natural disasters,” says psychologist Susan Clayton of the College of Wooster,…

MORE NEWS

The Washington Post

The Coming Age of Climate Trauma

By Andrea Stanley 10/27/21

Jess Mercer received a call from her stepmom, Annette, that morning, a little after 8 a.m. “We’re coming,” Annette said, her voice so unrecognizable it sounded foreign. Jess was at her apartment in Chico, Calif.,…

civilbeat

Climate Change Threatens To Worsen Health Disparities In Hawaii

By Anita Hofschneider 10/22/21

Diseases like diabetes and obesity aren’t the first thing that most people think of when considering the health impacts of climate change. But they’re among a myriad of illnesses expected to worsen as global temperatures…

NPR

Climate change is bad for your health. And plans to boost economies may make it worse

By Nathan Rott 10/20/21

It may seem obvious: Heat kills. Wildfires burn. Flooding drowns. But the sprawling health effects of a rapidly warming world can also be subtle. Heat sparks violence and disrupts sleep. Wildfire smoke can trigger respiratory…

CNN

What no one is talking about in the wake of hurricanes and oil spills

By Brandon Tensley 10/07/21

Often, the damage that extreme weather or an environmental disaster inflicts on communities works as a one-two punch. The first punch: the actual event -- an oil spill, a hurricane, a winter storm, the lethal…

Very Well Health

How to Soothe Climate Anxiety With Hope and Action

By Sarah Simon 07/19/21

Over the past couple of weeks, it seems like climate disasters are happening everywhere we look. In the U.S. alone, a heat dome blazed in the Northwest, fires cropped up in California, New York City flooded,…

The Washington Post

How to cope with the existential dread of climate change

By Connie Chang 07/15/21

California was a refuge I always intended to return to. I grew up in the Bay Area in the 1980s and ’90s, then decamped to the East Coast for decades. In the temperate California of…

ABC NEWS

Climate change also has a mental health toll

By Cristina Corujo 07/11/21

For Meg Keene, climate change is something that not only needs to be addressed but is also very difficult to cope with personally. "As someone with anxiety, I kind of try not to think too…

The Guardian

Climate crisis inflicting huge ‘hidden costs’ on mental health

By Damian Carrington 05/26/21

The climate crisis is damaging the mental health of hundreds of millions of people around the world but the huge costs are hidden, scientists have warned. Heatwaves are increasing rates of suicide, extreme weather such…

The New Yorker

Climate Anxiety Makes Good Sense

By Bill McKibben 05/05/21

Even as we begin to emerge from the stress of the pandemic year, mental-health professionals are noting a steady uptick in a different form of anxiety—the worry over climate change and the future that it…

The San Diego Union Tribune

Opinion: Mental health and climate change are intertwined. Here’s how.

By Wael Al-Delaimy 04/23/21

Climate change, refugees and mental health: Why should we care? Climate change is scientifically documented beyond reasonable doubt, is getting worse, and is a threat to our existence as humans as well as our planet…

Outside

The long-lasting mental health effects of wildfires

By Jane C. Hu 12/03/20

In the wake of a fire, governments and newspapers count the damage: lives lost, acres of forest burned, homes and businesses destroyed. Those are the hard numbers, the data we have to measure the destruction.…

Nexus Media News

Mounting Drumbeat Of Climate Disasters Threatens Mental Health

08/26/20

The psychological toll of a drumbeat of climate change-fueled disasters, now compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, is mounting and the U.S. is unprepared. These are the findings of a project by the Center for Public…

HuffPost

You’re Probably Suffering From ‘Eco-Anxiety’

By Hayley Smith 02/27/20

Are our brains even wired to grapple with an existential crisis like climate change? ...

Ensia

Kristi E. White: Psychologists important role in the face of climate change

By Kristi E. White 02/21/20

People are experiencing a loss of hope in the face of the climate crisis — but mental health professionals can help find healthy ways to move...

ECOWATCH

Should ‘Eco-Anxiety’ Be Classified as a Mental Illness?

By Jordan Davidson 09/17/19

As the climate crisis takes on more urgency, psychologists around the world are seeing an increase in the number of children sitting in their offices suffering from ‘eco-anxiety,’ which the American Psychological Association described as…

The Conversation

I’m a Psychotherapist – Here’s What I’ve Learned From Listening to Children Talk About Climate Change

By Caroline Hickman 09/15/19

Eco-anxiety is likely to affect more and more people as the climate destabilises. Already, studies have found that 45% of children suffer lasting depression after surviving extreme weather and natural disasters. Some of that emotional…

TED

How climate change affects your mental health

By Britt Wray 05/01/19

"For all that's ever been said about climate change, we haven't heard nearly enough about the psychological impacts of living in a warming world," says science writer Britt Wray. In this quick talk, she explores…

Medium

Eco-anxiety

By Maria Ojala 02/20/19

We are in unprecedented territory when it comes to climate change. How young people choose to tackle this problem will be a major factor that sets the world on its future path.

Wired

Climate Change’s Looming Mental Health Crisis

By Matt Simon 08/02/18

For the Inuit of Labrador in Canada, climate disaster has already arrived. These indigenous people form an intense bond with their land, hunting for food and fur. “People like to go out on the land…