Alternate title: Bill McKibben explained
o_O
I’ve had about two dozen emails wanting me to carry this from the Sydney Morning Herald:
Mental illness rise linked to climate
Erik Jensen
RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.
The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.
As many as one in five people reported ”emotional injury, stress and despair” in the wake of these events.
OK, well then, just a thought or two.
1. The average daily diurnal temperature variation varies greatly with location and latitude and altitude. From Wikipedia: High desert areas typically have the greatest diurnal temperature variations. Low lying, humid areas typically have the least. This explains why an area like the Snake River Plain can have high temperatures of 38°C (100°F) during a summer day, and then have lows of 5-10°C (40-50°F). At the same time, Washington D.C., which is much more humid, has temperature variations of only 8°C (15°F). Source: M. Hackworth “Weather & Climate” course notes, with prior permission
2. Moving from Boston to Tampa Florida for retirement or a job, or even a brief trip to Disney World subjects a human to a climate change from this:
to this:
3. The agreed upon climate change (aka “global warming”) signal over the last century is (according to GISS) is:
About 0.8°C or 1.44°F.
Yes that must be it, that tiny variation over 100 years, an order of magnitude or more smaller than daily and seasonal variation is what’s causing the loss of social cohesion and making people worldwide crazy.
4. Or, random acts of severe weather for which there are no trends:
Yep, case closed.
How many words do the Aborigines of Australia have for crap?
5. On the other hand, maybe they are looking at this the wrong way, from Voxy.co.nz in 2010:
6. By the way, this recent report from the Australian Climate Institute cited in the SMH article is old news. This is recycled crazy from 2008.
Climate change and mental health
Prabhat Kumar Chand* and Pratima Murthy
Introduction
The physical health impacts of climate change, especially infections, allergies and
respiratory and cardiovascular diseases are now well recognized. However, the mental health impact of such change, especially in Asian countries became topical after the Asian tsunami. In this article, we attempt to look at the diverse aspects of climate and mental health: seasonal climate variation and its effect on mental health, extreme weather conditions and their psychological impact and specific climatic disasters and their consequences.
Read the whole report from 2008 from the World Health Organization here:
Sounds familiar, there might be plagiarism afoot, better send in John Mashey. o_O
I don’t know about Climate Change causing mental illness, but I’m pretty certain that the LACK of evidence for warming in recent years could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress in Al Gore and his supporters.
I have worked in the field of mental illness for many years and I woud suggest a few points. Any stress on human beings increases the incidence of mental illness. That includes issues such as catastrophic and greedy management of the economy by right wing financiers, pointless foreign wars, catastrophic predictions of future climate and a host of other demons we face as a price of our human condition. What causes the mental illness is not an issue, it is how we deal with them and learn how to cope with the stressors that is the primary goal. Suggesting climate change is a factor more salient than any other is extremely inaccurate and reflects a poor understanding of the nature, impact and distribution of mental illness.
I’m suffering from “Constant Warmist Bullshit Stress Disorder”.
Note the usual chorus, of jeers, boos, farts and whistles.
However, I know for a ‘fact’ (a rare commodity these days) of several individuals who committed suicide during the long Australian Drought citing depression caused by the failure of their livelihoods and lifestyle projects.
The Imperial British Army in the Indian subcontinent documented hundreds of cases of ‘madness and depression’ which were attributed to the climate. It was called going ‘Doolally’ after the name of the biggest British mental asylum in the country.
Do I believe that CO2 is causing measurable or significant global warming? No.
Do I believe that climate is linked to mental health? Yes.
PJ. The ABC is ‘rabid warmist’.
And I hope that when the new government gets in they will castrate that organization.
I suspect however that the ABC will have subtly changed its tune by then.
Well, the climate communist hippies obviously are seeing stuff that aren’t visible to everyone else, so who’s to say that climate change aren’t causing some kind of crazed mental state.
It is easily provable by observation and at times very fun: deny them and they go completely bonkers. :p
Well if it’s offical that fear of climate change can lead to various mental disorders I imagine that some of the likes of Mann and co are beginning to wonder what levels of law suits the lawyers will bring against them when agw from CO2 is accepted to be a deception………
“charles nelson says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:42 am
Note the usual chorus, of jeers, boos, farts and whistles.
However, I know for a ‘fact’ (a rare commodity these days) of several individuals who committed suicide during the long Australian Drought citing depression caused by the failure of their livelihoods and lifestyle projects….”
Charles, those people committed suicide because of the failure of their livelihoods. Much the same as people who tragically sometimes do after business failures, divorces, job losses. Not because it was hot or cold per se.
The logic you are suggesting is that an Australian farmer before ‘AGW’ never took his life when his farm failed in a drought? Also the British army example you use is misleading. Everyone here will probably agree that putting someone in an extreme climate [for them] for some years will affect their mental health. But that’s not the same as saying the ‘climate’ will affect people in their own situations to the extent stated here, particularly with no real evidence of changes!
I’m more concerned about the mental health problems of alarmism. Last week I watched genuinely terrified families in tears expecting to be wiped out by ‘Hurricane’ Irene.
Yes, I suppose it is ridiculous, on the face of it, to think that relatives or friends of any of the 40 people who were killed by Hurricane Irene will suffer anything like depression.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:33 am
“I have worked in the field of mental illness for many years and I woud suggest a few points. Any stress on human beings increases the incidence of mental illness. That includes issues such as catastrophic and greedy management of the economy by right wing financiers, pointless foreign wars, catastrophic predictions of future climate and a host of other demons we face as a price of our human condition. What causes the mental illness is not an issue, it is how we deal with them and learn how to cope with the stressors that is the primary goal. Suggesting climate change is a factor more salient than any other is extremely inaccurate and reflects a poor understanding of the nature, impact and distribution of mental illness.”
Let’s omit the “right wing” descriptor … you will find that many of these “financiers”, I prefer to call them international money launderers, are not “right wing” at all but indeed quite “progressive” wealthy elitists of the ilk that we find backing a lot of the current AGW scare campaign.
On the balance, Gareth, I fully agree with you. 🙂
So it follows then that James Hansen has a 28% chance of being an obsessive compulsive. 😉
Kitler says:
August 29, 2011 at 11:34 pm
As a lot of mental illnesses are caused by bacterial or viral infections and amoebic infections affecting the brain can someone explain how getting syphilis increases with climate change?
It’s all that extra hot blood increasing the sex drive!
I seem to recall a couple of years ago the barking bonkers brigade held a conference in nearby Exeter to disccuss the “mental illness” deniers of climate change are suffering from, apparently we should all be medicated or somesuch! I’ll try & hunt down the details later today! 🙂
”The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.”
Funny how here in the UK the msm always seem to invoke the Dunkirk effect, whereby social cohesion increases in the wake of a natural disaster and strangers help each other.
When I was a young lad, it was during the period of atmospheric testing of atomic bombs.
We were told that the radioactive particle so released were affecting the weather.
Whenever it was unusually hot or cold or wet or dry, it was all due to the atomic bomb.
At first we believed it.
Gradually, it became a figure of fun.
“oh – the weather is unusually …” fill in the blank to taste.
“It must be THE BOMB – ha ha ha”.
Gradually we forgot all about it.
I can’t recall if this belief in the BOMB caused much mental anguish.
You mst remember it was in the context of the USA – USSR rush to see who had the biggest bomb and who had the most bombs and the much talk of assurred -mutual-destruction.
So we did have really problems back then.
Only atomic caused bad weather was not one of them.
Today on the other hand – we just make up our own imaginary terrors as we go.
So much more convenient.
You never lack something to be frightened about.
It’s called progress, I think.
It’s the idiots pushing this rubbish that are MAD.
“charles nelson says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:47 am”
Well, there is hope. The ABC broadcast this with none of the usual warmist bias the ABC is famous for. Even Karoly was “quiet”, maybe embarrassed by real science. http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/08/bravo-abcs-balanced-report-on-cloud/
DDP says:
August 29, 2011 at 11:29 pm
“Meanwhile, back in the real world suicide rates usually rise with long, dark, cold depressing winters.”
Because that’s when the warmists fear the return of the dreaded warm summer the most.
Things that may contribute to depression.
Increased cost of transport.
Increased cost of domestic Energy.
Increased cost of Food and domestic products.
Loss of jobs.
Continual exposure to doom and gloom.
Increased government control.
“charles nelson says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:42 am”
I think you’ll find the British Army was not suitably equiped to sustain itself properly in climates such as in India back then. So, as in many cases, it was ignorance of the environment by those in charge, “equipment failure”, heavy thick wollen uniforms, profuse sweating, no option use available shade and no water. Drive anyone “doolally”. It’s similar to early European settlers using their building techniques which proved unsuitable for the Australian climate.
I have been through a couple of doozies, Agnes, Andrew (OK, I was on the edge of Andrew, which is why I list Agnes first), Gloria (no power for weeks), and a few fizzles, like Irene, and each one *increased* neighborliness. What is “social cohesion” anyway? Do we all wear berets and red scarves and march in unison in the town square?
It is so called experts endlessly banging on and on about climate change that causes depression
I’m depressed because our heating has come on 3 times this week, and its August!!!
I thought this might provide comic relief!
A member of a tribe in northern Australia asked their new elder if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild?
Since he was an elder in a modern community he had never been taught the old secrets.
When he looked at the sky he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like.
To be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that they should collect firewood to be prepared.
But, being a practical leader, after several days he had an idea.
He walked out to the telephone booth on the highway, called the Bureau of Meteorology and asked if the coming winter in that area was going to be a cold one?
The meteorologist responded that the winter would be quite cold, so the elder went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood.
A week later he called the Bureau of Meteorology and was again assured that it would be a very cold winter.
He went back to his community and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
Two weeks later the elder called the Bureau again. “Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?” he asked.
“Absolutely”, the man replied. “It’s looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever.”
“How can you be so sure?” the elder asked.
The weatherman replied, “Our satellites have reported that the Aboriginal people in the north are collecting firewood like crazy, and that’s always a sure sign.”
Sometimes cause and effect can be mis-interpreted.
Lets look at the facts again…
28% of people who believe in AGW have a mental disorder.
It must then follow that a person’s sanity is inversely proportional to alarmist beliefs.
And , 78% of climate alarmists are most likely in denial
🙂
I want to be in the room when Ove’s head actually explodes…like the scene from total recall.