From the UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA and the “abnormal people don’t worry about climate change” department comes this load of codswallop. It’s all about messaging, if we didn’t have the MSM pushing the “weather events are now climate driven” BS, for which there is no evidence (even the most recent IPCC report says so), we would not have people “worrying” about it. An online survey of just 342 people was used for this “study”. Shades of Lewandosky…
Researchers explore psychological effects of climate change
Wildfires, extreme storms and major weather events can seem like a distant threat, but for those whose lives have been directly impacted by these events, the threat hits much closer to home.
As reports of such incidents continue to rise, researchers at the University of Arizona set out to learn more about how people’s perception of the threat of global climate change affects their mental health. They found that while some people have little anxiety about the Earth’s changing climate, others are experiencing high levels of stress, and even depression, based on their perception of the threat of global climate change.
While significant research has explored the environmental impacts of climate change, far fewer studies have considered its psychological effect on humans, said UA researcher Sabrina Helm, an associate professor of family and consumer science in the UA’s Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Helm and her colleagues found that psychological responses to climate change seem to vary based on what type of concern people show for the environment, with those highly concerned about the planet’s animals and plants experiencing the most stress.
The researchers outline in a new study, which appears in the journal Global Environmental Change, three distinct types of environmental concern: Egoistic concern is concern about how what’s happening in the environment directly impacts the individual; for example, a person might worry about how air pollution will affect their own lungs and breathing. Altruistic concern refers to concern for humanity in general, including future generations. Biospheric concern refers to concern for nature, plants and animals.
In an online survey of 342 parents of young children, those who reported high levels of biospheric concern also reported feeling the most stressed about global climate change, while those whose concerns were more egoistic or altruistic did not report significant stress related to the phenomenon.
In addition, those with high levels of biospheric concern were most likely to report signs of depression, while no link to depression was found for the other two groups.
“People who worry about animals and nature tend to have a more planetary outlook and think of bigger picture issues,” Helm said. “For them, the global phenomenon of climate change very clearly affects these bigger picture environmental things, so they have the most pronounced worry, because they already see it everywhere. We already talk about extinction of species and know it’s happening. For people who are predominantly altruistically concerned or egoistically concerned about their own health, or maybe their own financial future, climate change does not hit home yet.”
Those with high levels of biospheric concern also were most likely to engage in pro-environmental day-to-day behaviors, such as recycling or energy savings measures, and were the most likely to engage in coping mechanisms to deal with environmental stress, ranging from denying one’s individual role in climate change to seeking more information on the issue and how to help mitigate it.
Although not generally stressed about climate change, those with high levels of altruistic concern, or concern for the well-being of others, also engaged in some environmental coping strategies and pro-environmental behaviors — more so than those whose environmental concerns were mostly egoistic.
“Climate change is a persistent global stressor, but the consequences of it appear to be slowly evolving; they’re fairly certain to happen — we know that, now — but the impact on individuals seems to be growing really slowly and needs to be taken very seriously,”
said Helm, whose co-authors include UA Norton School researchers Melissa Barnett, Melissa Curran and Zelieann Craig, along with UA alumna Amanda Pollitt.
The research, Helm said, has important public health implications.
“Climate change has evident physical and mental health effects if you look at certain outcomes, such as the hurricanes we had last year, but we also need to pay very close attention to the mental health of people in everyday life, as we can see this, potentially, as a creeping development,” Helm said. “Understanding that there are differences in how people are motivated is very important for finding ways to address this, whether in the form of intervention or prevention.”
###
The paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378017305228?via%3Dihub
Some people have worried about climate change a little too much:

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People are afraid of the hype caused by the Lame Stream Media. The actual events are anticlimactic.
The fear will subside when the average Joe realizes that there is no wolf and become inured to the hype.
For people like me (an octaganarian) I don’t worry about climate change because the climate was changing long before climate change became climate change, if you know what I mean. It’s like being on a rudderless ship being tossed about by the tides and wind. Why worry? You can’t do anything about it. Don’t worry, be happy, as the old saying goes.
Put a zoom lens on an ant, spider or cockroach, voice over in a breathless, melodramatic way stiff like mosnetsr from outer space, or monsters taking over the planet, throw in climate change or not and you will create fear and mental issues for a lot of people who (gormlessly) place ant faith in waht the MSM puts out.
Is that “anticlimactic” or should it be “antiCLIMATic”?
And???
+10E6
“also engaged in some environmental coping strategies”….It takes someone really sick to constantly come up with this crap
Everyone uses coping strategies. It’s how we work.
environmental coping strategies?
Environmental coping strategy: It’s cold outside. Do I need a coat, or will a sweater do?
The usual leftist coping strategy is to change a lightbulb , and talk about renewables on social media. This avoids any need to actually change your own life style and then blame Trump, the Koch Bros and climate deeynerz for the lack of any real change.
It’s a psychology paper you are free to even argue if that is a science at all and many prominent scientists have expressed a view 🙂
They got a “reputable” journal to publish the results of an internet survey as an article? If any of the authors puts this on a CV as a publication credit, he should be prosecuted for fraud.
“Fraud”??? Hey. 15 minutes is 15 minutes.
From the article: “Wildfires, extreme storms and major weather events can seem like a distant threat, but for those whose lives have been directly impacted by these events, the threat hits much closer to home.
As reports of such incidents continue to rise”
The reports may be rising but the incidents of extreme events are not rising, they are in fact, decreasing: Fewer tornadoes, fewer hurricanes making U.S. landfall, fewer wildfires.
All they have said is that those who live in areas that are prone to wildfires are more likely to be concerned about wildfires.
Or that people who have already been burned out by a wildfire are more worried about wildfires than those who haven’t.
Or that purple people are more likely to be concerned about one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eaters than non-purple people.
People shouldn’t just worry about wildfires, they should learn how to prevent them from being damaging. Fire suppression is part of this, but controlled fires and land-use management are also parts. It is not as if climate change would burn your house. It is land-use, failure to control fuel loads, and fire suppression in the end. I was some time a go visiting an area that has long dry season. What they do there is controlled fires. Buildings are protected by stone walls, pavings and watering. There were fires all around in the landscape, but the buildings were safe.
“Helm and her colleagues found that psychological responses to climate change seem to vary based on what type of concern people show for the environment, with those highly concerned about the planet’s animals and plants experiencing the most stress.”
Those who are suffering from delusions already are prone to adding more delusions to their self-induced malaise.
That’s it in a “nut”shell.
I would suggest yelling in protest in Tiananmen Square in front of tanks or in the streets of Pyongyang or Tehran.
Been there, done that, China went modern aftterwards.
What about this guy?

Ah, the little man with the shopping bags… I remember it well….
And afterwards, when things were ‘cleaned up,’ the Chinese government said ‘That did not happen here in Beijing.’
Most don’t know that 10,000 people were killed there: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tiananmen-square-massacre-death-toll-secret-cable-british-ambassador-1989-alan-donald-a8126461.html
Poems, well, that is what the ambassador reportedly said, but in fact we have very little means to verify even the number of zeroes there. I’m happy it didn’t escalate to a civil war. I’m sure the Chinese government has also considered this, and is happy.
China is not a democracy, rather a state looking like if it was running based on meritocracy. Very very different from Pyongyang, which is mock-cracy.
China is the new climate leader, we hear. So I guess Trump is right when he ‘digs’ coal. That is what China does.
Modern as in banning any references to the massacre and turning up the screws with placement of Communist Party members in every Chinese company and downgrading freedom in HK?
From the article: “They found that while some people have little anxiety about the Earth’s changing climate, others are experiencing high levels of stress, and even depression, based on their perception of the threat of global climate change.”
Some people have little anxiety about the Earth’s changing climate because they see the changes as “business as usual”; they have happened before, while those “experiencing high levels of stress, and even depression” are not looking at the weather, they are reading science fiction stories put out by the Alarmists and the Leftwing Media that are meant to scare them.
I think those folks who suffer from anxiety would benefit from a prescription (maybe Escitalopram?).
Zombinol is more effective.
How about a fifth of Jim Beam and some sliced lemons?
high levels of stress, and even depression, . . .
. . . leads one to see issues where there are none.
The direction of causation is hard to figure out.
They "see it" because that is what is artificially hyped by the MSM, politicians and activist organizations, despite real data by reputable scientists and even the IPCC.
In the context of that article, "altruistic" equals "virtue signalling".
Apparently rising CO2 is good for trees and causes moonbats to flourish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_JPcBwYGmo
How about the psychological effects of being badgered with grotesque exaggerations and false alarms for years on end?
While knowing they get promotions and tenure along the way.
+97 for Tom and ResourceGuy.
From the article: “Helm and her colleagues found that psychological responses to climate change seem to vary based on what type of concern people show for the environment, with those highly concerned about the planet’s animals and plants experiencing the most stress.”
Alarmist don’t seem to have much concern about all the birds being killed by windmills. Skeptics are VERY concerned about the fate of the birds.
It is extremely disappointing that after 7 million years of human evolution, a hominid can utter a string like: “weather events are now climate driven”, an imagine to itself that this is symbolic language, a logically expressive phrase of the kind distinguishing humans from other animals or plants. It is not. It is a vacuous tautology of they type “wetness is caused by water” or “a cold thing is cooled by coldness”.
It is not the first time that hominids have unevolved sentience. Humans are unusual in the animal 🦓 kingdom in being the sole example of their genus, with no close relatives alive. This is because during human evolution modern H sapiens wiped out all other human species such as the Neanderthals, Denisovans and floresiensis. What are now chimpanzees and gorillas 🦍 evolved from hominid ancestors like human ancestors, but were “smart” enough to unevolve rational consciousness and expanded cerebral function, returning to the non-sentient animal world and thereby to safety from human extermination.
With Trump in the Whitehouse it is evidently time for liberal lefties to likewise flee from rational sentience and start on the road back to the jungle and the comfort of simple animal consciousness free from anxiety about climate change.
In other words, only stupid people are breeding.
So Much Total BS! Note the “Survey” was taken On-Line. The American Psychiatric Counsel and the “Goldwater Law” BOTH State that Psychiatric Analysis without directly seeing the Patient is not only Stupid and Counter Productive, but it is ILLEGAL! Guess they couldn’t find a Gullible Source for Funding this Idiotic “Survey” despite all the Liberal Funding Largess out there.
“People who worry about animals and nature tend to have a more planetary outlook and think of bigger picture issues,” Helm said. “For them, the global phenomenon of climate change very clearly affects these bigger picture environmental things, so they have the most pronounced worry, because they already see it everywhere. We already talk about extinction of species and know it’s happening. For people who are predominantly altruistically concerned or egoistically concerned about their own health, or maybe their own financial future, climate change does not hit home yet.”
This is the prima example of why these people get climate change wrong. Everything is in a nice neat little box filled with black and white. There are, of course, only 2 or 3 ways to see a thing. They are the ones who are incapable of dealing with the complexity of life and weather and climate. So a lot of psychological projection going on here. The sciencedirect.com paper is HILARIOUS… reminds me of all those gov’t studies we make fun of (but lament their costs)…the study of the effects of cocaine on Japanese quail, or the study of why Argentina gay men partake in risky sexual behavior when they’re drunk. I counted over 100 of such references for this paper alone! This is their own, very special cozy little artificial economy created to exchange our tax dollars.
Absolutely. Academia must be nuked from orbit – only way to be sure.
Or perhaps nuked into orbit?
Well that was Pol Pot’s plan (if he only had nukes), and it didn’t end well, did it?
(It’s nice to throw in a pol-pot-card and avoid the hitler-card.)
Except this time it’s the academics who are in the role of Pol Pot. It is the extreme left wing ‘progressive’ academics who are attempting to shut down all dissenting voices through censorship and their main vehicle is language control with ‘hate speech’, safe spaces, microagressions and all the rest. Now that has moved on to gangs of thugs physically assaulting any who disagree. Oh no, I know who the Pol Pot is here and they must be taken down or the civilised Western World is finished.
From the article: ““For them, the global phenomenon of climate change very clearly affects these bigger picture environmental things, so they have the most pronounced worry, because they already see it everywhere. We already talk about extinction of species and know it’s happening.”
Here is another study claiming that CAGW is here today and causing damage. There is no evidence this is true, but that doesn’t stop these people from saying it’s true. They have started out with a false assumption (CAGW is real and affecting the Earth’s climate NOW) and then they extrapolate from there.
There’s no evidence CAGW is here and now, or is causing any damage to Earth or humans. It’s all hysterical science fiction.
I find this weaseling
disturbing, because we do talk about extinction of species, and we know it is happening. It is just that the text implies a totally bogus mass extinction on species which is not happening. And, yet we talk about the the mass extinction. As I did above. They set the story, they circulate it around the daily kos – gaurdian axis, and then conclude it is true, because it was brought to them by their favourite medium.
It is not as if there wasn’t drivel in this blog, but this is a blog, not a prestigious journal. But then when all the smug newspapers, or worse, scientific papers, print very badly founded stuff on the ‘current’ mass extinction, I go nuts. The number of known, living species is increasing every year. It is not decreasing. There is no meat in claims of ‘current’ mass extinction. There are lots of ‘vulnerable populations’, but the talk about extinction is oftentimes mixing up extinction of species with extinction of a population at some limited geographic area. Also, I think some advocate scientists have taken as a challenge to find small populations as they can be weaponized in ecowars.
Oh, here. I saw this posted by a friend on another website.
The millenials, who want to scream at the sky (because of imaginary monsters) can’t even open a can of beans without fumbling it. And THEY are worried about the environment?
Even Accuweather finally posted an article today that describes the difference between “weather” (immediate and recent) and “climate” (30 years or more). If Accuweather is bending a little, what IS the real problem?
I rather liked that some were videoing the process for future reference. I wonder what they would have done when presented with the “John Wayne” opener that came with C-rations.
These kids are a product of climate change. It is far more dangerous than we skeptics admit.
The can opening feat and the resulting applause is not surprising. How much can you learn with your nose glued to an I phone all day? You can’t see anything other than the latest version of PAC-man. Just stroll by the local Apple outlet. Packs of millennial “studying” the latest game. Calculus anyone?
It’s possible to open a can without a tool by rubbing its bottom along a concrete surface until it wears through. Takes about a minute.
There are lots of cool tips on YouTube about such lifehacks, and also about tool use tips. It’s very educational.
That would be the P-38 opener?
Well, I used to scream about stuff when I was 6 or 8… Oh! Silly me, I left out a decade there…
Or maybe Accuweather is upping the ante for more climate ad spending and they are threatening normalcy if they don’t get it pronto.
To be fair, some of those rotary openers can be crap.
Give me the old fashioned “stab” opener every time.
That is painful to watch. Not only is the individual really struggling with this simple task but the audience is paying close attention, as if they had never witnessed such an ‘event’ before.
One time, I impressed our receptionist by opening a can with my Swiss Army knife… I bet no millennials know how to to that… Or use a P38 “John Wayne” can opener… 😉
It is relatively quick and easy to open a can using a fixed blade knife, just jab it in and shear along. I suppose a folding knife would work but you need to think about how you are doing it. Of course, opening a can with a knife requires a knife which might not be something that a millennial crowd has seen.
A P-38 can opener is a great little tool!
David, Not the ole P-38 can opener. Most millennials would be bloodied and bruised and maybe mortally wounded using one of those dangerous things. Heck, even someone that has used them can get nicked using them. I wonder if they are FDA or OSHA banned. After all you have to protect the children.
When my older brother got out of the Marine Corps he gave me a handful of P38’s. He called then “John Wayne” can openers. I used those to open cans for decades.
Back in the late 1990’s, our receptionist couldn’t open a can of soup because the electric can opener in the break room was broken. I opened it with the P38-like can opener on my Swiss Army knife. She literally had no idea cans could be opened like that… LOL!
A couple of years ago I found one of the P-38 can openers in my camper. I gloriously brought it out and asked fellow campers if they knew what it was. No one did. I then started the can opening procedure. It was a tedious process and I actually nicked myself. No one wanted to try it after by grand success or failure.
I think the K-rations that included the “John Wayne” can-opener also included a packet of “John Wayne” toilet paper.
“Rough and tough and wouldn’t take s**t on off anybody!”
What a woose! Can’t even get a can opener to work without fumbling all over the place. America is in trouble if these represent our best and brightest.
Probably the task set for her was to open it without setting it on a surface. That’s not so easy with the opener she was using.
They do realise that both the tin, and the tin-opener are made from metals that require HEAPS of CO2 from COAL, don’t they.
Maybe it was so “ART” display or something.???
None of the psychological effects are a result of climate change. They are a result of anxiety about climate change, which isn’t the same thing. It would be like doing research on people on people who fear being abducted by aliens, and then labelling it as “Researchers explore psychological effects of alien abduction”. A more accurate title would be “Researchers explore psychological effects of climate alarmism.”
+97 very insightful.
LOL, +97 indeed
“Climate change has evident physical and mental health effects”
No – it has not. It would be more appropriate to say that:
Climate change alarmism has evident mental health effects.
Yup.
Well climate change alarmism has turned a few people I know nuts.
I’m worried about worrying, but decided not to worry about it.
That worries me…
(take xanax… ☺)
I worried about the ones worrying, but that was worrisome when I realized that I was then worrying about my own worries
Reminds me of a sign in the back office of my first employer. It read:
“I’ve been reading so much about the bad effects of smoking, drinking, overeating and sex that I’ve decided to stop reading.”
That would be the best “cure” for those who are being “traumatized” by the Eco-Fascist propaganda.
Just stop listening to it.
They may be right on the effect that the constant reporting of every natural calamity will cause some people stress.
It is comparable with constant reporting of crime, police shootings ( the police being shot). It causes people to believe our society is falling apart. Of course this is not the true, rather some political groups are capitalizing on the tragedies for their own gain, as a group as well as individuals.
Any peer review should have noted that any quantity of bad news would cause the same level of anxiety.
michael
So this is where the paid protests of ACORN members ended up and other street money.
In John Gittinger’s Personality Assessment System model (pasf.org), there is a factor he called “activity level”. While there has been extensive research and debate on expanding the meaning of this factor to better fit the rest of the PAS model, the original definition was first explained to me as, “L (low activity) means someone inclined to sit and worry about the bomb (this was in the 1960s) and H (high activity) is someone who acts rather than brooding.” In its simplest form, this factor can be measured very simply by comparing a person’s performance on the DSY subtest of the WAIS with the average of their scores. Scores above average (actually a more complex computation, but in concept like an average) are high activity level. So are these psychologists just finding which people are “L” factors? This is a common problem in surveys where psychologists, who should know better, never consider that all they are measuring is whether their sample is dominated by one personality factor or another.
Note: Gittinger headed the Psychological Division of the CIA in Cold War years. While the PAS model was published, not classified, most of the amazing things it was used for which validated the model could not be published so few psychologists learned the model. It is more sophisticated that other personality models and thus takes a lot of experience to be able to make good use of it.
I’d like to see the demographics of where these people live. I grew up in the countryside, spent a fair bit of time in suburban and urban areas, then moved back to live in the countryside.
Nature’s doing fine, with or without our management. Yes we have areas we can improve, as we have been, but few emergencies.
I’ll be willing to bet that most ‘concerned’ people don’t actually live anywhere near nature itself, but in extremely artificial environments.
climate stuff in the hands of family, consumer issues and agriculture at the uni of Arizona! So 324 people were surveyed. Doesn’t seem a serious survey by a competent group. The real conclusion that won’t be arrived at is that those expressing the neuroses will be democrat voters who are ill over Trump getting in. With Dems truth is what you want to be true. Google Alinskys Rules.
Their followers are handicapped by the lefty education that has been designed for followers. It is amazing that free thinkers have survived the stacked deck of social engineering of the past couple of generations. I harken back to the amazingly brave dissidents that came up through 4 generations of repression in the soviet union but stubbornly thought for themselves. Im sure the study’s pejorative ‘egoistic’ category are the ones that wouldnt bend (sceptics) to become the designer-brained product desired.
For my own family, I made sure I had a role in their education and in my grandchildrens to the degree possible to counter a lot if this stuff. Hey, they didn’t unthinkingly accept a lot of what I had to say, I’m proud to relate.
“People who worry about animals and nature tend to have a more planetary outlook and think of bigger picture issues,” Helm said.
No. They are either urban people whose only contact with nature is TV propaganda or people paid to promote worry to support their eco-crisis research etc. industry.
That’s why “they already see it everywhere” because their everywhere is TV and they are now brainwashed to see everything through Green doomsday glasses.
“We already talk about extinction of species and know it’s happening.”
Yes THEY do constantly talk about “extinction” even when it is “extirpation” because the former sounds much more scary. But they almost never specifically mention any thing that has recently gone extinct because it is not really happening. Nor do they mention that extinction is part of evolution.
Big Pharma propagandizes (advertises) to promote fake or dubious worries too. It works.