Guest “WTF?” by David Middleton
Report: Mental Health Concern over ‘Climate Despair’ Sweeps Nation
by PENNY STARR 5 Sep 2021
Some people are so upset over climate change they are suffering from mental health concerns considered “climate despair,” a new Washington Post report said.
The devastating and deadly Hurricane Ida has energized activists, including the Post, which published a lengthy piece that claims “more people than ever could experience serious challenges to their mental health as a result” of climate change.
The Post reported on what it refers to as “climate despair”:
[…]
The Post cited heat warnings, wildfires, and floods in recent years as proof of climate change, which is “suddenly feeling a lot more real for many Americans who have not seen it up close until now, clinicians say, leading many to seek one-on-one therapy.”
WaPo Quote:
A nonprofit organization called the Good Grief Network, a 10-step program inspired by the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous whose meetings provide “social and emotional support to people who feel overwhelmed about the state of the world,” says it has reached over a thousand people in four years. Steps in the program range from accepting “the severity of the predicament” to reinvesting “into meaningful efforts.”
Young adults are among the groups most vulnerable to feelings of depression and anxiety related to climate change, said Leslie Davenport, a climate psychology educator and consultant who is a member of a directory of climate-aware therapists.”
End Quote
[…]
The Post report continues:
WaPo Quote:
A nonprofit organization called the Good Grief Network, a 10-step program inspired by the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous whose meetings provide “social and emotional support to people who feel overwhelmed about the state of the world,” says it has reached over a thousand people in four years. Steps in the program range from accepting “the severity of the predicament” to reinvesting “into meaningful efforts.”
Young adults are among the groups most vulnerable to feelings of depression and anxiety related to climate change, said Leslie Davenport, a climate psychology educator and consultant who is a member of a directory of climate-aware therapists.
End Quote
“Mental health professionals help people face reality, because we know living in denial can ruin a person’s life,” Lise Van Susteren wrote in a report by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica. “As the climate crisis unfolds, we see people whose anger, anxiety, and depression, caused by the shortcomings of a previous generation, prevent them from leading productive lives themselves,” Van Susteren is also the founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance.
The Post also interviewed Katharine Wilkinson, an author and strategist who co-edited an anthology on fighting climate change called All We Can Save.
Wilkinson said that over the past year more than 600 people have signed up to lead book discussion groups she started “as an outlet for climate grief, signaling a growing demand for climate-related support in group formats.”
And Daniel Masler, a therapist in Washington, said in the Post report that requests for climate-related treatment at his practice has grown.
[…]
Breitbart
I don’t know who is most to blame:
- Our FUBAR educational system, that has churned out at least a couple of generations of scientifically illiterate morons.
- A “participation trophy” culture, churning out snowflakes.
- The purveyors of climate crisis porn, masquerading as climate “scientists.”
- The celebrity climate hypocrites (Al Gore, John Kerry, George Clooney, Harry & Me-Again, etc.) jet-setting around the world, trying to scare the Bejesus out of scientifically illiterate morons.
- Greta Thunberg, the poster child for Climate Despair… Too bad her poster isn’t a milk carton… If I have to tell you when I’m being sarcastic, it takes all the fun out of sarcasm!
- The sensationalistic left-wing media exaggerating everything except the truth.
- Fascistic social media platforms suppressing the truth.
- Power-hungry Marxist politicians, hell-bent on destroying capitalism and controlling every aspect of our lives.
- Or the depraved mental health “professionals” taking advantage of these witless fools.
What is worrying me is the lack of critical thinking and the failure to know and come to terms with basic facts such as that the current rate of sea level rise is just over 1″ in 10 years and that by the end of the century Boston might be as warm as New York.
And for the sake of my children and theirs, i hope and pray that warming continues for at least another 1000 years. The end of the Holocene Interglacial is a nightmare too horrible to imagine.
And even that is unlikely (sarcasm side). Different locations … different climates. This planet doesn’t have a climate. Averaging unique things has gotten out of hand.
30+ identified discrete climate zones around this planet at last count.
Averaging their characteristics to construct one value to represent the “health” or otherwise is risible.
Exactly That’s especially so when they insist on averaging it over only 30 years when some climates have not changed in centuries, if not millennia. People are generally confusing weather variations, within a climatic system, and the climate itself. The typical ‘true believer’ hates being reminded of history.
As for the number of climate zones their are … I have at least three in my part of the city, due to the usual causes of climate variability … proximity to large bodies of water and mountains. There is a ~3 degree temperature differential, different rainfall and different wind pattern.
But the world wide population of humans is indeed affected very strongly by planetary averages … be it food production, world trade and economic activity, excess population in one area that migrates to another part of the planet, etc etc etc.
The averages affect us all very much.
Nonsense. Averaging discrete information is meaningless.
Bullshit.
Crops grown in western Canada respond to the weather in western Canada. What happens in Australia or Hawaii is irrelevant, so averaging Australia’s and Hawaii’s temperatures in with those of western Canada produces a result that the crops don’t give a damn about. And when it’s -30 C where I live, whether Earth’s average temperature is 14.2 C or 14.8 C is also not relevant.
Very well stated and illustrated with examples, Randy. Well done.
Give me a break Duane….
Global warming and higher CO2 levels have helped increase global crop yields by 267% since the 1960’s:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG
Slightly warmer global temperatures and CO2 fertilization have been a huge boon for global crop yields and total global food production due to: longer growing seasons, less frost loss, increased arable land areas in Northern latitudes, earlier planting, and slightly more precipitation…
Look at the empirical evidence and stop being an “Eco-Worrier”….
You only forgot that higher CO2 concentrations cause plants to make better use of and therefore conserving water … a legitimate global concern. If AGW exists at all and only a small part of the conjecture is true; it has been a win – win situation.
Obviously, Duane has never planted or tended to a garden on a five acre plot.
How’s your fraction of a child doing in your ‘average’ household?
Oh dear.
Oh dear oh dear.
Food is a real thing
averages are part of mental constructions.
Lack of food in your stomach affects you
A mental construct does not – unless it drives you to despair and suicide.
A meaningless statement with no supporting argument because you can’t give one. An average is the middle of a widely distributed set of data. How does that average affect any one particular person in their local situation. Just baseless nonsense.
In the early days of military aviation, the cockpit and controls were designed for the average pilot. The end result was that planes kept falling out of the sky because the individual pilots could not properly reach the controls.
Needless to say, this resulted in a complete revamp of the cockpit with everything adjustable.
That will not happen.
Boston is north of Cape Cod which restricts warmer southern waters from flowing in and warming the city.
Even Boston’s airport tarmac located temperature stations will show new low temperatures as the AMO turns colder.
Didn’t you notice that I was responding to a quote from Bernie1815. I didn’t write it. You need to read all the posts in a thread in order to respond.
True … but glaciations tend to happen very quickly, as compared to long forming interglacials … over a period of just a few decades. If the planet has, say, ten billion souls, and over a period of just one or two generations the food production suddenly drops by half or more … and large regions become uninhabitable ice fields, those who live closer to the equator may not suffer themselves from inclement climate … but a world wide food shortage, rampant starvation and pandemics, massive reduction in economic activity, and mass migration of former northerners to warmer climes, could easily make life hell for you even if you live near the equator.
We live in a global population of humans, and things that happen far far away still affect you and me.
Humans have no freaking idea of the likely effects of a sudden entry into a new glaciation era. Human populations were vastly smaller, with no social organization beyond that necessary to support a hunter-gatherer existence, and with no agriculture, the last time earth entered a glaciation.
You’re not addressing anything I’ve said. Apparently you just wanted to rant at someone. Are you just angry, generally, and chose me?
Really, Duane, you could dig up real info and not be choused.
There is evidence that agriculture started in the Middle East 23,000 years ago.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150722144709.htm
Try harder, will you?
And your point is?
You should write a book, warning everyone that the world’s population is vulnerable to sudden famine and collapse. You could call it, “The Population Bomb,” which would convey exactly how dangerous a situation we’re all in, and how kind and smart YOU are for helping us out.
Oh, wait….
Duane – The ice core data show you are seriously mistaken. Ice-house conditions come on relatively slowly – over tens of thousands of years in the past. The interglacial periods happen geologically very quickly. The beginning of the current Holocene is marked by very rapid temperature rise, resulting in melt-back of most of the continental ice sheets and sea-level rise of over 300 ft in about 2000 years.
This rapid warming brought on the Holocene Climatic Optimum that lasted for about 2000-3000 more years, after which Earth has been cooling rather steadily to the Little Ice Age. Warming since the LIA was relatively quick (1870-1940 or so) and a bit more 1970-2000, but even so conditions now are still colder than the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods.
The only rapid cooling events documented in the geological record are the very brief events such as the Younger Dryas during the overall warming at the beginning of the Holocene. Extremely rapid cooling followed by very rapid warming (in hundreds of years) back to the overall warming trend toward the Holocene Climatic Optimum.
Similar rapid cooling events may have happened many times but the record does not have sufficient resolution to show them. And no one currently has an adequate explanation for these rapid temperature excursions.
I give you credit for pointing out that cold is very dangerous for mankind, but you need to acknowledge the historical benefits of warming periods for the human condition
Excellent synopsis of the actual science and your conclusion is spot on. We live in a Goldilocks period. We should be looking for solutions to the inevitable cooling to come, not destroying our economies because of a tiny, but very beneficial, warming trend. We are in a brief grace period from the default cold the world has experienced for millions of years. That should be the agenda for the future, not “carbon” capture and zero “carbon”. The Holocene is already long in the tooth.
No, glaciations happen gradually. Interglacials happen quickly, so you have it completely backwards.
“Averaging unique things has gotten out of hand.” Gad! What a great sentence…
Thanks 🙂 … once in awhile something sticks to the wall.
Consider also that in any given year there are colder days in Boston than the warmest days at the north pole and warmer days in Boston than the average temperature at the equator. Compared to the full seasonal temperature range, 1 degree is nothing at all.
The alarmists have trapped the general public in a fallacy that if something is true it must also be significant.
It’s apparently true that there has been a slightly milder temperature since the end of the Little Ice Age. That does not make it a significant effect.
Basically, 10 degrees is nothing at all.
10 degrees C or even F is far from nothing. Particularly if the climate cooled by 10 degrees. There would be widespread famine, disease pandemics , starvation, economic and social disruption, and mass migration of billions of people.
If you think 10 million illegal immigrants coming to the US from Latin America has been inconvenient, just consider an immigration of several hundred million coming in from Canada, Northern Europe, and Northern Asia, at the same time the northern half of the USA becomes uninhabitable, equivalent to the climate of northern Canada.
That’s what 10 degrees would do to us
Which climate?
The climate in my home has cooled off by more that 10C more than once. Usually when I say something inappropriate.
Duane is right about 10K of cooling, and 10K of warming would probably also have negative impacts, but there we go again with the gross exaggerations.
My point is that the actual magnitude of the change has been small and harmless. The fact that you can reach a harmful level extrapolating far beyond reality is meaningless.
1C/K of warming has been beneficial and at least a couple more degrees would continue to be beneficial. Not talking about 10 degrees in either direction or even 5.
One of the huge fallacies out there is that there are no natural cycles. A complex homeostatic system like the earth’s climate will have negative feedbacks resisting any change so that a warming trend could not likely continue until there is a harmful change.
Certainly we know that there are tipping points on the cooling side though, otherwise we wouldn’t have cycles of glaciation and interstadials. Without a reorientation of tectonic plates, it’s not in the cards that earth can exit the ice ages.
Critical thinking generally requires at least a couple of decades of being fooled and screwed by others repeatedly. When one is young and dumb, everything looks easy, and socialized fears are readily spread and assimilated because the young are trying so hard to fit in and conform, with a minority of the young who don’t.
Wrong. Critical thinking requires examples from leaders, teachers and most of all parents. In Western society the leaders rarely display any, teachers are specifically avoiding it and Neo-Marxists are working at undermining all influence from parents. Critical thinking, like formal logic, is taught, it is rarely intuited.
Critical thinking is also extremely difficult and requires hard work. We are emotional creatures, and it is much easier for us to think emotionally rather than using cold logic. This is especially true of young people today, who have been encouraged to emote rather than think.
May I suggest a twist?
instead of “think emotionally”, why not “react emotionally”?
Yep, that makes sense.
Exactly so. It also requires discipline and perseverance, two qualities no longer in demand among today’s young people. When one is as entitled as they appear to have become, there’s rarely any incentive to give up anything because instant rewards are always available. As for the hard work you mentioned … why work hard when they get the same reward just for showing up?
Bernie: “[…] and that by the end of the century Boston might be as warm as New York.”
(I see what you did there. Sneaky….)
–
–
And by the end of this century, New York may be as warm as Nunavut.
Don’t laugh. That far out, it’s within the error bars of the current climate models.
Well, first one must learn to stop and think – then one can learn to think critically. Honestly I don’t know if young people can do anything anymore then “feel”.
But feewings are soooo important, like “our” truth. Never mind facts, evidence, reality, science and logic … it’s what we believe that counts. It’s why we desperately need to alter the language so no one will ever “feel” uncomfortable again.
“I don’t know if young people can do anything anymore then “feel”.”
Not just young people
So the Washington Compost is in “Look what you made me do!” mode?
The go to phrase for the true sociopath.
That’s a great list.
Thank you.
It is a great list, and I think you could add shyster lawyers looking to make some money from lawsuits.
We’ve got all these experts, each pursuing their own agenda, blissfully unaware of whatever unintended consequences their antics may cause.
A group of young people should sue the IPCC for stealing their childhood.
It is actually amusing watch a group of people get worried and stressed about something over which they have no control which makes them even more stressed. Then you have another group of activist idiots pushing an impossible agenda which feeds a constant stream of doom and gloom to those already mentally vulnerable. What could possibly go wrong 🙂
That is actually a good idea. Sue IPCC for overblown alarmism ruining peoples lives. Is there any doubt a good case could be made? Maybe include Climate Now too.
Seriously. Any attorneys ready to step up?
Those types, by charter, are not only exempt from all taxes, they are exempt from the laws of almost all nations.
Good grief is right.
The cure is obvious: read WUWT.
No, Grief will be here in a minute to demonstrate his climate despair.
A nonprofit organization called the Good Griff Network, a 10-step program inspired by the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous whose meetings provide “social and emotional support to people who feel overwhelmed about the state of the world…
😉
The main message is if you have your solar powered LED light for night then your world is going to be so much better.
The guy wets his bed when Arctic sea ice declines, and then wets his bed because it’s recovering, making his previous bedwetting look foolish … or something. Who knows?
Good Grief Network?
I guess you really can’t make this stuff up.
Good grief Charlie Brown!
WaPo failed to make me feel guilty about being a climate denier and upsetting Greta Thunberg. OTH, am really enjoying the sense of Schadenfreud such a stupid article delivered.
…”Harry & Me-Again”.
Fantatastic, must remember that…can use it? It’s just so true.
Surely you can think up a good one for Charles too…
That was Mrs. Middleton’s contribution to the post… She also forwarded me the Breitbart article… 😎
Piers Morgan’s wife also refers to her as ‘Me-gain’ which is also quite appropriate.
Hi Alastair ,
I hope you are safe in your bubble .( New Zealand lock down Joke )
Here in NZ we are going to educate students to become climate change believers .
At least the University of Waikato is launching a new degree of CLIMATE CHANGE.
Already universities here are teaching climate change lies which cannot be backed up by science in our agricultural degrees .
Are we going to end up with a lot of mental problems amongst these students ?
Well, what happens if the climate changes in the wrong direction,Graham?
I do not now, and never will, understand the manufactured horror that we have a warm, friendly planet to live on instead of an iceball with giant hairy elephants foraging on it.
Perhaps the real problem is that the people who pound the Warmian drum the loudest have never spent any time in real cold, with now resources to fall back on, and no way out of the area at all.
I think it would do them some good if that happened to them.
You’ve ticked all the boxes except one, David. You didn’t mention the war on humour. ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus‘ could not be made today … and that’s a tragedy!
My $0.02 worth: I think the primary blame lies with the education establishment — it is rotten from top to bottom. For the last 40 years they have been producing a product of steadily declining quality while charging an ever increasing price. All the while managing to convince pretty much everyone that they need more and more of it.
Stopping all federal student loan guarantees would be a good start.
When I was at M.I.T graduate school in 1960, some professors there were seriously promoting and supporting socialism. I had a run-in with a female psychology professor on that matter.
It’s always the hypocrisy on display from the media that warrants the disdain most feel for them.
I think it was The Guardian fairly recently that was bemoaning the situation that people were needing psychologist support for climate dread.
Not a skerrick of admission in the article though that The Guardian itself (part of the Covering Climate Now alarmist cabal) was one of main boosters of climate alarmism porn
Meanwhile…The planet is greener, less severe storms hitting landfall, sea level rise is not getting worse, Arctic ice is still there, polar bears are thriving, quality of life for humans has never been better…Yet the population is being brain washed to the extent that civilisation will cease to exist unless we can change the climate. Oh the despair.
It’s the universities. They are the seminaries of the new faith.
See this Guardian article for evidence:
‘No point in anything else’: Gen Z members flock to climate careers | Environment | The Guardian
There is a reason why the 1st commandment forbids other Gods, even before the 6th. Murder is wrong (obviously). But it’s a one-off.
Other Gods lead to good intentions…. a road to Hell.
“Power-hungry Marxist politicians, hell-bent on destroying capitalism and controlling every aspect of our lives.”
Is what gives me “climate despair,” but not the way its supposed to. The climate will be fine. What we do about it in the name of “social justice,” could be catastrophic and is infinitely more likely than any man-made global warming scenario.
Elites, thinking they can fix the Earth’s climate, is the *real* scary part.
I’m pretty sure no one with a scintilla of intelligence and some knowledge of science really (especially the elites) believes any of it. It’s simply a convenient narrative to coerce favorable complicity from whomever has access to the cheque book or the ear of the great unwashed. “Climate change” is now an economic tool, a device.
That’s scary enough, Tom, but them actually TRYING to “fix” it is scarier yet.
The modern science of plausible, but not probable, and not actual, with an em-pathetic appeal and threats of extortion, are the modes and methods of social and political advocacy and activism, and cargo cult science, for-profit extraction from green or kneed populations.
“Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will always hurt me.” Or is “I never made a mistake that was wrong” more appropriate. Actually this fits in with all the negativity in scientific papers, journalism, and junk like this.– From the University of Texas “Diversity Action Plan”–“Though our percentages reflect a majority of non-white students, diverse students are underrepresented in certain areas of study including business, engineering, and the sciences. …..Support the new Hate and Bias Incident Policy (HOP_9-1810) implemented in March 2017: This new policy applies to all UT Austin students, faculty, staff, university affiliates, visitors, and applicants for admission to or employment with the university and others conducting business on campus….” They just had a Supreme Court case on race where they may have been given them some relief, but are slow learners.
They need to go to the Texas border to see real pain.
An oldie but a goodie:
Just STOP IT!!
lol! Though he was gonna say “grow up!”
Just ran in to another liberal today, she paid lip service to ‘climate change’ and when i asked her how much it had warmed in the last 20 years she said she did not know the statistics, but of course she drives an SUV and uses fossil fuels every day. HYPOCRITE!
So do many of we non-alarmists. And that does not make us liberal!
They never know the details.
The stupidity demonstrated by so many today is what frightens me, certainly not the evil specters of rising CO2, melting poles, or (gasp) climate change. I’ve been kicking around long enough to have witnessed some unusual weather over the years but nothing so unusual that it worried me. It takes a special kind of stupid to look at the recent Hurricane Ida reports and believe the hype and then lose sleep over it or run to a shrink for hand-holding. Pretty much all of this stuff has happened in my lifetime, nothing really new here at all.
So climate change worries are a mental health issue, hmmmm….
Well, according to those who served in WWII, FUBAR is really just SNAFU.
FUBAR is what Joe Biden is doing to the United States.
From the article: “Some people are so upset over climate change they are suffering from mental health concerns considered “climate despair,” a new Washington Post report said.”
Michael Mann must be so proud.
Michael Mann’s behavior virtually screams sociopath. I don’t believe he even questions the morality of his behavior of gives it a second thought. Phil Jones might have been an altruist and considered “The Cause”, but Mann was solely motivated by what’s best for Mikey. His career would have been completely different had he not answered the plea: “will no one rid me of this troublesome warm period?” (thanks Henry II) with MBH (1998).
Rx:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_August_2021_v6.jpg
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20UAH%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20AndCO2.gif
Change the scale on that graph from 0.1 to 1.0 and the trend all but disappears. That should matter.
I try to explain this to people – we live in a city that has an annual temperature variation of 80 C (-40 to +40 C; both extremes are rare). And they are getting worked up over less than 1.0 degrees of warming.
Another source of income for the rent-a-friend industry.