Climate security

Climate change becomes a matter of mental health

In 2011, the American Psychological Association published a report on psychology and global climate change, taking a look at the issue from a multi-dimensional approach, including perceptions of the climate change and the propensity of some to deny what a reported 97 percent of the world’s scientists believe: The planet is warming, ice is melting, seas are rising and human beings and their waste have created an environmental crisis that is only worsening with time.

“Even individuals whose economic livelihood depends on weather and climate events (e.g. farmers or fishers) might not receive sufficient feedback from their daily or yearly personal experience to be alarmed about global warming,” the report said.

But surveys conducted in Alaska and Florida, two states where residents have had direct experience with climate change-driven changes (think melting ice and more forceful hurricanes), found “that such exposure greatly increases their concern and willingness to take action.”