Scanning Human Psychology

through Climate Change

Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of "climate change delusion."

Robert Salo, the psychiatrist who runs the inpatient unit where the boy was treated, has now seen several more patients with psychosis or anxiety disorders focused on climate change, as well as children who are having nightmares about global-warming-related natural disasters.

Responses include providing psychological interventions in the wake of acute impacts and reducing the vulnerabilities contributing to their severity; promoting emotional resiliency and empowerment in the context of indirect impacts and acting at systems and policy levels to address broad psychosocial impacts.

Climate Weather

Moderators IMPACTS

Direct & Acute Impacts

•Extreme Weather•Heat, Drought, Floods•Landscape Changes•Mental Health Issues•Psychological Trauma

Psychosocial Impacts

•Chronic Disaster Adjustment•Intergroup Conflict•Displacement & Migration•Reaction to Impact Operations•Decreased Access to Society•Heat Impact Violence

Indirect Impacts

•Anxiety & Worry•Depressions•Unconscious Dilemmas •Numbness & Apathy•Grief & Mooring

Extreme weather events and environmental stressors associated with global climate change are likely to have immediate effects on the prevalence and severity of mental health issues in affected communities, significant implications for mental health services.For example, impacts of natural disasters include Acute and posttraumatic stress disorder Somatic disorders Major depression Drug and alcohol abuse Higher rates of suicide Elevated risk of child abuse Homicide Mortality

Rates of severe mental illness - including depression, PTSD, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and a variety of phobias - doubled, from 6.1 percent to 11.3 percent, among those who lived in affected regions, a 2006 study by the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group said.

Rates of mild-to-moderate mental illness also doubled, from 9.7 percent to 19.9 percent.

"Climate change could have a real impact on our psyches," says Paul Epstein, the associate director for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.Over this century -

The average global temperature is expected to rise between 1 degrees and 6 degrees Celsius

Glaciers will melt,

Seas will rise,

Extremes in precipitation will occur, according to scientists' predictions. There is evidence that extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, cyclones, and hurricanes, can lead to emotional distress, which can trigger such things as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, in which the body's fear and arousal system kicks into overdrive.

Seasonal variation of mood, characterized by onset of depression in winter/autumn and its remission or appearance of mania or hypomania in spring is a well-known entity described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV) as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

The etiology of cyclical changes of mood is believed to be the fluctuation in daylight hours throughout the year. This is supported by the use of light therapy in the treatment of these conditions.

The prevalence of this disorder varies with these circuits. This would result in their becoming less responsive to sudden variations in the discharge of serotoninergic neurons. In a person who is vulnerable, climate contributes to this biological risk by modifying the responsiveness of the circuits that control mood and behaviour, and also the frequency and intensity of social interactions.

A total of 71 227 male suicides and 26 466 female suicides occurring in Italy from 1974 to 2003 were investigated and a significant peak was found in spring. Of different climatic variables, temperature was found to be positively correlated with suicide rates. Some researchers have suggested that deviations of monthly mean temperatures from the expected mean temperature for that time of the year, might be much more important for suicidal death.

Mood with Climate

Extrapolating from such preliminary findings, it is likely that global climatic changes may have a significant impact on various dimensions of mental health and well-being. Northern towns, as indicated by their latitude, are less exposed to the sun and have lower mean temperatures (both minimum and maximum) than southern towns. Rainfall levels are higher in the north than in the south. This influence was more marked in the case of females. One can only speculate on the link between climates that are dry, little exposed to the sun, and therefore presumably cold and a higher incidence of suicides as seen in the case of SAD.

It is possible that living in a place with low exposure to the sun might determine an abnormally persistent stimulation of circuits which use serotonin as a neurotransmitter, leading to adaptations of robust findings in the epidemiology of schizophrenia.

The hospital admission rates for schizophrenia and “schizoaffective” patients are clearly increased in summer and fall respectively, as reported in an 11-year study from Israel.

Schizophrenia patients’ mean monthly admission rates correlated with the mean maximal monthly environmental temperature, indicating that a persistently high environmental temperature may be a contributing factor for psychotic exacerbation in schizophrenia patients and their consequent admission to mental hospitals.

Human Psychology

Creation of Climate Changes

Impacts on Human Psychology

Creation of New Climate Changes

Impacts on Human Psychology

A nature which can create all entities, we, the human beings, being a small entity part can not recreate it.

Think for it…..

Thank You. Dr. L.K.Chaudhary,

Head of the Dept. Education,Madanpur-Rampur,Kalahandi