ARTICLE ︎

Climate and Mental Breakdown:

Life experiences, especially trauma, both physical and psychological, as well as our perceived social standing, stress, loss, conflict, poverty, beliefs about the future and more all contribute to the onset and severity of mental health crises. All these important factors are intimately linked to climate change.

Published in The Ecologist

“The mental health consequences of climate breakdown might sound like secondary concerns, ones that are less important than the physical impacts of climate change: the starvation and death, conflict, forced migration and loss of house and home. But mental illness is an urgent crisis in and of itself.

People aren’t getting the support they need. In low- and middle-income countries especially, between 76 percent and 85 percent of sufferers receive no treatment for their condition whatsoever.

Climate breakdown is set to make this worse, both as a result of thinking about the crisis and the knock-on effects of frontline impacts.

Unfortunately, much like the gases that are leading to this unravelling catastrophe, these conditions are largely invisible. We can’t allow that to continue.

Climate disorder is a tangible and immediate threat. It’s time we recognise the material impacts of the ecological crisis on our minds. If we do, we’ll be one step closer to bringing the lived experience of mental illness into focus. Only then can we fight back. ”

(Full article available here)