ARTICLE ︎

Diagnosing Climate Disorder:

Climate change causes mental illness, but we lack the language to fight back.

Published in The Ecologist

“Ecological breakdown is driving people mad. Some use the term climate anxiety to describe this. Others prefer the broader definition of eco-anxiety. There have been articles. There have been books.

But anxiety doesn’t scratch the surface. Climate change isn’t merely making people worry. Just like the fragile ecosystems being destabilised by a warming world, our minds are being tipped into fundamental disarray, crippling mental illness and sometimes death.

We need a global term to distil a global problem. I propose Climate Disorder. Identifying climate disorder refocuses our attention on the causes of mental illness, rather than symptoms.

When the cause is climate change, we must say so. This realisation forces us to travel upstream and validate peoples’ feelings and experiences as emanating from systemic catastrophe.”

(Full article available here)