These quotes come from the above article By Marlene Cimons February 3, 2014 1:52 PM.
The emotional toll of global warming is expected to become a national — and potentially global — crisis that many mental health experts warn could prove far more serious than its physical and environmental effects.
"It has a much larger effect on the psyche. Survivors can have all sorts of issues: post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, and academic issues among kids."
The report recommended that the federal government draft a plan to enact a large-scale response to the mental-health effects of global warming, including public-education campaigns, increased training for mental-health professionals, and developing mental-health incident response teams.
We are fortunate to live in a time when health professionals can advocate for a national plan to address the mental health effects that result from climate trauma. Our ancestors could not afford such a luxury and somehow managed to face the real world of weather extremes and muddle through. Extreme weather is not a new phenomenon. It may seem more devastating now because there are more of us who are affected by severe weather because, well, there are more of us. Population has grown. Our wealth permits this.
Despite the nation's experiences with previous natural disasters, "the scientific data show that what lies ahead will be bigger, more frequent, and more extreme than we have ever known," prompting potentially dire mental-health impacts, the report warned.
However, it is not true that the scientific data show that extreme weather is getting more severe more frequently.
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It is the global climate models and political activists that expect this outcome if we continue to emit CO2 at our current rates. Despite the continued unabated increase in atmospheric CO2 severe weather such as hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and floods have not increased and in many cases the data on frequency and severity show a decrease. It is not well known that the Florida mainland has not been hit by a hurricane in over 10 years nor is it well known that the US mainland has not been hit by a severe(cat 3,4,5) hurricane in over 10 years. Despite the two whopper tornadoes that ravaged Oklahoma in spring 2013 tornado counts were near a record low. Does that sound like extreme weather is getting worse?
There are more of us and we have more stuff because of population growth and our high living standards so it might appear that the weather is more devastating but the numbers don’t lie. The scientific data actually show that severe weather has become less extreme as CO2 has increased in the atmosphere.
Victim Isman’s emotions "were all normal reactions to a life-shattering situation," says Dr. Laurie Nadel, a psychotherapist who started the group and who lost her own Long Beach home to the storm. "I knew there was a need for a safe place for people to come and talk about what they were going through. It can be very isolating. You need a place where you can share and normalize your experiences with other people."
Mental health professionals are correct when they note that it is important for people to normalize their experiences with extreme weather and it helps to be able to share their feelings and experiences with others in the same boat. It is never pleasant to be a victim of extreme weather but humans have had to face Mother Nature’s wrath since our ancestors first emerged on this planet. It is normal for humans even while it is unwelcome. We do not control Nature . We can only learn to observe, detect, issue warnings, get of of the way and clean up afterwards. That’s normal too. We are fortunate to live in times when our technology has developed to the point that our early warning systems can inform us of impending disaster so that we can spare ourselves exposure to dangerous storms. Death rates due to extreme weather have been going down even as the population has been going up. That is something for which we can be grateful. It is a way to measure the improvements in our living standards.
