Climate change's toll on mental health
Climate change-induced severe weather and other natural disasters have the most immediate effects on mental health in the form of the trauma and shock due to personal injuries, loss of a loved one, damage to or loss of personal property or even the loss of livelihood, according to the report. Terror, anger, shock and other intense negative emotions that can dominate people's initial response may eventually subside, only to be replaced by post-traumatic stress disorder. As an example of the impacts natural disasters can have, among a sample of people living in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, suicide and suicidal ideation more than doubled, one in six people met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD and 49 percent developed an anxiety or mood disorder such as depression, said the report. The impacts of climate on mental health are not relegated to disasters alone. There are also significant mental health impacts from longer-term climate change. Changes in climate affect...