Climate Change and Mental Health

2022. We know that the climate emergency is affecting our mental health. Our quick take:

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Here's a recent local story: How Montanans are coping with climate anxiety. Warming temps, diminishing snowpacks and longer, hotter wildfire seasons find their way into therapists’ offices.
Connect with our Climate Ready Missoula plan and the mental health subgroup. Ask Abby for details

Does Climate Change Affect Mental Health?

Poor mental health often goes hand in hand with poor physical health, financial strain, and worry about the future - all of which may stem from climate change. More erratic and extreme weather patterns can lead to a wide range of mental and emotional health problems, including stress, anxiety, depression, violence, and suicide.

The diagram below, created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, shows the many ways climate change affects human health, both physically and mentally. While the physical dangers of a rapidly shifting climate are well-known, mental impacts are often overlooked. As we strive to adapt and grow, it's important to consider both.

Mental Health and Our Community

Individual mental health contributes to the overall health of a community. When we feel anxious, stressed, depressed, irritable, or fearful, our moods can have ripple effects throughout our neighborhoods, towns, and nations. These effects may include:

Greater social isolation
Increased personal aggression
Lack or loss of a sense of belonging
Loss of community cohesion
Increased violence and crime
Substance abuse epidemics
General social instability

On the other hand, when everyone feels generally happy, safe, and cared for, those feelings can have a positive impact on community well-being.

How Does Climate Change Affect Mental Health?

Extreme heat raises our brains' levels of cortisol, the so-called "stress hormone," leading to potential increases in irritability, aggression, violence, anxiety, and suicide. High temperatures also limit physical activity and time spent outdoors, both of which are important coping mechanisms for some. Certain medications used to treat mental illness impair the body’s ability to regulate temperature, creating further risk for those with existing mental health problems.
Extreme weather events, including wildfires, can force people from their homes and forever change the landscapes to which we are connected. Such events may lead to: chronic stress, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, and increases in domestic violence. Fine particulate matter present in wildfire smoke also causes brain inflammation, the effects of which are not yet clear.

Drought greatly disrupts the lives of farmers, ranchers, and the communities in which they live. Increased rates of worry, chronic stress, domestic violence, substance abuse, and suicide have been found among communities affected by prolonged drought.
Forced migration due to wildfires, drought, famine, coastal flooding, and hurricanes can devastate or destroy entire communities. Climate changed-induced disasters are expected to displace more than 200 million people worldwide by 2050, leading to potential conflicts over resources wherever climate refugees resettle.

Solastalgia is a word coined to describe feelings of sadness, anxiety, grief, and helplessness due to changes in our cherished environments. As we watch beetle infestations decimate forests, wildfires alter landscapes, and droughts change our watersheds and our wild and agricultural lands, such feelings of distress may become more common.
The threat of climate change itself can be a stressor for some. Increasing awareness and media coverage of the affects of climate change can lead to feelings of anxiety, stress, hopelessness, despair, loss of control, sadness, grief, and guilt.

Who Is Most At Risk?

A Catalyst for Personal and Community Growth

Anyone can suffer from mental and emotional health problems, which strike regardless of background, especially in times of crisis or strife.
However, some circumstances can put particular groups at greater risk.

children

Children are naturally resilient, but they also are particularly susceptible to distress and anxiety over traumatic events and climate-induced upheavals. Chronic stress can put children at risk of mental health issues later in life. Existing risk factors and protective factors play a role as well.

women, pregnant women, and postpartum mothers

Women are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mental health problems, and feelings of vulnerability or anxiety after climate-related disasters. Impacts to their mental health often affect the health of their children. The effects of climate change also can increase levels of domestic violence against women.

seniors

Seniors typically have higher rates of untreated depression, more physical ailments, and a greater likelihood of social isolation. All of these factors can increase their susceptibility to the negative mental health impacts of climate change.

native americans

Native Americans are more likely to struggle with climate change on a number of fronts. High rates of poverty put indigenous peoples at greater risk during extreme weather events, and historical trauma can make additional, climate-induced traumas more difficult to bear. The alteration of culturally and spiritually significant environments also can lead to grief, despair, and depression.

those with prior or existing mental health struggles or trauma

Those with prior or existing mental health struggles or trauma may experience worsened symptoms in the face of climate change. In addition, many medications used to treat mental health disorders interfere with the body's ability to regulate heat, leading to increased potential for heat stroke and hyperthermia.

low income population

People who are poor are less likely to have the resources to cope with climate change. They may not have access to health care, and they may be unable to take measures to make their homes cooler or safer during extreme events. Those who are homeless also lack protection from the elements, including heat and wildfire smoke. All of these factors increase susceptibility to anxiety, worry, chronic stress, and depression.

those with heart and lung pre-existing conditions

Climate change is bringing increased wildfire smoke, hotter days, and a longer allergy season. All of these can affect people with asthma, cardiovascular problems, and even allergies, causing them to feel fearful, worried, stressed, isolated, and irritable.

immigrants and refugees

Immigrants and refugees, in particular refugees from drought, sea-level rise, and hurricanes like New Orleans' Katrina, face the loss of loved ones, difficult financial circumstances, strained relationships with their new communities, and trouble adjusting to a new home. Such obstacles may lead to depression, anxiety, sadness, hopelessness, and domestic violence.

In spite of its negative consequences, climate change presents a unique opportunity to promote growth and well-being above and beyond current levels. Rather than attempting to get "back to" pre-climate change levels of community health (which actually weren't very healthy for many of us) the threat of climate change provides an opportunity to adapt in ways that increase health, happiness, and resiliency for everyone.

Climate change can help us grow by:

Introducing us to new strategies for coping with and thriving in the face of adversity
Helping us envision new ways of thinking and being in a "developed" society
Changing social and economic patterns that have negatively affected us and our neighbors in the past
Allowing us to address the inequities that make marginalized groups more vulnerable to climate-related health impacts.
Teaching us to appreciate the natural systems and environments that sustain and support us
Creating opportunities to make stronger personal connections within our communities