Global Warming is Already Killing Us

A landmark analysis by almost one hundred experts, including the World Health Organization, was recently released by the Lancet Countdown, and it warns that rising global temperatures will have severe consequences for human health, especially mental health. This seventh annual study expands on the findings of previous publications to reiterate a severe warning about the effects of climate change on human health.

Some effects of record-high temperatures are perhaps more predictable, such as an increase in illness due to exposure to heat waves and extremely high temperatures. However, the report noted that other, less obvious effects, such as an increase in the risk of mental health problems and the spread of infections, can have global impacts as well.

The paper claims that heat waves and other extreme temperature changes are linked to a deterioration in mental health and an increase in suicide ideation.

“Climate change affects people’s mental health in a variety of different paths,” Dr. Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, told ABC News.

For example, “the severe mental health repercussions of calamities associated to extreme weather events are more obvious and easily attributed,” as Romanello put it. “However, the effects of climate change on mental health can also stem from other factors, such as exposure to high heat, which has been linked in the literature to an increase in interpersonal aggression, criminality, and self-harm.”

The survey found that young people were especially vulnerable to climate change-related melancholy, anxiety, substance abuse, and sleep problems.

Dr. Elizabeth Haase, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on Climate Change and Mental Health, told ABC News that 84% of young people feel “moderately nervous” or “very anxious” about climate change. As a result of the ongoing pressures brought on by such events, “more drug and alcohol misuse, more child abuse and domestic violence, more poverty, poorer diets, greater homelessness, fragmented families, and communities” might be observed.

The paper also describes the dangers that rising temperatures pose to our physical health, in addition to the profound effects on our mental wellbeing.