The UN climate negotiations seemed to many for a long time very abstract and remote from their lives. Meanwhile, more and more people are concerned with the risks of global warming. Some roll up their lives even to the climate crisis, resist and fight at the same time, against the Fears and other psychological problems. In the USA, this development has a name: “climate anxiety”–”climate Anxiety”.
Kate Schapira, a lecturer at the prestigious Brown University in the East coast state of Rhode Island, is familiar with this phenomenon for years – from yourself and from your advice to other Affected. Because of the climate-damaging effect of each individual she has decided to not have children, and in a plane, the 40-Year-old wants to rise never more.
their concern about the progressive warming of the other “been treated like a personal, individual Problem,” says Schapira. You have to check, therefore, is “whether this is indeed the case”. Since 2014, the scientist is regularly at weekly markets and similar events, with a small booth, which is reminiscent of the psychological Advice of Lucy in the Comic series “Peanuts”.
“advice to climate-Anxiety, 5 cents. The doctor is in”, is on a label on Schapiras Stand. And so passers-by can talk to her about your fears for the future in the face of the climate crisis. Schapira has to know that she is in her home town of Providence, not the only, the climate change impacted psychologically.
majority is concerned
In a survey conducted by the universities of Yale and George Mason in the spring, six out of ten respondents are U.S. citizens, that they were at least “somewhat worried” about global warming. Just under a quarter of respondents even said to be “very concerned”.
The head of the Yale program for climate change communication, Anthony Leiserowitz, a shares of the U.S. citizens according to their response to climate change in six categories of concern up-denying. The General assumption is that mostly educated, liberal, White middle – and upper-class were concerned about global warming, have not been confirmed in his research.
All the groups are mixed, says Leiserowitz – up to the group of climate change deniers. There, educated conservative white men are clearly in the majority. And they are different from the other “dramatic” in their perception of climate risks.
representatives of this demographic group in the United States, the White house, half of Congress and many of the largest corporations in the country. In this respect, it is not surprising that President Donald Trump has has the withdrawal of the USA from the Paris climate agreement.
own vulnerability
For the Washington-based psychiatrist Lise Van Susteren, who studied for 15 years, and the effects of climate change on mental health, Denying the Ignoring of climate change is common among “people who try to deny that you too are vulnerable”. In your assessment, everybody feels it, in the meantime, but “a little bit of climate-Anxiety”.
The American psychologists Association noted in 2017, in a report that psychological responses to climate rising change and a “conflict-avoidance, fatalism, fear, helplessness, and Resignation”. Van Susteren explained, many people asked themselves whether their behavior in the face of a global problem of importance.
Debbie Chang has decided that she wants to be independent of the other to do the Right thing. The 43-Year-old has chopsticks in her purse, and one way to avoid plastic, you used fabric instead of paper handkerchiefs and brings in Restaurants a metal can for food scraps.
for a Long time, it was difficult to find information about “climate-Anxiety, climate-pain-climate-despair,” says Chang. The have now changed. According to their experience, more and more people notice now, “that is a big thing.” (Dec/sda)
Created: 09.12.2019, 11:07 PM
