Sometimes the most poetic lexicon can contain the most terrifying meaning. It is the case of solastalgia, a word that when pronounced whispers like a wind, as if to imitate the swaying of the waves, a term full of nostalgia, but in a distressed way. The environment that is still inhabited but which is no longer recognized is strange.
The origin of this neologism lies in climate change and the mental problems it is causing. That’s how I warned the report published by the WHO at the beginning of June. A document that highlights how changes in the environment resulting from human activities are having increasingly serious and lasting impacts on populations, directly and indirectly affecting mental health and psychosocial well-being.
According to the international organization, in addition to damaging many aspects of health, warming also exacerbates many social and environmental risk factors that aggravate mental illness and create new psychological conditions. Natural disasters that are seen with increasing frequency in ecosystems – hurricanes that destroy the foundations of homes, floods that engulf entire communities under water, forest fires that extinguish life with their flames – drag populations into insecurity and loss. of their place and their culture. “This anxiety is the product of the destruction of the environment,” stresses Manuel Ruiz de Chávez, a specialist in social medicine on the board of directors of the UNAM Foundation in Mexico. For the head of the National Bioethics Commission of the Ministry of Health, “global warming aggravates human rights problems. It is the most complex bioethical challenge of our time ”.
In the words of the psychologist, “the impact is clearly recorded the development of post-traumatic stress and exacerbations of personality disorders in those who have survived catastrophic events ”. But so are changes in the environment increasing incidence of diseases such as emotional stress, depression, suicidal behavior or increased alcohol consumption and anxiolytics. According to the WHO, over the past five decades, five million people have been victims of these climate-related health risks.
Yasna Palmeiro-Silva, Chilean main author of a study on the threat of climate change on the health of the populationassures that more and more psychological disorders resulting from this crisis are developing and that it is urgent to intervene in the face of the emergence of new pathologies such as ecological pain oa ecoansiedadsuffering suffered by some people in the face of the apocalyptic scenario that foresees the transformations of the environment.
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Countries that have lost spring and heatstroke
“These are real problems,” says Palmeiro-Silva, who specializes in global health. In Chile there are no longer four seasons, there is no longer autumn or spring. “We only have summer and winter. An example of what causes the feelings of anguish and fear we experience when we witness changes that previously did not occur with such frequency and scope ”, says the specialist. “I myself suffer from anxiety about what we are seeing,” he confesses.
Of the many ecological factors that affect mental health, global warming is the most obvious. There are many studies that indicate the direct association between high temperatures and the evolution of various psychological disorders, as well as the diversity of the mechanisms by which heat waves affect mental balance. Although the signs of this relationship are now starting to make themselves known, an investigation has come to link the previous phenomenon with the increased possibility of being admitted to the emergency room due to an outbreak of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Heat waves can cause stress, sleep, and fatigue, increasing vulnerability and irritability. But, the consequences of high temperatures also include reduced emotional well-being, depression, increased aggression, anxiety and increased psychological distress. They too clinical symptoms associated with suicide.
Another work conducted by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley in 2018 shows the correlation between suicide and warming. For every degree of temperature rise in Mexico, the rate of self-inflicted deaths grows by 2.1%. The report, published in the journal Nature estimates that in 2050 these figures will increase by tens of thousands of deaths.
The susceptibility of the inhabitants of regions with extreme climates and poverty to this phenomenon multiplies in the face of adverse changes. “Excess heat, extreme rainfall and ocean acidification transform the ecosystems we are a part of, but have a different impact on different populations. Poor communities are more vulnerable because they do not have access to health ”, concludes the Chilean.
Social and environmental justice in balance
The loss of livelihoods that is leaving many communities homeless and in a situation of poverty is causing the phenomenon of climatic migrants, which are increasingly numerous in some Latin American countries. “Damage to socio-economic infrastructure increases long-term stress and anxiety and, with it, the risk of conflict and community displacement,” laments the Mexican Health Foundation expert. According to esteems the World BankNearly four million Mexicans and Central Americans will be forced to flee their homes due to rising sea levels and decreasing agricultural production in the coming years. Environmental problems exacerbate social inequalities and inequalities in access to health. “And its impact is directly related to the inequality between populations and the elements that make up global justice,” says Palmeiro-Silva.
Certain conditions such as lack of access to education and resources, poor urban planning to cope, for example with extreme rains, “expose some people to greater vulnerability to disasters such as floods, further compromising their quality of life and increasing the incidence of diseases ”, determines the Chilean.
A particularity that places Latin American territories at greater risk than other places in the world is the very recent nature of environmental governance and institutions in the region. “Unfortunately we have not been able to advance as fast as we would like to address ecological threats. In fact, the same solastalgia is aggravated by the awareness of political inertia, which worsens the sentiment ”, complains Palmeiro-Silva. And is that both the programs and the budget to tackle this huge challenge are almost non-existent.
In low- and middle-income countries, less than 20% of the population report receiving adequate health services. And, as Palmeiro-Silva concludes, “there is less intention of including planetary health policies in the agendas of the government. It has not yet been understood that if ecosystems are not healthy, neither are we ”.
