Adapting to a warmer world Psychologists can help people and communities prepare for the psychosocial effects of climate change. By Kirsten Weir 2015, Vol 46, No. 1 Print version: page 34 Climate change is no longer a looming threat, say scientists. Its already a reality thats affecting people both economically and emotionally. In California, extended droughts parch fields, leading to a sharp rise in food prices. Along the Gulf Coast, tropical storms batter homes and businesses, and gut the local tourism industry. Last Halloween, the small Arctic town of Arviat, in Canada, canceled trick-or-treating — a safety measure, as the town was overrun by polar bears forced inland by diminishing sea ice. Scientists agree that as the atmosphere continues to warm, extreme weather will happen more frequently and become more severe. And the planets citizens will pay the price. Now a group of mental health professionals has come together to develop policies and programs to help individuals and communities prepare for the inevitable psychosocial aspects of that threat. The International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC) launched in 2014 to address the detrimental impacts of climate disruption on peoples well-being. The group has about 180 members and counting, says ITRC Director Bob Doppelt, a counseling psychologist and environmental land management expert who also directs the Resource Innovation Group, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Willamette University in Oregon. Using the term transformational in the coalitions title was strategic, Doppelt says. After all, climate change is dramatically altering the planet right beneath our feet. Normally we think about resilience as bouncing back to pre-crisis conditions, but thats never going to happen with climate change, he says. We have to help people adopt new ways of seeing the world, new ways of thinking about their livelihoods and new ways of viewing themselves. Shifting ground Doppelt and his colleagues certainly arent the first to make connections between psychology and climate change. In 2008 and 2009, an APA Task Force on the Interface between Psychology and Global Climate Change tackled the topic. Its report, released in 2009, outlined ways in which psychology can help people reduce energy consumption and adopt more environmentally friendly behaviors. Although those are useful goals, its clear that climate change is already well underway and already chipping away at Americans physical and psychological well-being, says Christie Manning, PhD, a psychologist and visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is co-author of Beyond Storms & Droughts: The Psychological Impacts of Climate Change, a report released in June by APA and ecoAmerica, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to grow popular support for climate solutions. Theres a lot of hope, but many fear we might be starting too late, Manning says. As people experience more effects of climate change, were going to have to work toward finding ways to lift people up out of more grief and trauma. We may have to go into triage mode. Climate change can affect emotional and psychological health in a variety of ways, Manning and her co-authors reported. Most obvious, perhaps, is the emotional toll of sudden weather-related disasters such as hurricanes or wildfires. People are going to experience psychological impacts of more frequent catastrophes, Manning says, including increased depression and anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and feelings of fear and hopelessness. But sudden disasters wont be the only effects of a warming world. Theres a whole raft of creeping, chronic stresses, says Doppelt. The world is changing in ways both subtle and not so subtle, adds Susan Clayton, PhD, a psychologist and chair of the environmental studies program at the College of Wooster in Ohio, and a co-author of both the recent APA/ecoAmerica report and the 2009 task force report. And that makes climate change a unique stressor. The places people live in and love are changing. That might make them feel disoriented or disconnected, Clayton says. Its difficult to say exactly how that will affect people, but thats a way in which climate change is really different from a lot of other sources of stress. She points to research by Ashlee Cunsolo Wilcox, PhD, at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia. Wilcox and colleagues have studied the effect of climate change on mental health in a small Inuit community in Labrador, Canada. Warmer temperatures in recent years have disrupted traditional fishing, hunting and foraging activities in the community. As the local landscape and traditional way of life have changed, people have reported increased stress and mental health problems, including a possible increase in substance abuse (Climatic Change, 2013). But even people who dont live in such fragile environments can be shaken by the changing world around them. Global change might erode feelings of personal and social identity, Clayton says. Climate change can threaten our regular activities, our ways of life, how we recreate and the kinds of jobs we have. Climate change has another distinctive — and disheartening — characteristic, Clayton notes. Its not like a storm where it comes and is done. Theres no end point that we know of, she says. You cant adjust to the new status quo, because the change will continue for the foreseeable future. Climate change may also bring feelings of guilt and helplessness as people realize the magnitude of the situation, Manning adds. We dont know what the future is going to look like. We may feel fear. We may feel a sense of culpability. We may also feel powerless to change things as individuals, she says. The disruptions to our planet are likely to have effects on communities as well as on individuals, Manning says. Facing a world with scarcer resources, societies may become more distrustful of outsiders, for example. Warmer temperatures may lead to instability in other ways as well. In a 2013 review of 60 quantitative studies, Solomon Hsiang, PhD, at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues concluded that heat waves, extreme rainfall and other climatic events increase human conflict. That was true in all major regions of the world, the authors found, and at levels ranging from interpersonal violence to larger-scale social unrest (Science, 2013). All the patterns of life weve grown accustomed to are built on this stable climate that is changing, Manning says. How does an entire society face this kind of shifting ground? Bracing for change Doppelt and his colleagues in the ITRC are hoping to prevent some of the psychological fallout associated with a planet in flux. Much of the dialogue surrounding climate change centers on external preparedness, such as sustainable energy and physical infrastructure, Doppelt says. Equally important, he says, is an effort to shore up peoples internal resources. The ITRC isnt focused on trauma treatment, Doppelt explains. Rather, the goal is to proactively teach people and groups the skills that will help them deal with both the chronic stresses and acute disasters associated with climate change. Eventually, he hopes every large U.S. city will have what he calls adversity-based growth programs. These resiliency-building programs would be administered through existing public, nonprofit and private agencies and organizations to reach large segments of the community. We want to make this a clear national priority that leads to policies to address this issue, he says. We will never have enough post-trauma treatment experts available to respond to whats coming. We have to build preventative skills. To that end, the coalition has appointed a 12-person steering committee to identify priorities and strategies for moving forward. Doppelt and his colleagues also hope to hold a major conference within the next year. But first, he says, the organization has to make the case for building psychosocial resilience to climate change. Right now, its not just that its not a national priority. Very few people even understand it, he says. Also notable is what the coalition has not done: endorse a particular method for building resiliency to climate change. We want our members to find a way to include a focus on psychosocial resiliency-building in their current work, Doppelt says. There are a lot of different ways to approach this. While Doppelt generally focuses on mindfulness strategies through webinars and workshops, for instance, Elaine Miller-Karas, executive director of the Trauma Resource Institute and honorary co-chair of the ITRC, uses what she describes as a biologically based approach. Karas developed her Community Wellness Skills to help people across cultures identify sensations associated with distress and well-being. Shes still testing the wellness skills, but has used the approach to help people cope with trauma following disasters such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines. Those people, in turn, have gone on to share the skills with others in their families and communities, she says. Such interventions must be designed with cultural awareness and sensitivity, Miller-Karas says, since what works for one country or culture may not work for another. Further, what works for one type of natural disaster may not translate to other catastrophes. As mental health professionals, we really have to think about how we broaden our scope to reach the most people. A global movement Climate change is truly a planet-sized problem, and it can be difficult for anyone — even experts of the mind — to comprehend. But thats no excuse for inaction, says Doppelt. This is not an issue that psychologists can sit out on, he says. The traumas and chronic stresses generated by climate change are going to exacerbate all the other traumas and stresses people already experience. This is going to be the issue of the future from a mental health perspective. On the bright side, psychologists already have many of the necessary tools to help people adapt. The basic neurobiology of stress is well understood, Doppelt says, and researchers have developed proven techniques to help people manage stressors of all kinds. In addition to preparing individuals, Manning says, psychologists can also help communities ready themselves for impending change. In collaboration with the Science Museum of Minnesota and the St. Paul mayors office, she and a colleague recently held a series of community climate change conversations in various St. Paul neighborhoods to test a model of community-based deliberation. Manning hopes that such meetings will help individuals understand climate change as a personally relevant issue, and push communities to take action to prepare for the inevitable change. We need to encourage people to get together with their neighbors and figure out how to create resilient communities, she says. If its the social norm to be thinking about climate change, youre more likely to do it. And at the community level, you can actually accomplish things that feel substantial. Meanwhile, researchers can also do more to draw connections between their work and the environment. Scientists studying mental illness or social unrest, for instance, may not be considering how environmental flux might be influencing individuals or societies, Manning says. The vast majority of published research doesnt tie together the great work people are doing on social problems, mental health and climate change. Not all psychologists are going to take on climate change as an issue, acknowledges Thomas Doherty, PsyD, an ecopsychologist and clinical psychologist in Portland, Oregon, and a member of the 2008–09 APA climate task force. But he argues that for professionals who are interested in the topic — including clinical psychologists — theres a wealth of opportunity to make a difference. The global environmental movement, and level of international collaboration regarding climate change, is really unprecedented, he says. I think this is one of the most exciting opportunities for psychologists alive today. Further reading • EcoAmerica (2014). Beyond storms and droughts: The psychological impact of climate change. Retrieved fromecoamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/eA_Beyond_Storms_and_Droughts_Psych_Impacts_of_Climate_Change.pdf. • APA (2009). Psychology and global climate change: Addressing a multifaceted phenomenon and set of challenges. (A report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change.) Retrieved from apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change-booklet.pdf • Miller
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