‘Good Grief!’ Climate Change Makes Warmists Depressed & Gives Them ‘Literal Nightmares’
By Aly Nielsen |
Feeling sad? Coping with anxiety or “literal nightmares?” Blame climate change, claim lefty environmentalists.
“Depressed about climate change? There’s a 9-step program for that,” Fusion writer Caroline Preston wrote on April 4. Grist, which partners with Fusion for the “Climate Desk” program, re-ran the story four days later.
The article focused on recently formed “Good Grief” groups where individuals can open up about their climate change induced anxiety, sadness and bad dreams. “Imagine Alcoholics Anonymous mixed with an environmental humanities course,” Preston encouraged.
Good Grief founder Laura Schmidt sought out “dozens of social-justice activists and environmentalists” including 350.org founder Bill McKibben to ask how they were “personally affected” by climate change. She then wrote nine steps to address climate change stress, including “acknowledge the ways in which we are complicit” and “feel your feelings.”
Climate Desk members collaborate to explore the “human, environmental, economic” and “political” impact of the “changing climate.” It is led by Mother Jones senior news editor Jeremy Schulman who is a former investigative director for Media Matters. Mother Jones senior digital editor James West is Climate Desk’s producer.
Grist is funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and various Rockefeller Foundations.…
EnvironMENTAL: Support group provides ‘a safe space for confronting climate grief’ – ‘The Problem With Climate Catastrophizing’
Via: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-03-21/problem-climate-catastrophizing
The Problem With Climate Catastrophizing – The Case for Calm
Do you feel emotionally overwhelmed, at least occasionally, because of news about climate change? Why/why not?
For just such feelings, a Salt Lake City support group provides “a safe space for confronting” what it calls “climate grief.”
Panicked thoughts often turn to the next generation. “Does Climate Change Make It Immoral to Have Kids?” pondered columnist Dave Bry in The Guardian in 2016. “[I] think about my son,” he wrote, “growing up in a gray, dying world—walking towards Kansas on potholed highways.” Over the summer, National Public Radio tackled the same topic in “Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change?” an interview with Travis Rieder, a philosopher at Johns Hopkins University, who offers “a provocative thought: Maybe we should protect our kids by not having them.” And Holthaus himself once responded to a worrying scientific report by announcing that he would never fly again and might also get a vasectomy.
Such attitudes have not evolved in isolation. They are the most intense manifestations of the same mindset that produces regular headlines about “saving the planet” and a level of obsession with reducing carbon footprints that is otherwise reserved for reducing waistlines. Former U.S. President Barack Obama finds climate change “terrifying” and considers it “a potential existential threat.” He declared in his 2015 State of the Union address that “no challenge—no challenge—poses a greater threat to future generations.” In another speech offering “a glimpse of our children’s fate,” he described “Submerged countries. Abandoned cities. Fields that no longer grow. Political disruptions that trigger new conflict, and even more floods
Doctor groups take up ‘global warming’ advocacy – ‘Will tell the public their health is threatened by’ man-made climate
Bradley J. Fikes Contact Reporter – San Diego Union-Tribune
Under a political advocacy campaign launched Wednesday, a coalition of physician groups will tell the public that their health is threatened by catastrophic man-made global warming, also called climate change. Participating doctors will also urge government action to reduce the damage believed to be caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
The campaign is one of a series of actions by political opponents of President Donald Trump, who is skeptical that man-made global warming is dangerous.
Skeptics say climate models have failed to predict the current hiatus in global warming. Global warming believers say that when properly adjusted for accuracy, temperature trends show no hiatus.
The Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health is led by Dr. Mona Sarfaty, Director of the Program on Climate and Health in the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.
The consortium said in a press release that it represents more than half of American physicians. Its members include the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, Immunology; American Academy of Family Physicians); American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP); American College of Physicians (ACP); ecoAmerica, and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
On Wednesday, the consortium issued a report titled, “Medical Alert! Climate Change Is Harming Our Health.”
The consortium pointed to a recent study by Abt Associates, a group that works on environmental sustainability and global warming issues. The study said reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Northeastern states has prevented from 300 to 830 early adult deaths.
“Here’s the message from America’s doctors on climate change: it’s not only happening in the Arctic Circle, it’s happening here,” Sarfaty said in the press release. “It’s not only a problem for us in 2100, it’s a problem now. And it’s not only hurting polar bears, it’s hurting us.”
Sarfaty has made numerous contributions to Democratic candidates, including former president Barack Obama, 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, according to the Federal Election Commission’s website.
However, some consortium supporters are Republicans, including Bob Inglis, executive director of RepublicEN
Warmist Meteorologist: ‘Climate Change’ and Trump Have Driven Me to Therapy
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus, who has appeared a couple of times on these pages in the past (more on that shortly), is in therapy.
Well, okay, lots of people are. But get a load of what has driven Holthaus into therapy: “I know many ppl feel deep despair about climate, especially post-election.” And it’s because of this, “There are days where I literally can’t work,” and “We don’t deserve this planet.”
In his previous NewsBusters posts:
- In 2013, reacting to the latest report from the global warming alarmists at the Intergovernmental Governmental Panel on Climate Change, Holthaus reported that he “broke down in tears” when he boarded a fossil fuel-burning commercial flight and said he was “committing right now to stop flying.” Oh, and “I’m thinking of having a vasectomy.” Holthaus later backed away from that final item, perhaps after a talk with Mrs. Holthaus.
- In 2014, while at Slate (but of course), Holthaus asked, “Could there be a connection between climate change and the emerging conflict in Iraq?” Naturally, the answer was “a qualified yes.”
Holthaus has now broken new ground in climate despair in the following series of (seriously) 15 tweets (Warning: some profanity; link to first tweet in the series is here; Holthaus’s Twitter home page is here; HT Twitchy):
This is what happens when a bogus “scientific consensus” which doesn’t genuinely exist becomes accepted as the only possible wisdom. Dude, have a talk with Judith Curry and Anthony Watts, will ya?
As to the Great Barrier Reef, Holthaus somehow missed this little bit of news: “Scientists Proven Wrong? Great Barrier Reef Found Relatively Unaffected By Global Warming.” Specifically, “(the Reef) is tremendous condition, most of it is pristine, the rest is in full recovery. It shows the resilience of the reef.”
As to Tweet 10, educate yourself, man. Don’t swallow the globaloney from the self-interested gloom-and-doom community. Did you know that James Hansen said we had only four years “to save the earth” — in 2009? But here we still are.
I know you’re not going to like this, Eric. But “where we go from here” is “Don’t worry, be happy.” This bogus construct known as “climate change,” or “global warming,” or whatever is not going to doom the earth, especially because what appears to be the best evidence tells
Psychoterratica — environmentally induced mental distress
With every baseless scare come the inevitable victims: those who are gullible, through no fault of their own, like children, graduates of eco-science degrees, and people who think the ABC gives them impartial information.
Psychoterratica: or earth related (terra) mental health (psyche) states or conditions.
© 2013 Glenn Albrecht.
GlennAlbrect did a Ted talk, if you can bear to watch it, tell us the best quotes: I spot a “Tipping point of the brain”. He’s a philosopher. If only he understood the philosophy called science, he might be useful.
We live in the richest, safest era of human life on Earth. For a hundred thousand years everyone was afraid of dysentry, snakes, and the marauding tribe next door. They all starved periodically and buried their children often. They said prayers to pagan gods they hoped would save them. Now 1 – 2 billion lucky sods have escaped that dreadful fear, and live a life rich beyond the wildest dreams of the neolithic grinder. Some that won the lottery worry instead that burning coal in Queensland will melt arctic ice and create homeless polar bears. Or they think there are climate death squads.
Apparently the ABC is funded to make Psychoterratica worse, and they are doing the best they can.
Kirsty Melville will present a radio program on Monday.
Climate of emotion: despair
Though I think there is a secret honesty to this program — look at this sentence in the advertising blurb:
If you don’t fully grasp the wide ranging and complex facts, it can feel like ‘too much’.
So if you do grasp the facts, it’s all cool. Is this Freudian, or just bad English?
One day perhaps people will be able to sue those who caused unnecessary psychoterratica. At least the citizens should get their tax back from the ABC / BBC/ CBC / NPR reporters who do absolutely no cross checking, ever, of anything issued by the IPCC or Greenpeace et al. Will the psychoterrorised get compensation for the superannuation funds that bombed after being disinvested in coal, or for the healthcare we can’t afford because the government frittered away the research funds on windmills?
If the poor petals want to be less afraid, the answer is simple, learn what the scientific method is, fight your instinct to follow the herd, and read skeptical sites. You’ll find out how the climate has always changed, the …
Warmist Joe Romm claims ‘higher CO2 levels directly harm human cognition’ & ‘Global Warming Threatens Labor Productivity’
…A new study shows why we’re polarized about climate change
…‘We’re going to need more psychologists!’ – ‘Climate change will have significant negative impacts on health & psychological well-being’
…Fed Study: ‘Climate change’ threatens hearts, lungs but also brains
Climate change can be expected to boost the number of annual premature deaths from heat waves in coming decades and to increase mental health problems from extreme weather like hurricanes and floods, a US study suggests.
“I don’t know that we’ve seen something like this before, where we have a force that has such a multitude of effects,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told reporters at the White House about the study.
“There’s not one single source that we can target with climate change, there are multiple paths that we have to address.”…
Climate Skeptics May Be Too ‘Mentally Ill’ to Buy Guns Under Obama’s New Rules
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/are-climate-skeptics-too-mentally-ill-buy-guns-under-obama-s-new-rules
Today, Pres. Obama announced new executive orders on gun control designed to keep “mentally ill” people from buying guns – but, will they be used to prevent climate skeptics from buying firearms?
Under Obama’s new rules, doctors can now report people deemed “mentally ill” to the FBI so they can be denied gun licenses.
As the official White House fact sheeton the new gun control regulations states (emphasis added):
“Current law prohibits individuals from buying a gun if, because of a mental health issue, they are either a danger to themselves or others or are unable to manage their own affairs. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to ensure that appropriate information in its records is reported to NICS.”
If, as Pres. Obama has repeatedly claimed, climate change is a greater threat than terrorism, then aren’t people who deny the climate threat “a danger to themselves or others” and unfit to own guns?
The idea that climate skeptics are mentally ill is nothing new:
Oregon-based professor of “sociology and environmental studies” Kari Norgaard has declared climate skepticism a mental illness that must be “treated.”
Psychology Today published an article listing three warning signs that you are in “climate change denial”:
- “You think climate change is bad, but not that bad.”
- “You don’t have an emotional reaction to climate change.”
- “You aren’t getting political.”
Thus, if you don’t think the climate threat is great enough, or you’re not furious about it, or you’re not politically active in the climate fight, then you’ve got mental issues.
The Telegraph’s “Climate ‘denial’ is now a mental disorder” explains how so-call “eco-psychologists” convened at the University of the West of England in Bristol to explore classifying “climate change denial” as a “mental disorder.”
Nature.com published an article warning about high-carbon “addiction” (using central heating, etc.)
And remember when Obama’s EPA Chief Gina McCarthy declared thatclimate skeptics aren’t “normal” people?
So, you might want to think twice before discussing the nearly two-decade pause in global warming with your doctor the next time you go in for your annual check-up.…