“Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder”

[Valin]

National Review/The Corner:

Andrew Stuttaford

November 1, 2014

 

Just when you think that the misery that climate change is bringing in its wake can get no worse, there is this.

 

Grist reports:

 

…From depression to substance abuse to suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder, growing bodies of research in the relatively new field of psychology of global warming suggest that climate change will take a pretty heavy toll on the human psyche as storms become more destructive and droughts more prolonged. For your everyday environmentalist, the emotional stress suffered by a rapidly changing Earth can result in some pretty substantial anxieties….

 

Lise Van Susteren, a forensic psychiatrist based in Washington, D.C. — and co-author of the National Wildlife Federation’s report — calls this emotional reaction “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” a term she coined to describe the mental anguish that results from preparing for the worst, before it actually happens.

 

There is, in my view, a perfectly reasonable case to be made that man may be contributing to the way that our ever-changing climate changes. That’s one thing, but how some choose to express their belief in that proposition can be something altogether, well let’s just say, * less reasonable.

 

(Snip)

 

* Bat Sh*t Crazy comes readily to mind.