[NBC News] People who worry about climate change have mental health problems

I paraphrase

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/ment...growing-emotional-toll-climate-change-n946751

'Climate grief': The growing emotional toll of climate change
Extreme weather and dire climate reports are intensifying the mental health effects of global warming: depression and resignation about the future.

Dec. 24, 2018 / 5:35 AM EST
By Avichai Scher

When the U.N. released its latest climate report in October, it warned that without “unprecedented” action, catastrophic conditions could arrive by 2040.

For Amy Jordan, 40, of Salt Lake City, a mother of three teenage children, the report caused a “crisis.”

“The emotional reaction of my kids was severe,” she told NBC News. “There was a lot of crying. They told me, 'We know what’s coming, and it’s going to be really rough.’ “

She struggled too, because there wasn't much she could do for them. “I want to have hope, but the reports are showing that this isn’t going to stop, so all we can do is cope,” she said.

The increasing visibility of climate change, combined with bleak scientific reports and rising carbon dioxide emissions, is taking a toll on mental health, especially among young people, who are increasingly losing hope for their future. Experts call it “climate grief,” depression, anxiety and mourning over climate change.

Last year, the American Psychological Association issued a report on climate change’s effect on mental health. The report primarily dealt with trauma from extreme weather but also recognized that “gradual, long-term changes in climate can also surface a number of different emotions, including fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion.”
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more at the link

 

I think the point is really that the mental suffering itself is irrational. Compare catastrophic climate change with other risks we face on a daily basis.

In a classic essay John Harsanyi uses the following thought experiment to illustrate the problem with the such risk-averse thinking.

"Suppose you live in New York City and are offered two jobs at the same time," he writes. "One is a tedious and badly paid job in New York City itself, while the other is a very interesting and well paid job in Chicago. But the catch is that, if you wanted the Chicago job, you would have to take a plane from New York to Chicago (e.g., because this job would have to be taken up the very next day). Therefore there would be a very small but positive probability that you might be killed in a plane accident.

"The maximin principle says that you must evaluate every policy available to you in terms of the worst possibility that can occur to you if you follow that particular policy. Therefore you have to analyze the situation as follows. If you choose the New York job then the worst (and indeed, the only) possible outcome will be that you will have a poor job but will stay alive. . . . In contrast, if you choose the Chicago job then the worst possible outcome will be that you may die in a plane accident."​

Thus, Harsanyi continues,

"if you want to follow the maximin principle then you must choose the New York job. Indeed, you must not choose the Chicago job under any condition--however unlikely you might think a plane accident would be, and however strong your preference might be for the excellent Chicago job."​

"Clearly," Harsanyi concludes,

"this is a highly irrational conclusion. Surely, if you assign a low enough probability to a plane accident, and if you have a strong enough preference for the Chicago job, then by all means you should take your chances and choose the Chicago job.

"If you took the maximin principle seriously then you could not ever cross a street (after all, you might be hit by a car); you could never drive over a bridge( all all, it might collapse); you could never get married (after all, it might end up in a disaster), etc. If anybody really acted this way he would soon end up in a mental institution."
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Worrying about climate change (excessive worry, that is--the type of irrational, wholly-out-of-proportion-to-the-problem kind of worry described in the article) is similarly irrational.

Yes, there is a non-zero probability that catastrophic climate change may harm the planet in the same way that there is a non-zero probability that the plane to Chicago may crash. But most sane people safely ignore such non-zero probability worst-case scenario risks in order to be able to go about their daily lives.

If it were otherwise, none of us would leave the house, drive a car, or get married, etc etc, just as Harsanyi observes.

So it is not a matter of cynically "creating excuses" to avoid mental suffering or to avoid lowering one's carbon footprint. It is (generally speaking) more a matter of prudentially evaluating risk in proportion to the probability of harm. Or, as Harsanyi puts it, "It is extremely irrational to make your behavior wholly dependent on some highly unlikely unfavorable contingencies regardless of how little probability you are willing to assign to them."

 

lol. you're certainly free to believe that.

 

fify