Sometimes the most poetic lexicon can contain the most chilling meaning. Such is the case of solastalgia, a word that, when uttered, whispers like a wind as if mimicking the swaying of the waves, a term steeped in nostalgia but in a poignant way. It is strange that the surrounding area is still inhabited but no longer recognised.
The origin of this neologism lies in climate change and the psychological problems it causes. The WHO report published in early June warned of this. A document that highlights how changes in the environment resulting from human activities are having increasingly serious and lasting effects on populations, directly and indirectly affecting mental health and psychosocial well-being.
According to the international organization, not only is warming exacerbating so many aspects of health, but it is also exacerbating many social and environmental risk factors that aggravate mental illness and create new psychological conditions. The natural disasters that are increasingly common in ecosystems – hurricanes that destroy the foundations of houses, floods that submerge entire communities, wildfires that snuff out life with their flames – leave people feeling insecure and losing their place and their culture . “This fear is the result of environmental degradation,” stresses Manuel Ruiz de Chávez, a specialist in social medicine on the board of the UNAM Foundation in Mexico. For the head of the National Bioethics Commission at the Ministry of Health, “global warming is exacerbating human rights problems. It is the most complex bioethical challenge of our time.”
In the psychologist’s words, “The effects are evident in the development of post-traumatic stress and aggravation of personality disorders in those who survived catastrophic events.” But changes in the environment also increase the occurrence of disorders such as emotional stress, depression, suicidal behavior or increased consumption of alcohol and anxiolytics. According to the WHO, five million people have fallen victim to these climate-related health hazards in the last five decades.
Yasna Palmeiro-Silva, Chilean first author of a study on the threat to population health posed by climate change, asserts that as a result of this crisis, more and more mental illnesses are developing and there is an urgent need for action given the emergence of new pathologies such as environmental pain or environmental anxiety, some people face suffering of the apocalyptic scenario that predicts the changes in the environment.
Or solastalgia.
The countries that lost their spring and heat stroke
“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 fear and anxiety that we experience when witnessing changes that have not occurred before with this frequency and magnitude,” says the specialist. “I myself suffer from fear of what we see,” she admits.
Among the many environmental factors affecting mental health, global warming is the most obvious. There are many studies that point to the direct connection between high temperatures and the development of various mental disorders, as well as the variety of mechanisms by which heat waves affect mental balance. Although the evidence for this association is now emerging, an investigation has come to link the earlier phenomenon to an increased likelihood of being admitted to the emergency room for an onset of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Heat waves can cause stress, sleep and exhaustion, and increase vulnerability and irritability. But the consequences of high temperatures also include a reduction in emotional well-being, depression, increased aggression, anxiety and greater psychological stress. Also clinical symptoms related to suicide.
Other 2018 work led by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley shows the link between suicide and heating. For every degree of temperature rise in Mexico, the rate of self-inflicted deaths increases by 2.1%. The report, published in the journal Nature, estimates that these numbers will increase by tens of thousands of deaths by 2050.
The vulnerability of residents of regions with extreme climates and poverty to this phenomenon multiplies in the face of adverse changes. “Excessive heat, extreme precipitation events and ocean acidification are changing the ecosystems we are a part of, but they affect different populations in different ways. Poor communities are more vulnerable because they don’t have access to healthcare,” concludes the Chilean.
Balancing social and environmental justice
The loss of livelihoods, leaving many communities homeless and in poverty, is causing the phenomenon of climate migrants, which are increasing in number in some Latin American countries. “Damage to the socio-economic infrastructure increases long-term stress and anxiety and thus the risk of conflict and displacement of communities,” laments the expert from the Mexican Health Foundation. The World Bank estimates that nearly four million Mexicans and Central Americans will be forced to leave their homes in the coming years due to rising sea levels and reduced agricultural production. Environmental problems exacerbate social injustices and inequalities in access to health. “And its effects are 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 with extreme rainfall, for example, “expose certain people to greater vulnerability to disasters such as flooding, further reducing their quality of life and increasing disease incidence,” notes the Chilean feast.
A peculiarity that puts Latin American territories at greater risk compared to other places in the world is the very recent nature of environmental policies and institutions in the region. “Unfortunately, given the environmental threats, we have not been able to move forward as quickly as we would like. In fact, solastalgia itself is exacerbated by the awareness of political inaction, which worsens the feeling,” Palmeiro-Silva laments. And it is that both the programs and the budget to meet this enormous 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 to include planetary health policy in government agendas. It is not yet clear that unless ecosystems are healthy, neither are we.”