Shock: Mental Illness Linked To Global Warming

You had me at "Mental illness linked to global warming."

Okay, tell a lie, I changed the headline slightly: It's actually "Mental Illness rise linked to climate." I guess they caught the unfortunate implication of writing the headline in the way I'd prefer.

RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.

It's 0.1 degrees warmer this August then it was in August 15 years ago. Life makes no sense anymore.

The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

As many as one in five people reported ''emotional injury, stress and despair'' in the wake of these events.

I'm going to diverge from this article for a moment.

In that Daily Beast article claiming that Hurricane Irene was "amped up" by global warming, the author made this claim:

Every kind of natural system is amped up, holding more power—about ¾ of a watt extra energy per square meter of the Earth’s surface, thanks to the carbon we’ve poured into the atmosphere.

ArthurK writes:

¾ of a watt? Is that a lot?

The Sun's rays are attenuated as they pass through the atmosphere, thus reducing the insolation at the Earth's surface to approximately 1,000 watts per square meter for a surface perpendicular to the Sun's rays at sea level on a clear day.

Do The Math. 0.75 watts / 1,000 watts. That's what the Global Warming Cultist thinks is a World Ending Catasrophe!

You say that, Arthur, but that 3/4 of a watt is joining the chorus of voices in my head urging me to kill... kill... kill...

Okay, back to "Global warming causes mental illness."

The report, A Climate of Suffering:

You know they all high-fived each other when they came up with that.

[title continues] The Real Cost of Living with Inaction on Climate Change, called the past 15 years a ''preview of life under unrestrained global warming''.

The past 15 years have featured some hot weather, some cold weather, some dry weather, and some wet weather, which of course you know is the perfect environment for the government-engineered brain-mites boring into my skull to report my thoughts to the Postmaster General.

...

The report also looks at mental health in the aftermath of major weather events possibly linked to climate change.

It shows that one in 10 primary school children reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in the wake of cyclone Larry in 2006. More than one in 10 reported symptoms more than three months after the cyclone.

As you know, cyclone Larry was the first reported cyclone in the history of Australia. They had to invent an entirely new word, "cyclone," to describe this unprecedented event, and then invented a new name, "Larry," from the Greek for "first of its kind."

I disagree with the premise. Global warming doesn't cause lunacy. The lunacy is pre-existing, and seizes upon global warming as a focus for paranoid delusions, neuroses, and apophenia.

Thanks to RobertG.

posted by Ace at 12:05 PM

| Access Comments