Glenn.

I realise that the topic is a bit ‘out there’ but as a transdisciplinary philospher I am willing to give it a go. Any thoughts from non-denialists/non-sceptics on the phenology-mental health issues would be gratefully received.

Abstract

As development pressure increases and global climate changes, there are psychoterratic or earth-related psychic disturbances to human well-being. I have created the concept of solastalgia, defined as the melancholia or homesickness you have when you are still at home, to account for the direct experience of such negatively perceived change in humans. The threat to one’s sense of place leads to an assault on one’s psychic identity. The concept of solastalgia has its genesis in the human response to large scale development pressures such as open cut (pit) mining and coal-fired power station fallout, but it is also applicable to anthropogenic climate change pressures. Humans experience the melancholia of nostalgia when they become completely removed, displaced, detached or alienated from loved landscapes and the home environment. They have the melancholia of solastalgia at the lived experience of the degradation and desolation of their home environment, including the loss of its biodiversity. As global warming and subsequent climate change shift eco-climatic zones away from their former locations, non-human animals experience a mismatch between their eco-evolutionary niche and the transformed home environment. Some species are capable of adaptation by migration with the direction of change. Movement further up mountains, for example, is a limited adaptation strategy for an alpine species in the face of a warming clime. However, many species cannot adapt to rapid change and become threatened or face extinction. The case for the relevance of psychoterratic or earth related mental health syndromes affecting human well-being has now been put (Albrecht et al 2007), and in this paper I explore the idea that non-human animals are already, or are likely to experience in the near future, negative impacts on their psychic integrity and well-being as a result of habitat contraction, destruction and climate change. A changing phenology of place is likely to have profound implications for animal psychology. From the early C19 onwards there has been academic speculation on manias, disturbances, delirium, melancholia and psychoparalysis in animals. More recent research on animals in held in captivity and domesticity has noted a range of psychological disorders including stereotypical actions, anxiety and the symptoms of depression. The endemic sense of place held by wild animals is likely to be strongly felt and if threatened, a source of profound distress. Psychoterratic illness such as nostalgia and solastalgia in non-human animals is likely to be just as serious a threat to their mental integrity as that to be found in humans. The emergent field of comparative, interspecies, psychoterratic mental health studies shall be openly explored in this paper.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/stuck-in-the-mud-plants-on-death-row-in-changing-world-20090218-8bgt.html

surprise?

Best,

Then, by the same logic, they then construct a great edifice of denial founded upon nothing at all. [well it must be nothing because they said so].

Thanks Barry for this and your other fascinating and informative posts.