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Slow, gradual environmental changes also have significant effects. Relatedly, competition over scarce environmental resources – such as fertile land, clean and sufficient water, or merely enough space to build a dwelling – can increase social conflict, another threat to mental health (Miller & Rasmussen, 2017). Simply losing one’s home, as an important source of support and resilience, can threaten mental health (Tapsell & Tunstall, 2008).
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This helps to explain why there is a high level of mental illness among involuntary migrants (Mindlis & Boffetta, 2017). Migration is frequently accompanied by economic challenges. The journey itself is uncertain and the process of adjusting to a new home is difficult, especially when people are not welcomed by the existing residents. But migration can be highly stressful, especially when it involves crossing borders. People may want, or be forced, to leave their homes due to a range of factors such as rising sea levels, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers, or desertification, all of which make it impossible or undesirable to remain. The more gradual changes associated with a changing climate are likely to increase both migration and conflict. This adds to the stress burden of individuals and threatens the mental health of those who are vulnerable. Natural disasters also have indirect effects on physical and social infrastructure, disrupting educational, medical, economic, and transportation systems. Effects tend to be greater for people who have experienced greater harm, and they are moderated by sources of social support and resilience (Clayton et al., 2017 (Manning & Clayton, 2018). Climate change is associated with increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, and the impacts of discrete events such as natural disasters on mental health has been demonstrated through decades of research showing increased levels of PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and even domestic violence following the experience of storms (e.g., Morganstein & Ursano, 2020). And yet there is substantial evidence for it. The link between mental health and climate change is less obvious. Some groups are particularly vulnerable due to greater exposure, to lack of political or economic power or to physiological factors: indigenous people, the elderly, children, and in some cases people with pre-existing health problems (Clayton, Manning, & Krygsman, 2017). Physical health will be threatened by heat, the increased spread of water-borne and vector-borne diseases, and malnutrition in addition to the acute impacts of natural disasters and the socially-mediated impacts of forced migration and conflict (Watts et al., 2019). Although climate change has sometimes been conceptualized as a problem primarily affecting polar bears (Born, 2019), it is increasingly apparent that human wellbeing is implicated.
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Less visible but ultimately even more important, because of their potential to affect more people, are the slower changes in average temperature, sea level, and patterns of precipitation that will characterize our climate in the decades to come. We are already seeing the effects in terms of heatwaves, hurricanes, flooding, wildfire, and drought.