“We're people of the snow:” Weather, climate change, and Inuit mental wellness

Middleton, Jacqueline; Cunsolo, Ashlee; Jones‐Bitton, Andria; Shiwak, Inez; Wood, Michele M.; Pollock, Nathaniel J.; Flowers, Charlie; Harper, Sherilee L.

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113137

Cited by 36 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…People tend to articulate an understanding of climate change from their personal experiences with the weather (70,71). When people experience extreme weather events that they perceive to be attributable to climate change, their level of concern or worry about climate change can become elevated (7,(71)(72)(73).…”

Section: Exposure To Extreme Weather Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review

Ojala

Cunsolo

Ogunbode

et al. 2021

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

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276

205

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Climate change worry, eco-anxiety, and ecological grief are concepts that have emerged in the media, public discourse, and research in recent years. However, there is not much literature examining and summarizing the ways in which these emotions are expressed, to what processes they are related, and how they are distributed. This narrative review aims to ( a) summarize research about the relationships between, on the one hand, negative emotions in relation to climate change and other environmental problems and, on the other hand, mental well-being among people in different parts of the world and ( b) examine studies that have explored the potentially constructive role of worry—for example, in the form of providing motivation to act. It is clear from this review that negative emotions regarding environmental problems are normal, and often constructive, responses. Yet, given the nature, range, and extent of these emotions, it is important to identify diverse place-based and culturally relevant strategies to help people cope. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 46 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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Section: Exposure To Extreme Weather Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review

Ojala

Cunsolo

Ogunbode

et al. 2021

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

Self Cite

276

205

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This is an example of critical work empirically centring understandings of affect and emotion in terms of geography and power, whilst extending the conceptualisation of the complex emotional responses involved. There is now an important shift in critical work to recognise experiences of distress situated in place, not least those communities and places routinely ignored and denied a voice in relation to climate change [48,49,50].…”

Section: Affect and Emotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As noted in relation to the themes above, critical psychologies conceptualise power at the heart of explanations of capacities for action in response to climate change [24*, 25**, 26, 27, 30], and an important focus is the experiences of people most adversely affected whilst simultaneously disempowered [45*]. This includes research emanating from high climate vulnerable regions with substantial indigenous populations, and countries and regions in the global South [48,49].…”

Section: Power and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Critical psychologies and climate change

Adams

2021

Current Opinion in Psychology

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This article is a review of recent contributions in critical psychology, and its close cousins, critical social psychology, critical community psychology and liberation psychology, to understandings of the human response to climate change. It contrasts critical psychology with mainstream psychology in general terms, before introducing a critical psychological perspective on climate change. Central to this perspective is a critique of the framing of individual behaviour change as the problem and solution to climate change in mainstream psychology, and a related emphasis on identifying 'barriers' to pro-environmental behaviour. This framework is argued to be reductive, obscuring or downplaying the influence of a range of factors in shaping predominant responses to climate change to date, including social context, discourse, power and affect. Currently, critical psychologies set out to study the relative contribution of these factors to (in)action on climate change. A related concern is how the psychological and emotional impacts of climate change impact unevenly on communities and individuals, depending on place-based, economic, geographic and cultural differences, and giving rises to experiences of injustice, inequality and disempowerment. Critical psychology does not assume these to be overriding or inevitable psychological and social responses, however. Critical psychologies also undertake research and inform interventions that highlight the role of collective understanding, activism, empowerment and resistance as the necessary foundations of a genuine shift towards sustainable societies.

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“…These affects can become severe when people experience the consequences of cascading and compounding risks, such as heatwaves coincident with wildfires. Climate hazards can result in new or worsened stress and clinical disorders such as trauma, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression (Hayes, Berry & Ebi, 2019; Middleton et al, 2020; Wu, Snell & Samji, 2020). Some studies describe increased risk of suicide related to exposure to warming temperatures (Burke et al, 2018b).…”

Section: New Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ten new insights in climate science 2020 – a horizon scan

et al. 2021

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Non-technical summary We summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding of Earth's sensitivity to carbon dioxide, finds that permafrost thaw could release more carbon emissions than expected and that the uptake of carbon in tropical ecosystems is weakening. Adverse impacts on human society include increasing water shortages and impacts on mental health. Options for solutions emerge from rethinking economic models, rights-based litigation, strengthened governance systems and a new social contract. The disruption caused by COVID-19 could be seized as an opportunity for positive change, directing economic stimulus towards sustainable investments. Technical summary A synthesis is made of ten fields within climate science where there have been significant advances since mid-2019, through an expert elicitation process with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) a better understanding of equilibrium climate sensitivity; (2) abrupt thaw as an accelerator of carbon release from permafrost; (3) changes to global and regional land carbon sinks; (4) impacts of climate change on water crises, including equity perspectives; (5) adverse effects on mental health from climate change; (6) immediate effects on climate of the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for recovery packages to deliver on the Paris Agreement; (7) suggested long-term changes to governance and a social contract to address climate change, learning from the current pandemic, (8) updated positive cost–benefit ratio and new perspectives on the potential for green growth in the short- and long-term perspective; (9) urban electrification as a strategy to move towards low-carbon energy systems and (10) rights-based litigation as an increasingly important method to address climate change, with recent clarifications on the legal standing and representation of future generations. Social media summary Stronger permafrost thaw, COVID-19 effects and growing mental health impacts among highlights of latest climate science.

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“We're people of the snow:” Weather, climate change, and Inuit mental wellness

Cited by 36 publications

References 56 publications

Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review

Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review

Critical psychologies and climate change

Ten new insights in climate science 2020 – a horizon scan

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