The following is a translation of an article in which I’m quoted by Norwegian reporter Thomas Paust in Nettavisen.no, an Oslo-based online publication. I used Google Translate and massaged the text slightly to capture meaning. Am happy to receive corrections – the original article in Norwegian is here.

Climate change could lead to mass psychosis

“We know this from research into mass panic,” said Professor of Social Medicine, Per Fugelli

Published 30.01.10 11:21 | Last updated 30.01.10 12:52

Mass psychosis: Professor of Social Medicine, Per Fugelli, said the looming climate catastrophe could create fear and mass psychosis. Photo: Junge, Heiko (SCANPIX)

Dried-up lakes, social unrest, storms and bad weather, rising crime, extreme mass exodus, rising sea levels, submerged ports, destroyed harvests, extreme poverty, water and food shortages, growing unemployment, economic crisis and epidemics.

This describes what some climate scientists are saying will be the future if findings presented to the United Nations are not addressed.

In addition, these consequences in turn affect the global population’s mental health, says a report.

A collection of independent organizations have written the draft of a gloomy report, where they encourage a range of institutions to deal with future health problems associated with climate change.

The final report will be sent to administrative bodies in the UN, EU and USA.

“Climate change is likely to affect the mental health and psychological well-being on several levels. This will lead to new challenges, as well as lead to a mental health burden and suffering of the communities affected. UN agencies, independent organizations, governments, donors, academic institutions and civil society must begin to work together to reduce the growing threat to global health,” reads the report NGO Working Group on the Impact of Climate Change on Mental Health and Psychosocial Well-Being: Guidelines for Action.

“It’s very understandable that researchers wish to shed light on this phenomenon. It is clear that the looming climate catastrophe has all the ingredients for creating fear and mass psychosis. We know this from research into panic,” said Professor of Social Medicine at the Department of General Practice and Community Medicine, Per Fugelli, to Nettavisen.

Post-apocalyptic character

“These are phenomena that seem so huge in the risk dimension that they make you feel you do not have any impact on the outcome. And these are the phenomena that have the ability to create fear because they could spin out of control for governments and scientists,” says Fugelli.

“You get the impression that now the very existence and the foundation of life is at stake. This seems in a way apocalyptic and the signs in themselves deserve attention,” he adds.

Climate journalist Sanjay Khanna has followed the climate issue for both Nature and the Huffington Post. He thinks the world population is not mentally prepared for it and, if anything, is in a state of suspended disbelief.

“In a disaster movie there’s always one person at the end of the film who must save the day. One hopes that this individual will stay calm under pressure, but most people are not going to be there,” says Khanna to Nettavisen.

“The problem lies in the gap between what politicians have said, and what people will eventually experience. The two versions will be contradictory, and it is inside this gap that fear and panic will grow,” says Khanna, who is engaged in a project that deals with climate change and mental health.

Khanna said the health, social and education sectors at the global level need to assist in helping people to prepare for mental health problems and psychological impacts caused by climate change.

“The character of this will be clearer after the climate summit in Copenhagen. I have met many young people who cried after Copenhagen. People understand that the experience of climate change will be very difficult, and in some cases, people are feeling isolated, and some will choose not to talk about the negative thoughts they have about the future,” says Khanna.

Well-founded concern

Fugelli has also experienced a change in people’s mentality after the failure of the climate summit in Copenhagen.

“You shouldn’t panic or be anxious, but awake, responsible people have a well-founded concern,” he said, adding that there is an increasing fear of what of the planet will be left to the children and grandchildren.

Khanna says climate impacts will also frame the individual’s identity. He believes this is because the world as we know it will change significantly.

“What will happen when goods disappear from store shelves because a storm has prevented goods from reaching their destination? What will happen when we no longer have access to goods that much of our identity in this consumer society is built on, goods we can no longer obtain?” says Khanna.

“The climate is also about the ground, the air one breathes and the sunny days parents enjoy with their children. The more we tell ourselves that climate catastrophe is not going to happen, the more we move our mentality away from addressing what will actually happen. And it is in this gap there will be panic and anxiety,” he argues.

The battle is not lost

Fugelli, however, strongly disagrees, and believes sorrow must not be taken for granted.

“They seem to believe that the battle is lost and that we are already there. They don’t think about the fact that history has shown that humanity has faced a number of dramatic and threatening challenges, and we have mastered them and we are very adaptable. And I think we can this time too. But only when we have politicians that give us confidence, courage and hope,” he says.

“It is very dangerous to spread the perception that the battle is lost,” he adds.

Fugelli calls for a strategy from politicians that are concrete and courageous, and that can help create hope in people. This he believes can avert a panic feeling in humans.

“The second is what the media and what individuals can do, which is not a small thing. It is clear that politicians’ actions are a result of what you and I and the other 6.7 billion individuals are able to create the requirements and pressures. If everyone manages to build public opinion pressures that are strong, we will not experience a Copenhagen again,” he says.

Fugelli also underlines the need that each person takes responsibility, even when it comes to the small climate of everyday life.

“Thought must be a concern, and thought-B must be that we are facing a danger. What shall we do, and how do we do it? I think it was (Mahatma) Gandhi, who said: ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ It is very wise,” said Fugelli.

###

Follow Nettavisen reporter Thomas Paust on Twitter @tpaust or email him at thomas.paust@nettavisen.no

I was interviewed on OneClimate TV, part of the One Climate Network, during the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009.

Anuradha Vittachi, the show’s accomplished presenter and new media pioneer, was part of a broad-based civil society partnership that took on the superhuman task of live-streaming interviews around the clock from within the Bella Centre, helping a global audience of up to half a million viewers per day make sense of a conference that was described as a “last chance” to protect humanity from the ravages of climate change.

Vittachi has interviewed many accomplished humanitarians, government officials, parliamentarians, and civil society luminaries — President Gorbachev, HH Dalai Lama, and Mother Teresa, among others — since she and husband Peter Armstrong, a broadcasting legend in his own right, founded OneClimate.net as a news source and dissemination outlet for global civil society.

Anuradha interviewed me about Resilient People and Climate Change, the non-governmental organization I’m behind the founding of, and why psychological and sociocultural impacts of climate change are so crucial to address on a global scale.

Without further ado, here’s the three-part interview (19 minutes total):

Happy 2010.

I find it hard to believe that the last time I posted to the Realistic Sanctuary blog was May 2009.

Here’s why. I started writing exclusively on HuffPost between June and December 2009 as well as traveling to conferences like the Tallberg Forum and the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen, pursuing journalism as a way to understand what economic and climate crises mean for human beings the world over.

Even still, trusted friends and readers have said I need to keep this blog — and the RS “brand” — alive, even with HuffPost.

So, in that spirit, here’s a roundup of articles I wrote last year with a promise to be more diligent in updating the Realistic Sanctuary blog.

Nature

Conveying the Campaign Message: The arts and advertising can galvanise public and political will in tackling global warming. But shared concern for human health is a better motivator than polar bears, finds Sanjay Khanna. – Oct. 22, 2009

(Note: This was the “most tweeted article” in Nature’s special “Destination Copenhagen” issue, perhaps indicating a widespread interest in finding more meaningful ways to communicate the climate issue to the public.)

HuffPost

Copenhagen Meltdown – Dec. 17, 2009

Politicians Can Count on Popular Despair After Copenhagen – Dec. 15, 2009

Are You Resilient? If So, Encourage Psychological and Social Resilience Wherever You Can – Oct. 15, 2009

New Dr. Strangeloves and the Prospect of Geo-Engineered “Adaptation” – Sept. 8, 2009

From Climate Science to Climate Justice: Climate Change a Symptom of Man’s Inhumanity to Man – Jul. 11, 2009

The Tyee

Copenhagen Meltdown – Dec. 17, 2009

Politicians Can Count on Popular Despair After Copenhagen – Dec. 14, 2009

Hope you’re able to sample even some of the articles here, and to enjoy them.

More to come and soon!

My latest article on HuffPost is a summary of a conference hosted by The New Yorker magazine.

Dubbed “The New Yorker Summit: The Next 100 Days,” the U.S. policy-centric event assembled leading intellectuals to discuss the state of the Obama administration, the economy, the environment, geopolitics, health care, climate change, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the challenge of Pakistan, you name it.

Speakers included Malcolm Gladwell, Naomi Klein, Esther Duflo, Jeffrey Sachs, Nicolas Nassim Taleb, Mary Anne Hitt, David Kilcullen, and Seymour Hersh.

On this recent post I wrote on The Huffington Post, I parse a pithy line that Bruce Sterling, sci-fi author, blogger, design critic at large, etc., delivered at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2009. He said,

"In times of trouble like today, pessimists die quickly."

Enjoy my attempt to unpack, and kindly let me know what you think!

Three weeks from the start of spring, I'm happy to report that I have a piece, "Who You Callin' a Slumdog?: America sees its future in Oscar-winning film," on The Huffington Post. I hope you like it.

And regarding that excellent blog-which I feel absolutely delighted to write for, by the way-I'll now be posting there quite regularly and also here.

At the moment, though, I'm juggling furiously. So, if you appreciate the writing that pops up on this blog from time to time, I do value your patience and promise to work out a more tenable (and regular) blogging schedule during the next couple of months.

To viewers of "Chai Time" on Omni TV who might have followed the link on the show to reach my blog, I thought I'd (a.) link to the article the host Tarannum referred to and (b.) say a little bit more about my background.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was awarded a scholarship (the Ranjit Azad Singh Memorial Scholarship) and a fellowship (the Basant and Harnam Kaur Singh Fellowship) in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC.

These scholarships, which were endowed by members of the Indo-Canadian (Punjabi) community, made it possible for me to explore issues of identity and culture in the writing of personal narrative (creative non-fiction). After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, I turned to corporate freelance writing (along with technology journalism) to make ends meet, primarily in the United States and Europe, which over time led to writing about environmental, technological and social trends for major companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA. And, in the midst of it all, I made the acquaintance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who taught me about making a closer spiritual connection with the land as a way to work out my own crises of cultural identity (I'd experienced quite a bit of racism growing up) and reconnect with my Punjabi and Sindhi roots.

So, since I didn't have a chance to do so yesterday, my thanks once again to the donors of scholarship funds to the UBC Creative Writing program. I benefited greatly from working with some of Canada's top authors; and the ability to write well is coming in especially handy as I synthesize trends (and my personal experiences) to understand the large questions of our time, questions revolving around the economy and the environment – and our individual abilities to develop the inner strength we'll need to face the tumult of the coming years and decades.

Finally, thanks to Chai Time for the opportunity to be on their excellent program!

Colin Beavan, a.k.a. "No Impact Man," cites an article on the BBC web site written by Joanna Benn, who, as a "journalist, writer and consultant specialising in environmental issues," writes: "When I see babies, not only do I see the beauty, joy and miracle of life, I also see nappies, landfill waste, vast amounts of food and money needed, and a very shaky, unpredictable future."

Beavan's post also mentions that author and environmentalist Bill McKibben has written an impassioned book called Maybe One: A Case for Smaller Families.

Well, here's the perspective of the Realistic Sanctuary Blog:

1. Dispense with hand-wringing and guilt

We need children so that innocence, love and kindness remain central to the human legacy. Whatever positive aspects of human nature we can nourish in times of growing crisis will be of great import to present and future generations. And while climate change and economic and agricultural shifts do imply natural disasters, competitiveness and scarcity, which historically tend to bring out the primal desire to survive and the worst in many people, the only way I can imagine to avoid being overcome by this is to be even more engaged with, and loving toward, any future children you may wish to adopt, raise or give birth to.

2. Intuit your way forward

Today, we're experiencing climatic instability that was scarcely imaginable just 20 years ago and that hasn't been seen since the dawn of civilization, approximately 10,000 years ago. Given the presence of tremendous climatic and economic forces alongside the mass psychology of fear (the latter may well subvert the best-laid plans of avoiding climatic catastrophe), hand-wringing and guilt won't be of any use. Nor will any attempt to rationalize why your NOT having a child, or having only one, will somehow save the planet. The fact is, the forces now at play are vastly greater than human agency.

Nevertheless, I'd suggest that if we don't access our intuition to guide our own unique path forward, others' panic and fear could well influence us to make decisions, like whether or not to have children, in the grip of the cliquish, wrong-headed idea that overpopulation means it's irresponsible to have more than one child. On the contrary, it implies that having any number of children, and then raising them to be self-absorbed and nihilistic, won't contribute to building a new generation of increasingly cooperative and community-minded citizens. We need that new generation.

3. If you wish to have children, have as few (or as many) as you're capable of loving and caring for

If you choose to have one or a few children, treat them well, encourage active participation in community activities, and celebrate the happiness they bring to your life and to the lives of others.

4. Help your children through simplicity, contentedness and generosity

That way, you and your children can navigate the coming changes with essential strength… and can contribute goodwill to the local community. (Local communities are likely to form the foundation for most people's survival.)

So, enough guilt already. When it comes to having children, follow your heart, knowing that indeed the future, while dire at times, will also be poorer and more bereft without children who have been well loved and raised.

I was surprised and humbled to be included among 100 or so thinkers whom leading sustainability publication Worldchanging asked the following question just prior to Obama's historic presidential victory:

In 100 words or less, what should the next president do in his first 100 days to address the planet’s most pressing problems?

My two cents?

Coordinated Nationwide Public Information Campaign on Economy and Climate
Today, the global economic meltdown and the climate crisis are key forces affecting civil society. That is why the new president will need to bring to public awareness sound climate science and policy aimed at supporting innovation and civic sustainability. Americans need the new presidential administration to help them understand the grave ramifications of environmental degradation and profligate energy use. Within its first 100 days in office, the new administration should conduct a massive, nationwide public information campaign encouraging every citizen to cooperate on making their locales more humane, inclusive, and resilient to predictable economic dislocation and climate chaos.

Now, the rationale. Under the past eight years of the Bush administration, coordinated efforts to downplay the reality of climate change induced widespread confusion among the U.S. populace about the nature and extent of the threat of global warming, representing an incalculable setback to public education and actual work done to mitigate the potential scope of damage. (In a recent report on the Yale Environment 360 website, New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert asks, "But can a new U.S. administration act swiftly enough to compensate for two terms of inaction? And if so, what must it do?")

In answer to Kolbert, a good starting point is to make certain credible, actionable information about our current predicament reaches the American public rapidly. To achieve this end, the imprimatur of the U.S. government is required as is a U.S. president who's willing to be a key spokesperson in a nationwide public education initiative. This initiative, as noted above, would focus citizens on developing the kind of local resilience that could provide support amid increasingly intense economic and climatic disruptions.

Enough said. The Worldchanging article includes 47 valuable contributions from people like Danah Boyd, Jamais Cascio, Jeremy Faludi, Paul Hawken, Bill McKibben, Pierre Omidyar, Darius Rejali, Howard Rheingold, Bruce Sterling, John Thackara, and many, many other fine thinkers. Read the full article here; it's worth it.

perfect storm (a) a particularly violent storm arising from a rare combination of meteorological factors; (b) (chiefly US) an especially bad situation caused by unfavourable circumstances.

- from Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Sixth edition, Volume 2 N – Z

"But it would fair for the new administration to point out how conservative ideology, the belief that greed is always good, helped create this crisis. What F.D.R. said in his second inaugural address – €˜We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics' – has never rung truer."

- Paul Krugman, "The Obama Agenda," Nov. 7, 2008, New York Times

Given crisis conditions in politics, the economy, the environment – and, by the way, world hunger and charity, too – the term "perfect storm" has infiltrated the current dialog about pretty much everything.

You might say a perfect storm of perfect storms has led to the growing usage of "perfect storm."

First, massive hurricanes and cyclones are on the rise.

Second, there's an economic crisis, caused by intense economic volatility, but is it really a perfect storm? (If you ask me, it was a storm caused by human imperfection, namely greed, making it an "imperfect storm." But I digress.)

Third, carbon emissions are way up, leading to more rapid climate change, melting of polar ice, influenced by a series of factors – human, industrial, oceanic, and otherwise – that some are also calling a perfect storm.

And, fourth, Obama's election victory has led pundits to say that his victory resulted from a perfect storm of (a.) political miscalculations by the Republicans and (b.) the economic meltdown that began in September with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and A.I.G.

Nevertheless, the question remains: Why is the term "perfect storm" being used so often at the moment?

In all likelihood, it's because myriad varieties of "especially bad situation caused by unfavourable circumstances," which feed "particularly violent" (real and metaphorical) storms, are now increasingly commonplace rather than anomalous.

That's why, in a real and collective sense, these bad situations represent the perfect storm that's caused the usage of "perfect storm" to achieve a new normalcy.

And that makes perfect storms something we're going to have to learn to get used to, whether we like it or not.