January 2024

My second Psychology Today article--"Climate Anxiety in Make Believe and Real Time"--was published today. It describes how society's sad response to the global climate-ecosystem-biodiversity catastrophe mirrors that story told in the movie "Don't Look Up." It then describes how one result of our failure to act is that both youth and adults, including my wife and I, suffer from "climate anxiety." The article goes on to discuss how we can overcome climate anxiety by establishing the social...

ITRC Coordinator Bob Doppelt will not be writing a regular monthly column for Psychology Today . They will focus on different aspects involved with using a public health approach in communities to prevent and heal the mental health and psychosocial problems generated by accelerating climate related toxic stresses, emergencies, and disasters. His first article can be found here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/community-is-medicine/202401/communities-are-medicine

Personal experience, common sense, and science confirm that temperatures are rising globally. Heat waves are occurring with greater frequency and lasting longer than ever before. According to the World Meteorological Organization , 2023 is believed to have been the hottest year on record. Humans have successfully adapted to a wide range of climates, but there are limits to our tolerance and climatic conditions beyond which our bodies cannot cool themselves sufficiently. While the dangers of...