ITRC PNW Transformational Resilience Network

By Jennifer Silverstein, LCSW, jennisilverstein.com, Blog 2021. “Every time I rescue a bee, it matters. If I didn’t rescue it, the hive may not have enough bees, and then there’d be less honey, and less flowers, and less fruit, and when people go shopping there would not be enough for them to eat.” – Dani, 7 years old I have spent 7 years teaching her about the interdependence of all life, and our place in the web of living beings. Yet upon hearing her articulate the values I so carefully...

Through fires and hurricanes, through lethal heat waves and flash floods, the world seems to be ending — or at least, that's what it feels like. All around us, we're seeing the effects of climate change. Wildfires are raging through the West. Much of southeast Louisiana was flattened by Hurricane Ida , and parts of New York and New Jersey are digging out from disastrous flooding. And if it seems like natural disasters are happening more and more often, that's because they are : Climate...

As the effects of climate change become severe, more people than ever may experience mental health challenges. To provide solutions, experts say the system will need to evolve. The resonances were eerie as Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, broached Louisiana’s coast on Sunday, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the same area. “It’s very painful to think about another powerful storm like Hurricane Ida making landfall on that anniversary,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D)...

Please join over 50 organizations & 175 professionals that have endorsed the letter. Endorsers range from the American Association of Community Psychiatry, to the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment, The Prevention Institute, Black Psychiatrists of America, Physicians for Social Responsibility, American Association of Suicidology, and more than 45 other diverse national, regional, and local organizations. Request for Organizational and Individual Endorsements of Letter Below...

From International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, August 2021 As human beings, our physical and mental health cannot be separated from the environments in which we live. Climate change, if left unaddressed, is projected to have catastrophic consequences on the mental health of entire populations. This ISTSS Friday Fast Facts series will feature ISTSS’ recent work to highlight the intersections among global climate change and trauma. Look for new materials every Friday in August 2021.

Please consider making an organizational and/or individual endorsements on a letter below (and attached) to Congress calling for the Introduction and Enactment of the "Resilience for All Act of 2021." The deadline for endorsing the letter is September 30. To the Honorable Chuck Schumer Majority Leader United States Senate 322 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 To the Honorable Mitch McConnell Minority Leader United States Senate 317 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC...

By Jay Pitter, Policy Options Politiques, August 9, 2021 It has been said that traumatic incidents dislocate “ the lived and imagined landscapes ” of a city’s emotional ecosystem. This theory feels especially palpable as we approach the precipice of the post-COVID city. Scarred by decades of car-centric infrastructure and festering social divides, our already wounded urban landscape, along with its services and amenities, has been further threatened by the global pandemic. This public health...

ITRC member Dr. David Pollack made possible this article that was just published in Psychiatric News. It explains the urgent need to quickly expand the mental health system beyond individualized trauma treatment to prioritize community-based, culturally-tailored, population-level initiatives that enhance universal capacity for what I call "Presencing" and "Purposing" to prevent and heal climate change generated traumas. The article can be found here:...

Undark Magazine, which is supported by t he Knight Foundation through its Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program, published an article last Thursday co- written by 7 members of the ITRC federal policy team that you might find of interest . It explains the urgent need to expand the U.S. approach to mental health to authorize and fund community-based initiatives to prevent and heal the individual and collective traumas generated by the climate emergency among the entire population. The...

By Katie Surma, Inside Climate News, June 22, 2021 A panel of 12 legal experts from around the world on Tuesday released a proposed definition for a new international crime called “ecocide” covering “severe” and “widespread or long-term environmental damage” that would be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. The panel’s announcement was seen by environmentalists and international...

By Bob Doppelt, Undark, June 24, 2021 I T WAS 80 DEGREES outside in Oregon’s Southern Willamette Valley, the record drought continued, and a red flag warning had been issued to alert residents to beware of wildfires. No, it was not autumn, when wildfire season has historically occurred in the region. It was April 16, when it should have still been cool and pouring rain outside. The surprising wildfire warning seemed to have everyone on edge, fearful about what might happen to them, their...

" In the context of the US return to the Paris Accord on Climate Change, President Joseph Biden issued an executive order (EO) requiring a multi-agency report on climate change and its impact on human mobility ( White House, 2021 ). The report is to focus on forced migration, internal displacement, and planned relocation. Among the issues the EO stipulates will be addressed are the international security implications of climate-related movement; options and mechanisms to protect and, if...