Sometimes the most poetic lexicon can contain the most terrifying meaning.
This is the case of
solastalgia,
a word that when pronounced whispers like a wind, as if imitating the swaying of the waves, a term full of nostalgia, but in an anguished way.
It is strange the environment that is still inhabited but that is no longer recognized.
The origin of this neologism is found in climate change and the mental problems it is causing.
This was warned by the report published by the WHO at the beginning of June.
A document that highlights how changes in the environment resulting from human activity are having increasingly serious and lasting impacts on populations, directly and indirectly affecting mental health and psychosocial well-being.
According to the international organization, in addition to harming so many aspects of health, warming also exacerbates many social and environmental risk factors that aggravate mental illness and create new psychological conditions.
The natural disasters that are being observed with increasing frequency in ecosystems - hurricanes that destroy the foundations of homes, floods that submerge entire communities under water, forest fires that extinguish life with their flames - drag populations into insecurity and loss of their place and culture.
“This anxiety is the product of the destruction of the environment,” points out Manuel Ruiz de Chávez, a specialist in social medicine on the Board of Directors of the UNAM Foundation in Mexico.
For the head of the National Bioethics Commission of the Ministry of Health,
“Global warming exacerbates human rights problems.
It is the most complex bioethical challenge of our time”.
In the psychologist's words, "the impact is evident in the development of post-traumatic stress and exacerbations of personality disorders in those who survived catastrophic events."
But, changes in the environment are also increasing the incidence of conditions such as emotional distress, depression, suicidal behavior or increased consumption of alcohol and anxiolytics.
In the last five decades, five million people have been victims of these climate-related health hazards, according to the WHO.
Yasna Palmeiro-Silva, Chilean lead author of a study on the threat of climate change to the health of the population, assures that more and more psychological disorders are developing as a result of this crisis and that there is an urgent need to act in the face of the appearance of new pathologies such as
ecological pain
or eco-
anxiety
, suffering suffered by some people in the face of the apocalyptic scenario that predicts the transformations of the environment.
Or solastalgia.
The countries that lost their spring and heat stroke
"These are real problems," says Palmeiro-Silva, who specializes in global health.
In Chile there are no longer four seasons, there is no longer autumn or spring.
“We only have summer and winter.
An example of what causes the feelings of anguish and fear that we experience when witnessing changes that did not occur with such frequency and magnitude before”, says the specialist.
"I myself suffer from anxiety about what we are seeing," she confesses.
Among the many ecological factors that influence mental health, global warming is the most obvious.
There are many studies that point to the direct association between high temperatures and the evolution of various psychological disorders, as well as the diversity of mechanisms through which heat waves impact mental balance.
Although the signs of this relationship are beginning to be known now, an investigation has come to link the previous phenomenon with the increased chance of being admitted to the emergency room due to a schizophrenia or bipolar disorder outbreak.
Heat waves can cause stress, sleep and exhaustion, increasing vulnerability and irritability.
But, among the consequences of high temperatures are also listed the reduction of emotional well-being, depression, increased aggression, anxiety and greater psychological distress.
Also clinical symptoms associated with suicide.
Other work led by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley in 2018 shows the correlation between suicide and heating.
For every degree that the temperature rises in Mexico, the rate of self-inflicted deaths grows by 2.1%.
The report, published in the journal
Nature
, estimates that by 2050 these numbers will increase by tens of thousands of deaths.
The susceptibility of inhabitants of regions with extreme climates and poverty to this phenomenon multiplies in the face of adverse changes.
“Excess heat, extreme precipitation events and ocean acidification transform the ecosystems of which we are a part, but they impact different populations in different ways.
Poor communities are more vulnerable because they do not have access to health”, concludes the Chilean.
Social and environmental justice in balance
The loss of livelihoods that is leaving many communities homeless and in a situation of poverty is causing the phenomenon of climate migrants, increasingly numerous in some Latin American countries.
"Damage to socioeconomic infrastructure increases long-term stress and anxiety and, with it, the risk of conflict and displacement of communities," laments the expert from the Mexican Health Foundation.
According to World Bank estimates, almost four million Mexicans and Central Americans will be forced to leave their homes due to rising sea levels and lower agricultural production in the coming years.
Environmental problems exacerbate social inequities and inequities in access to health.
Certain conditions such as lack of access to education and resources, poor urban planning to deal with, for example, extreme rainfall, "expose certain people to greater vulnerability to disasters such as floods, further affecting their quality of life and increasing the incidence of diseases”, determines the Chilean.
A particularity that places Latin American territories at greater risk compared to other places in the world is the very recent nature of environmental governance and institutions in the region.
“Unfortunately we have not been able to advance as fast as we would like to deal with ecological threats.
In fact, solastalgia itself is aggravated by the awareness of political inaction, which worsens the feeling”, laments Palmeiro-Silva.
And it is that both the programs and the budget to meet this enormous challenge are almost non-existent.
In low- and middle-income countries, less than 20% of the population report receiving adequate health services.
And, as Palmeiro-Silva concludes, “there is less intention to include planetary health policies in government agendas.
It is not yet understood that if the ecosystems are not healthy, neither are we”.
