Ever wonder what’s bothering Al Gore? Worrying too much about catastrophic global warming is not good for your mental health, according to new research from Germany.
Because global warming is a global issue that requires international cooperation, it can leave the individual activist with a sense of powerlessness, leading to a condition called “doomer-depression.”
The German publication TAZ reports that because the doomsday scenarios surrounding global warming have been around for decades, researchers are finding that such scenarios are causing depression on a global scale. Furthermore, it is making more people complacent when it comes to acting on global warming.
“One problem is that climate change is hardly detectable and so people have a psychological distance to it,” reports TAZ. “Apocalyptic scenarios are, however, of little help in overcoming that distance. The overly drastic prognoses that were used especially in the 1980s only amplified the sense of helplessness. Because stability is a fundamental desire of every person, thoughts that have to do with situations of collapse often get suppressed.’”
Doomsayers are also becoming depressed after they realize that it is hard to get people to act on global warming, even if it is just working to change government policy.
German children are brought up through the school system learning about sustainable development and the dangers of global warming, but even this seems to be backfiring against government planners.
TAZ reports that “after 25 years of environmental education in school is the conclusion sobering: ‘The ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ has no measurable effect,’ says Ulrich Gebhardt, an educationalist at the University of Hamburg.”
Global warming skeptics, on the other hand, argue that staying skeptical about mankind’s impending doom will make you much happier.
“For the rest of us who have avoided the doom of gloom of the climate alarmism, my advice is that you continue doing so. Visiting skeptic sites like this one will keep you optimistic about the future and a lot happier,” writes skeptic blogger P. Gosselin for No Tricks Zone.
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