It’s Earth Day 2025! Let’s Celebrate 15 Years of Going Green in Psychiatric Times

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

I first started to write regularly for Psychiatric Times on January 6, 2010, with the article “Why Psychiatrists Should Go Green.” At that time, I only knew of very small numbers of environmentally concerned psychiatrists. Even so, there had already been 40 Earth Days, which began in 1970 for addressing pollution and other environmental degradations. Concern about the climate’s influence on the environment increased more recently. Perhaps it is useful, then, to consider what has happened in the Psychiatric Times coverage of our environmental challenges over the last 15 years.

Yes, many more psychiatrists have “gone green” in their concerns. Over the years, many others besides me wrote about our environmental and climate concerns. Many came out of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance (CPA), which I helped cofound. A Psychiatric Times series on climate change emerged and, by my count, there has been at least 44 articles in the series.

One of the issues I focused on back in 2010 was the terminology being used. My concern was that the terms were not likely to psychologically evoke a sense of danger. I tried to point out that the use of warming, as in the popular term of the time global warming, had mixed implications. In colder climates, the global warming could feel psychologically welcoming. Positively, though, I have not heard that term used in years.

On the other hand, the other popular term back in 2010 was climate change and it is still very popular. However, change can be perceived as beneficial or harmful. That is why I have been advocating for climate instability, which would connect with our climate disasters which are now happening more and more around the globe, and also even connect with the mental instability we are familiar with in our clinical work. Others have recommended climate disruption, climate crisis, or climate breakdown.

Perhaps, climate change would be best considered as a term that needs to change because we have fallen behind the climate scientific goals to prevent future disasters and a harmful feedback loop of carbon in the atmosphere.

We sometimes must change clinical strategy due to inadequate results. Our clinical recognition of and response to climate-related mental disturbances has been done quite well. However, in a more preventive sense, our current climate strategy itself needs to change. Given our other global crises, which can converge and amplify each other, addressing the climate as part of what is called polycrisis is needed. Included in the collective crises tend to be pandemics, war, burnout, and possibly AI. Pope Francis, before he just died, emphasized connecting and protecting the poor and the earth. At its best, the polycrisis focus captures the magnitude of danger and the need for increased cooperation and systemic changes, both in psychiatry and society.

Yes, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, as Shakespeare said. But there is nothing sweet about what is happening to our ecology, our interaction of humans and the environment. We need to find the “sweet spot” in transitioning from fossil fuels to more environmentally friendly energy.

Additional Note

Several of us psychiatrists have been asked to present a Learning Lab at the upcoming APA Annual Meeting to discuss how psychiatry can help address the polycrisis. If you are attending, our session is Monday morning, May 19, session #8114, Room 309.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.