Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! It’s Earth Day

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EARTH & PSYCHIATRY

The Earth is in increased distress. Just take these representative headlines so far in 2021.

- “INDIA: Chamoli glacial outburst flood kills 26, leaves 200 missing.” Disaster Report. February 9, 2021.

- “COVID is our mass tutorial, our dress rehearsal for all the degradations as well as the tragedies that the climate emergency could bring.” The Wall Street Journal. March 19, 2021.

- “Australia’s worst floods in decades quicken concern about climate change.” The New York Times. March 22, 2021.

-“Monthly temperature records smashed in Europe beneath sprawling heat dome.” The Washington Post. April 1, 2021.

- “Florida crisis highlights a nationwide risk from toxic ponds.” The New York Times. April 6, 2021.

- “North Korea nuke fears as ‘heightened activity’ seen at nuclear site weeks after Kim Jong-un’s ballistic missile tests.” The Sun, UK Edition. April 8, 2021.

- “Greta Thunberg to boycott U.N. climate conference over vaccine inequality.” The Washington Post. April 9, 2021.

Will we answer these distress calls from the Earth? Psychiatric Times^TM is doing so. In our series on Psychiatry & Earth Day, we offer a unique collection of worldwide perspectives and lifelines. We have to head off advancing climate instability, pre and posttraumatic reactions, toxic and COVID-19 brain damage, disorders of despair, and more. Academic articles and presentations are not nearly enough. Advocate and agitate! We need Earth Day every day.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who has specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry. A prolific writer and speaker, he received the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Assembly of the American Psychiatric Association in 2002. He has recently been leading Tikkun Olam advocacy movements on climate instability, burnout, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism for a better world. He serves on the Editorial Board ofPsychiatric Times^TM.