The Overlooked Crisis: What Happens to Our Minds When the Climate Changes
- Ana Petriashvili
- Oct 26
- 6 min read
Understanding the Psychological Impact of Environmental Change
While the physical impacts of climate change are well-documented, its psychological consequences remain understudied. Climate-related events — from heat waves and floods to hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires — significantly affect mental health through direct trauma exposure and indirect socioeconomic pathways. This blog examines the mental health dimensions of climate change across different extreme events and discusses pathways toward building psychological resilience in the face of ongoing climate challenges.
The Missing Piece
We've all seen the headlines about climate change: rising temperatures, melting glaciers, devastating wildfires. Scientists track carbon emissions, monitor sea levels, and measure atmospheric changes with precision. Yet amid this flood of environmental data, we've overlooked something critical — the psychological toll of our changing climate.
While much attention has been paid to the physical impacts of climate change, including extreme heat events, droughts, storms, and rising sea levels, far less attention has focused on mental health. The psychological impacts are real, widespread, and growing. Research on this topic only began appearing around 2007, but has since exploded, with the highest number of studies published in 2020 — a sign of our growing recognition of the problem.
Climate change affects mental health through both direct and indirect pathways. Direct impacts include exposure to traumatic events like wildfires and severe weather. Indirect pathways operate through social, political, and economic factors such as poverty, unemployment, and housing instability. Vulnerable populations, especially in low-income countries, face the greatest risks.
“It’s very easy for us to say, I have eco-anxiety, but it goes so much deeper than that… It’s what it means to live in a society that doesn’t prioritise people’s wellness, that treats people as disposable — that treats our planet as disposable.”
Tori Tsui, Climate justice activist and author of It’s Not Just You, How to Navigate Eco- Anxiety and the Climate Crisis. Source.
When Weather Becomes a Mental Health Emergency
Heat Waves
The ideal temperature for proper brain functioning is around 22°C. When environmental temperatures climb significantly beyond that, the consequences are severe. Heat stress directly affects biochemical levels in the brain, altering the production of serotonin and dopamine. It disrupts thermoregulation, causes sleep disturbances, and contributes to exhaustion—all factors associated with increased suicide risk.
The statistics are stark: people with mental illness are three times more likely to die during a heat wave than those without mental illness. The correlation between mental illness and temperature depends on latitude and extends beyond geography to cultural, political, and socio-behavioral factors.
Floods
When floodwaters recede, the mental health impacts remain. Flooding leads primarily to post-traumatic stress disorder, with a direct correlation between disaster intensity and psychological severity. Studies worldwide show that floods bring mourning, displacement, and psychosocial stress from loss of lives and belongings.
Among flood victims, 20% were diagnosed with depression, 28.3% with anxiety, and 36% with PTSD. These consequences persist long after the water is gone, compounded by ongoing economic problems and behavioral issues in children.
Hurricanes and Storms
Tornadoes, hurricanes, and storms have increased in intensity, frequency, and duration over recent decades. The psychological aftermath is devastating. One in six people in affected areas develop PTSD, and half develop an anxiety or mood disorder. Suicide rates and suicidal ideation spike in the wake of these storms.
Risk factors include severity of exposure, previous mental health problems, age, being female, low education and socioeconomic status, and unemployment. The damage extends beyond the immediate event: loss of social support, job insecurity, healthcare system disruption, and forced relocation all contribute to distress that can last a year or more.
Drought
Long-term droughts combine high temperatures with low precipitation, devastating agricultural productivity and triggering economic decline. Farmers are particularly vulnerable to environment-induced mental health risks. The psychological toll includes depression, demoralization, and passive resignation, especially among women, adolescents, and those with lower socioeconomic status. Drought has been frequently connected to suicide, particularly in older populations.
Wildfires
Studies in areas hit by Australian bushfires found that 42% of the exposed population qualified as potential psychiatric cases a year after the events. Californian wildfires showed 33% with major depression symptoms and 24% with PTSD. Greek wildfires revealed increased anxiety, depression, and paranoia.
Post-disaster issues include PTSD, chronic dissociation, depression, and behavioral problems. Effects can be delayed and persist for years, affecting even populations not directly in the fire's path.
The Long-Term Threat
Even with successful mitigation efforts, higher temperatures and rising sea levels will persist into the next century. Poor countries will suffer most due to greater exposure to extreme temperatures, reliance on vulnerable agriculture sectors, and limited access to critical infrastructure. Economic disparities will lead to population displacement and conflicts.
Perhaps the most significant long-term mental health outcome is the existential threat itself. Psychological distress and anxiety about the future stem from acknowledging climate change as a global threat. This awareness has given rise to new psychological phenomena: "ecoanxiety," "ecoparalysis," and "solastalgia"—the distress caused by watching one's home environment gradually become unrecognizable. Young people, even in high-income countries, are especially vulnerable to these syndromes.
Puerto Rico: A Case Study
Puerto Rico exemplifies how extreme weather combines with existing vulnerabilities. Before Hurricane Maria arrived in October 2017, the island was already struggling with increased mental illness amid a decade-long recession. Maria made everything worse.
The suicide rate increased 16% from 2016, with a 26% increase in total suicides. Six months after the storm, one low-income community showed staggering numbers: 54.1% scored in the clinically significant range for major depression, 48.6% for generalized anxiety disorder, and 41.9% for PTSD.
Among nearly 96,000 students surveyed, 83.9% saw houses damaged, 45.7% reported damage to their own homes, 32.3% experienced food or water shortages, and 16.7% still had no electricity 5–9 months later. Overall, 7.2% of youths showed clinically significant PTSD symptoms.
Who Suffers Most
Climate change hits vulnerable populations hardest: women, the elderly, children, people with previous psychiatric illnesses, those with low income or weak social networks, and indigenous communities. Poor countries are more vulnerable than wealthy ones, and those who have contributed least to climate change often suffer most from its consequences.
Moving Forward
The relationship between climate change and mental health is complex and still being mapped. However, certain factors clearly influence outcomes: socio-behavioral elements, culture, information access, and preparedness all determine whether communities develop resilience or experience psychological breakdown.
The path forward requires action on multiple fronts. Mental health must be integrated into climate policy, not treated as an afterthought. Communities need strengthened social networks and preparedness programs. Vulnerable populations require targeted support —mental health services, economic assistance, and infrastructure improvements. Healthcare systems must be reinforced before disasters strike.
"Maintaining my mental health is part of my activism because mental health is planetary health."
Tori Tsui, Climate justice activist and author of It’s Not Just You, How to Navigate Eco- Anxiety and the Climate Crisis. Source.
We need to create space for people to process their climate-related emotions without judgment, while channeling anxiety into meaningful action. Understanding adaptation mechanisms and protective factors will be crucial as we face ongoing climate changes.
Climate change affects not just our physical environment but our psychological landscape. The storms we track on weather maps create lasting storms in the human mind. Recognizing this reality is the first step toward comprehensive solutions that protect both our planet and our mental health.
Cover photo: Ana Mendieta, Untitled: Silueta Series, 1979.
Source of photos: www.anamendietaartist.com
The information presented this blog-post is based on research. Key references include:
Charlson, F., Ali, S., Benmarhnia, T., Pearl, M., Massazza, A., Augustinavicius, J., & Scott, J. G. (2021). Climate change and mental health: A scoping review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(9), Article 4486. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094486
Cianconi, P., Betrò, S., & Janiri, L. (2020). The impact of climate change on mental health: A systematic descriptive review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, Article 74. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00074
Palinkas, L. A., & Wong, M. (2020). Global climate change and mental health. Current Opinion in Psychology, 32, 12–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.06.023
Trombley, J., Chalupka, S., & Anderko, L. (2017). Climate change and mental health. American Journal of Nursing, 117(4), 44–52. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000515232.51795.fa
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