I read something very sad recently. It seems a 68-year-old climate-change activist in British Columbia has been under a doctor’s care since 2017 with “eco-anxiety and biosphere-related depression” to the point where his condition has become “debilitating.” He is now seeking a medically related death (assisted suicide) to stop the pain.
Until this point, this man’s request for assisted suicide had been denied because “his condition was not an ‘acceptable, permissible malady.'” However, in March of 2023, someone whose only medical condition is mental illness will be eligible, so this man is reapplying.
And see, this is what concerns me about the progressive obsession with climate change: It is cultivating mental illness. Deliberately, intentionally, purposely, knowingly.
Mental illness is no joking matter. The adopted daughter of some dear friends, currently 16 years old, is battling a severe and genetic mental illness, and it is devastating. Mental illness is one of the most cruel and capricious afflictions imaginable, and it wreaks havoc in families. It’s difficult enough to combat this condition when it is a legitimate chemical imbalance. Why would anyone who is (dare I say it) in their right mind think it’s a good idea to heap so much misery on people that mental illness is actually created?
This is what the left is doing: Mentally and emotionally battering people about massive global issues far beyond their control, and then telling them they’re going to die unless it’s fixed in the next few years. This mental abuse starts in kindergarten (or earlier) and continues through post-graduate studies, resulting in entire generations in legitimate emotional agony.
This British Columbia man doesn’t want to end his life because he’s battling a terminal or debilitating physical ailment. Instead, he seeks to end his life because he is battling a painful and traumatic emotional condition that was entirely cultivated by progressives. I find that achingly sad.
The mental abuse frequently results in a disorder called “catastrophizing,” defined as “a cognitive distortion that prompts people to jump to the worst possible conclusion, usually with very limited information or objective reason to despair. When a situation is upsetting, but not necessarily catastrophic, they still feel like they are in the midst of a crisis.” For those whose desolation over the state of the earth doesn’t quite reach the level of suicide, there are now endless counseling options or self-help books.
Consider the very real angst of a writer and biologist who “felt forced to confront the climate crisis on a personal level when she and her husband began seriously discussing having a baby. … Over the last five years, [the author] worked her way through this crucible of emotion and forged a new sense of purpose – and a new livelihood. She turned to research to explore the mental and emotional toll exacted by the climate crisis and environmental destruction, using her storytelling skills to relay her findings on ‘how to stay sane in the climate and broader ecological crisis.'”
Articles such as the one entitled “‘Climate Despair’ Is Making People Give Up on Life” makes it sound like this psychosis is just random but unfortunate chance. In fact, this despair is deliberately being cultivated. Starting in toddlerhood and going all the way through adulthood, people are saturated with news and information about impending doom over a problem everyone knows is too large to solve at an individual level. Every individual action you take is futile in the big picture. We’re all gonna die.
In short, these are people who are driving themselves – or worse, driving children – into anguish and hopelessness. “Many kids today are terrified their lives will never really come to fruition; that it’ll all be overby the time they’re old enough to enjoy it,” observes columnist Derek Hunter. “They’re being robbed of their childhoods in front of the whole world, being exploited as emotional blackmail to pressure their parents to accept the will of the left.”
(As a side note, if religious parents trained their children to similar levels of terror, they would rightfully be accused of child cruelty.)
“Eco-anxiety, a concept introduced by young activists, has entered a mainstream vocabulary,” the New York Times solemnly informs us. Their phrasing – “a concept introduced by young activists – was interesting. It sure makes it sound as if the mental illness of climate-change despair is deliberate and orchestrated, doesn’t it?
The article continues, “A 10-country survey of 10,000 people aged 16 to 25 published last month in The Lancet found startling rates of pessimism. Forty-five percent of respondents said worry about climate negatively affected their daily life. Three-quarters said they believed ‘the future is frightening,’ and 56 percent said ‘humanity is doomed.'”
People afflicted with climate-change despair are experiencing crippling anxiety, panic attacks, depression and other debilitating conditions. Their suffering is real.
But some may argue it’s also unnecessary. Marinating in bad news 24/7 (called “doomscrolling”) will bring down anyone’s mental health. (Just look at the Q-anon people.) Exacerbating the condition by saturating public education and the mainstream media with messages about how the planet is doomed and we’re all gonna die – in other words, cultivating mental illness – results in the tragically suicidal thoughts of the British Columbia man. How long before someone snaps and murders their own children because they can’t bear to see them grow up in a hopeless world?
The Serenity Prayer applies here: “God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
The wisdom to know the difference. Those afflicted with climate-change despair must understand there are some things that they cannot change (the globe) and some things they can (themselves and their behavior). They must be wise enough to know the difference. (Of course, I would also encourage those afflicted with climate-change despair to turn to God, but that’s another issue altogether.)
This kind of wisdom contradicts the agenda of the extreme leftists, who somehow deem it a victory to cultivate entire generations of mentally ill people too depressed to enjoy the gift of life. Even the psychologists addressing climate-change despair are trying to convey to their patients the idea that it’s not really on us as individuals to solve. And this, dear readers, is some of the fruit of leftism.
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