The New Yorker Radio Hour - How Climate Change Is Impacting Our Mental Health

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

In June, a first-of-its-kind lawsuit will go to trial in Montana. The case, Held v. Montana, centers on the climate crisis. Sixteen young plaintiffs allege their state government has failed in its obligation, spelled out in the state constitution, to provide residents with a healthful environment. The psychiatrist Dr. Lise Van Susteren is serving as an expert witness and intends to detail the emotional distress that can result from watching the environmental destruction unfolding year after year. “Kids are talking about their anger. They’re talking about their fear. They’re talking about their despair. They’re talking about feelings of abandonment,” she tells David Remnick. “And they don’t understand why the adults in the room are not taking more action.” Dr. Van Susteren is a co-founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, a network of mental-health providers concerned with educating colleagues and the public about the climate crisis. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I try not to be alarmist, but I feel like there's some sort of apocalypse that's awaiting around climate change. I fear for people who are living below sea level, I fear for people who are very dependent on agriculture. And I can just go to the grocery store, so I have a little bit more time. I have a stable income, but I mean, calamity can come at any time. I think we're getting towards a point where we're not going to be able to reverse the damages to the climate that we make.

And I'm, yeah, I'm a little bit worried to see what the consequences of that might be in the future, especially when I'm thinking about, you know, do I want to have kids? Is this a world I want to bring them into? Is it going to be safe for them? I really don't know. I realize that mankind is a tough species to be part of, but we're doing it to the earth, and we have to change. I have grandchildren, so I think about what their lives will be like

when mine is no longer here, and it doesn't seem to me that things are happening quickly. I mean, I lived in Ston Island for Hurricane Sandy, and that was like, it devastated that borough in New York. And it was just because of like lack of preparedness for, because of the climate was changing and like the civil was arising. And people were like, they were drowning in their own homes because of floods. And like, I don't know, seeing that as a kid was just really impacts you.

In June, a case known as Held v. Montana will go to court. It's a lawsuit about the climate emergency, the first ever of its kind to reach trial. 16 young plaintiffs are suing the state of Montana, for failing in its obligation under the Montana Constitution to provide them with a healthy environment. And among the harms the plaintiffs will lay out is the emotional distress

of watching the world around them get more and more threatened every day. An expert witness the plaintiffs will call in the health case is the psychiatrist Lisa Van Sustrin. She's a co-founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, a network of mental health providers concerned with educating colleagues and the public about the climate crisis. I think it's axiomatic now that we have in ways that are hard to quantify a mental health crisis in the United States,

and a lot of it is ascribed to the pandemic and its aftermath and any number of other factors, social media. And one of them is the climate crisis. How would you at least broadly outline that crisis where it has to do with climate and psychology? Well, let me take it from the top. The pandemic created enormous pressures on kids because they weren't able to socialize and do the things that help them to break away from their parents and adjust to a new world, et cetera. And so the fact that there was additional challenges to kids is undeniable. But for some reason, when it has come to understanding that kids are hearing, scientists tell us that we are looking at extinction of species and maybe even of our own.

And unless they're living in a cave, it's going to bother them. So, yeah, we have a very serious mental health crisis in kids, and yes, it is disproportionately on them because they will disproportionately feel the cumulative effect of climate instability. Is it possible to quantify the crisis, especially when it comes to climate? The answer, short answer is no. Anxiety exists in the brain, and think of it as a big, dark, black pool. In that big pool, it is impossible to quantify today. I'm anxious about climate this much, about not looking good that much, and about not getting into the right school a different amount. But here's what I can tell you.

I participated in a survey that we launched in 2021 and had the results in the fall. And in it, we surveyed 10,000 kids from 10 countries all over the world. And here's what we found. Three quarters of the kids are worried about the future because of climate. Almost half of them say it affects their daily lives. More than half say they feel a sense of doom about the future. And here's what's interesting to somebody like me because I'm really, focusing on policy, two-thirds of those kids lay the blame firmly at the feet of government.

I grew up with a nuclear threat. I even was probably the last generation of kids who scurried into a hallway or under desks. Under desks. What was that going to do for us? Well, the desk was going to prevent you from nuclear annihilation, apparently. And so obviously this fed into our anxiety. but it was kind of in Kuwait and rarely spoken of. How is this different? Well, think about it. We, at the time, thought the Soviets or the Russians was in my communists. In my mind, were going to do something really bad.

I didn't exactly know you probably didn't either what nuclear war was. But that is very different from what the kids know. today. If you're a kid today, you can see a fire, a flood, a storm, you can hear about homes and places that have been leveled.

This is very something that is extremely visual. They can understand at a very grassroots level what this means. Nuclear war and a mushroom cloud. What is that? You see patients, right? Sure, I do, Sue.

Yeah. And what do they tell you? What are you hearing directly from kids that you talk to? So I have spoken with young people extensively, but not as patients. And we need to recognize that we must not pathologize climate distress. But kids are talking about their anger. They're talking about their fear. They're talking about their despair. They're talking about feelings of abandonment.

They are talking about betrayal. And they don't understand why the adults in the room, are not taking more action. So let me just say one thing that is pretty characteristic that I have found. And in many of the most sensitive kids is what I've dubbed pre-traumatic stress, which is anticipation of future harms and has all the hallmarks of post-traumatic stress, but it's in conjuring what will happen in the future. You said that we shouldn't pathologize climate distress. What do you mean by that? Not to think of it as a mental illness. If it was to be a mental illness to, if you saw somebody on the tracks and the train was coming to be alarmed and scream at the person to get off the tracks, well, that's the equivalent.

What you're saying is it's a logical response to an imminent threat. It's more than logical. It's a survival strategy. I started a group called the climate-aware therapists because I got so many calls from people who were non-functional. And that's when you can begin to talk about it as an entity that should be recognized within my professional groups as becoming a mental, maybe illness is too strong a term, but a condition. How prevalent is that? A climate distress itself, I believe we're all anxious now, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not. But when it reaches the level of a person who is no longer functional, I can't tell you the numbers. but I certainly have heard them anecdotally.

Do you experience it yourself, climate anxiety? Are you kidding? And I try to keep it. This is the big quandary. How much of it do I show my family like they don't know? And I've laughed and said very openly, I could open a pharmacy with all of the medications I've had my colleagues prescribed for me to address my climate anxiety.

So we've been talking about young people. What you're saying is that people who are in middle age or older obviously feel a climate anxiety. And how does it differ for them? Well, first of all, the kids are more attuned to it because they're not the problem. We're, you know, a little bit old dogs, new tricks, plus we're used to a high carbon lifestyle. And we're not so ready to give it up. So we deny, we disavow and all the rest. But as for our anxiety, for those of us I know, I think one critical key issue is that many of us feel more empowered than kids do.

There's something that I can do. I can reach out to legislatures, the new climate chief in Massachusetts. There's a lot I can talk to you. There's a lot I can do. The kids basically, you know, they can gather their voices, but they're not empowered. and that helplessness is the worst. What do you do and what your colleagues do with young people who are feeling overwhelmed by climate anxiety? How do you help them cope?

You can tell them a political fairy tale. No, of course you can't, and they won't listen to it. So the remedies, there's a standard remedy, and that is depending upon the age of the child. had a patient whose kid thought that Charlie, their dog was going to die because of extinction of the species. And so, you know, if it's a little kid like that, you say, oh, gosh, you know, no Charlie's safe, et cetera. But, you know, a 10-year-old is different from a teenager. It might be for a younger child, you'll say, well, let's have, let's make a garden so that we can grow our own vegetables. That will help the planet. And you can engage in activities that are

age-appropriate. If it's a teenager, You might say, I stand by your protest today and not going to school and do you want me to come with you. So you describe the danger and dangers in a way that meets their particular stage of development. And then you quickly segue to, here's what we can do about it. And that is the secret sauce to feeling empowered. and empowerment is the secret sauce in reducing anxiety and that feeling of helplessness. That's Lisa Venn Sustrin on the climate crisis and mental health. We'll continue in a moment.

You're an expert witness in two climate cases, one that sued the federal government and the other against the state of Montana, which is a case scheduled for June. The plaintiffs are young and some of them are still in their teens. Tell us broadly about what these cases allege and what you were brought in to testify about. The two cases you're speaking of are Juliana versus the U.S. government, 21 youth plaintiffs and the climate scientist James Hanson. And this is James Hanson who rang the bell about climate change long ago, as much as 40 years ago. That is correct. In 1988, he testified before Congress about it. climate and greenhouse gases and what they would cause. So the suit is based on constitutional

grounds. We are guaranteed a right to life, liberty, and property. And those three protections are profoundly being challenged by climate disruption. So that's the Juliana. case in Held v. the state of Montana. It's essentially a same format. 16 youth plaintiffs suing the state of Montana. Montana state constitution explicitly says that the residents of Montana have a right to a healthful environment. And they don't have that as a result of their policies that are favoring the fossil fuel industry or fossil fuel exploration, extraction, transport, et cetera,

in the state of Montana. So if I'm understanding this correctly, these are suits, these are actions that are on the level of political action and symbol. What do you hope comes out of them? What's possible? And what is the discovery process like?

I wrote reports. cataloging the long list, 25-page report of all of the harms that are coming to kids as a result of climate inaction. I also previously worked for the federal government as a psychological profiler of world leaders. And so I profiled the kids. And by that, I mean, I looked at where they are today and made projections about what I thought could befall them in the future as a result of our climate policies, and particularly what could befall them if we fail to take the action that we need to. Would you want to see insurers cover climate anxiety as a condition, or is that pathologizing? No, great, and I meant to bring this up before.

the reason is so important for us to have professionally ways to describe climate distress is that when we can give it a number, as we do in the diagnostic and statistic manual for insiders, then we can get insurance companies to pay for help with the climate distress that you have. And we can create a way not to suggest that a person is mentally ill, but rather struggling with a very real issue and that this very real issue can exacerbate pre-existing conditions. Dr. Vent Sustrin, thank you so much. Thank you, David. Thanks for all you do. Lisa Vend Sustrin, a co-founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. In June, she'll be testifying on behalf of 16 youth plaintiffs in Held, versus Montana. I'm David Remnick, and that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening, and see you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Frida Green, Adam Howard, Kalalia, Avery Keatley, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, and Gofendon. and Putabuele, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Harrison Keithline, Michael May, David Gable, Meherbatia, and Alejandra Deke. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.