All Children Need Nature: 12 Questions About Equity and Capacity

by Richard Louv, Children and Nature Network: 

https://www.childrenandnature.org/2018/01/16/all-children-need-nature-12-questions-about-equity-capacity/

The children and nature movement may be more diverse than many others, but it needs even more diversity of ethnicity, culture, abilities and economics. I invite you to join us by becoming a Member of the Children & Nature Network. Your support will help children in the U.S. and around the world experience the wonder of nature.  — Richard Louv. 

All children need nature. Not just the ones with parents who appreciate nature. Not only those of a certain economic class or culture or gender or sexual identity or set of abilities. Every child.

If a child never sees the stars, never has meaningful encounters with other species, never experiences the richness of nature, what happens to that child?

In economically challenged neighborhoods, towns and rural areas, the impact of toxic dumps is well known. The evidence makes it clear that when we poison nature, we poison ourselves. But there’s a second, related threat that is less familiar. What do we know about how human beings, particularly children and their families in poor communities, are affected by the absence of nature’s intrinsic benefits?

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Students examining plants with teacher

Research suggests that exposure to the natural world – including nearby nature in cities – helps improve human health, well-being, and intellectual capacity in ways that science is only recently beginning to understand. People need nature for healthy development. We know that.

What we don’t know enough about is the natural capacity of different ethnic or economic communities.

In The Nature Principle, I introduced the term “natural cultural capacity” to describe the strengths and capacities of different cultures to connect with nature, often in unexpected and underreported ways. The new growth of urban immigrant agriculture comes to mind – Somali community gardens in inner-city San Diego, for example; also, how Latino families often use parks as places for family gatherings, and the long-neglected history of African-American environmentalism.

Some good work has been done in these arenas (Audubon’s study on Latino attitudes, for example), but we need a much deeper understanding of both equity and capacity.

Here are 12 questions to explore:

1. How do different minority or ethnic communities — urban, suburban or rural — connect to nature? What tools and traditions do these communities practice that could be encouraged – and adopted by other groups?
2. According to grandparents in minority or ethnic communities, what tools and traditions faded or were lost, but could be revived?
3. What barriers to nature experience are specific to children and young people with disabilities? Also, what nature-oriented abilities and capacities could be adapted to other communities?
4. What role do urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods play in the political support for parks and open space?
5. What is the comparative availability of nearby nature (especially natural parks) based not only on acreage, but also on such issues as crime, legal restrictions, and the quality of the built environment?
6. Which institutions and organizations do the best job reaching underserved populations; what new approaches are emerging, and where (the role of libraries, for example)?
7. How likely is it for teachers or parents to take children to nearby nature or wilderness to learn and explore? And who gets to go to camp?
8. What role does prejudice — based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability — play in the nature experience?
9. What is, or will be, the impact of the widening income gap on the nature experiences of children?
10. How will current or future cuts in education, nature-based programs and parks impact different socio-economic levels?
11. In urban, suburban and rural areas, what is the impact of repeated nature experience on developmental advantages, confidence, resilience and health benefits – and how aware are residents of the benefits?
12. In these communities, do people believe that nature experiences – the availability of them — should be considered a privilege or a human right?

Many other questions should be asked about equity and capacity. But this truth is clear: Every child needs nature.

C&NN first published the following essay in 2013. 

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Richard Louv is co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Children & Nature Network. His newest book, VITAMIN N, offers 500 ways to build a nature-rich life in urban, suburban and rural communities. Among his other books are THE NATURE PRINCIPLE: Reconnecting With Life in a Virtual Age and LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Follow Rich on Facebook and @RichLouv on Twitter.

 For more on natural cultural capacity and diversity, please see:

The Fierce Urgency of Nature: A New Generation Works for the Human Right to Connect with the Natural WorldNew International Attention to the Forgotten Human RightMy Feet, Six Inches From the Ground: Disability, Kids and Our Connection with NatureWhat a Leader Looks LikeHow City Kids Will Save the PlanetAll Children Need Nature Worldwide: Three Major Advances at IUCN World CongressThe Wild: An African American Environmentalist Faces Her FearSaving the Fields of DreamsA Tree Grows in South CentralOccupy Nature

C&NN Natural Leaders
MAKING FRESH TRACKS: Natural Leaders from the Arctic Circle and Urban Los Angeles Partner Up
Fresh Tracks video capturing participants’ voices from the August experience
Forging Fresh Tracks
WHY I WEAR JORDANS IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS: A Natural Leader Builds Bridges Between Worlds

C&NN Resources
C&NN’s Nature Clubs for Families Tool Kit in SpanishC&NN’s Natural Leaders Tool Kit in SpanishC&NN’s Nature Clubs for Families Tool Kit in Simple ChineseC&NN’s Nature Clubs for Families Tool Kit in Traditional ChineseC&NN’s Research Library

Lancet Report: Health Impact of Climate Change is ‘the major threat of 21st century’

The health of millions of people across the world is already being significantly harmed by climate change, a major new report finds.

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by Daisy Dunne, Climate and Capitalism: 

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2017/10/31/lancet-report-health-impact-of-climate-change-impact-is-the-major-threat-of-21st-century/

The health of millions of people across the world is already being significantly harmed by climate change, a major new report finds. From driving up the number of people exposed to heatwaves to increasing the risk of infectious diseases, such as dengue fever, climate change has had far-reaching effects on many aspects of human health in last few decades, the authors say.

In fact, the effect of climate change on human health is now so severe that it should be considered “the major threat of the 21st century”, scientists said at a press briefing held in London.

The report is the first from the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, a project involving 24 academic institutions and intergovernmental organisations from across the world. The project plans to release a report tracking progress on climate change and global health every year.

Feeling the heat

The report uses a set of 40 indicators to track the effects of climate change on global health. The first of these indicators assesses the “direct impacts” of climate change on human health, including the effects of exposure to extreme heat and natural disasters.

One of the report’s findings is that, from 2000 to 2016, the rise in the average temperatures that humans were exposed to was around three times higher than the rise of average global temperatures worldwide. This is shown on the graph below, where the rise in the global average surface temperature from 2000 to 2016, when compared to the average from 1986 to 2008 (red), is shown alongside the rise in the temperatures that humans are typically exposed to (blue).

The rise in average global surface temperatures from 2000 to 2016 (red), alongside the rise in the average temperatures that people are exposed to (blue), relative to averages taken from 1986 to 2008. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

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The average temperatures that humans are exposed to are significantly higher than the global surface average because most people live on land, where warming happens most quickly, explains Prof Peter Cox, an author of the new report and a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Generally speaking, when you look at where people are, the rate of change appears much larger than when we look at global averages. So maybe when we think about global targets, we should be always bearing in mind that the global mean temperature doesn’t really mean much to most people. We don’t live on the ocean, which is two-thirds of the global mean. We live on the land, and on the land that tends to warm fastest.”

The report also finds the number of “vulnerable” people exposed to “heatwave” events increased by around 125 million between 2000 and 2016. “Vulnerable” is here defined as being over the age of 65, while a “heatwave” is defined as three consecutive nights where temperatures are in the top 1% of the 1986-2006 average for the region.

In 2015, a record 175 million more people were exposed to heatwaves, when compared to the average for 1986-2008, the report finds. You can see this in the chart below, which shows the change in the number of people exposed to heatwaves from 2000 to 2016, relative to 1986-2008.

The change in the number of people exposed to heatwaves in millions per year from 2010 to 2016 (blue), relative to the 1986-2008 average. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

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These spikes in exposure are a result of an increase in heatwave events, as well as other environmental and social factors, including population growth, Cox says. Heatwave exposure has previously been linked to an increased risk of premature death in many parts of the world, he explains:

“During the 2003 European heatwave, there were 75,000 extra premature deaths in Europe, including 2,000 in the UK. That was mainly because of people not being able to recover, and I guess breathing gets harder when it’s hot too. There is a correlation between these periods of hot nights and mortality. I suspect there must be a correlation with ill health as well.”

(Carbon Brief has previously reported on the health risks posed by heatwaves.)

Natural disasters

The report finds that the number of weather-related disasters from 2007 to 2016 increased by 46%, when compared with the average for 1990-1999.

Asia is the continent most affected by weather-related disasters, the report says – particularly because of its size and population. Between 1990 and 2016, 2,843 weather-related disasters were recorded in Asia, affecting 4.8 billion people and causing more than 500,000 deaths.

Despite a rise in the number of natural disasters, there has been no discernable rise in the global number of deaths or in the number of people affected by natural disasters, when compared to data from 1990 to 1999, the report finds. This could indicate that countries are beginning to invest in adaptation strategies to cope with natural disasters, Cox says. However, the mismatch could also reflect a lack of data on deaths from climate-related disasters in the developing world, he adds:

“If you look at what happens when a disaster strikes, if it’s in the rich developed world, it leads to economic damages but we don’t lose people. If it’s in the developing world, then we lose lives.

“It is true that there is a kind of contradiction in that exposure is going up, but actually the number of people affected, at least recorded as affected, is staying flat, which either means we’re building greater resilience [to climate change], which I suspect is not true, or that the data we’re collecting on the amount of money being lost is better than on the amount of people being lost.”

Losses to the global workforce

Another set of indicators explored by the report look at the “human-mediated” impacts of climate change. These are impacts that are intrinsically linked to human society, but often exacerbated by climate change.

The first of these indicators explores how climate change has affected the productivity of the global workforce, particularly in the less economically-developed parts of the world. The report finds that the global productivity in rural labour capacity – defined as those who work in outdoor manual labour in rural areas, but excluding agricultural workers – has fallen by 5.3% from 2000 to 2016. The chart below shows how this global loss in productivity is spread across the world, with red indicating a percentage loss in productivity and blue showing a percentage gain in labour capacity.

Global changes to labour capacity from 2000 to 2016 as a result of rising global temperatures, relative to average levels from 1986 to 2008. Red shows areas of loss, while blue shows areas of gain. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

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In 2016, this drop in productivity effectively took more than 920,000 people globally out of the workforce, the report finds, with 418,000 of these workers being “lost” from India. One way that higher temperatures threaten labour capacity is by making manual work more physically challenging, the report finds:

“Higher temperatures pose profound threats to occupational health and labour productivity, particularly for people undertaking manual, outdoor labour in hot areas. Loss of labour capacity has important implications for the livelihoods of individuals, families, and communities, especially those relying on subsistence farming.”

An additional “human-mediated” impact of climate change is undernutrition, the report finds. It reports that the number of undernourished people in the top 30 undernourished countries of the world has increased from 398 million in 1990 to 422 million in 2016. This is at least in part driven by the effect of climate change of yields of staple crops such as wheat, rice and maize, the report says. Climate change affects crop yields through increasing local temperatures, changes to rainfall patterns and more cases of drought. The report says:

“Increasing temperatures have been shown to reduce global wheat production by 6% for each 1C increase. Rice yields are sensitive to increases in night temperatures, with each 1C increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season resulting in a 10% decrease in rice grain yield. Higher temperatures have been demonstrated rigorously to have a negative impact on crop yields in countries in lower latitudes. Moreover, agriculture in lower latitudes tends to be more marginal, and more people are food insecure.”

Infectious diseases

The report also investigates the “environment-mediated” impacts of climate change. These are impacts on human health that are caused by environmental factors but can be worsened by climate change. One such impact is the spread of infectious diseases around the globe. Rising temperatures can increase the spread of infectious diseases by allowing pests to conquer new parts of the world, as well as by creating ideal conditions for reproduction and virus replication.

Climate change has affected the prevalence of many infectious diseases, the report notes. However, as an example, the report focuses on how climate change has impacted the spread of dengue fever, a disease spread by mosquitoes native to much of southeast Asia, central and south America, and Africa. The research shows that the rate of the spread of dengue fever has increased from between 3% and 5.9% globally, when compared to levels from 1990.

The chart below shows how the rate of the spread of dengue fever (vectorial capacity) has increased in the world’s most affected countries from 1950 to 2015. The chart shows results from two species of mosquito, including yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti; left) and Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus; right). On the heat map, each block represents one year, with red showing an increase in spread and blue showing a decrease in spread. The chart shows that, since 1995, the vast majority of countries have experienced an increase in the rate of the spread of dengue fever.

Change in the rate of the spread of dengue fever (vectorial capacity) in the countries most affected by the disease from 1950 to 2015. The chart shows results from two species of mosquito: the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti; left) and Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus; right). On the heat map, each block represents one year, with red showing an increase in spread and blue showing a decrease in spread. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

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The increase in the rate of the spread of dengue fever could be driven by changes in environmental conditions as a result of climate change, says Prof Hugh Montgomery, co-chair of The Lancet Countdown and a professor at University College London. He told the press conference:

“It’s essentially because of the transmissibility, the ability of the virus to be spread by mosquito vector. As you get areas that get wetter, the mosquito has a habitat it can live in; populations go up as it gets warmer, they breed more frequently, they feed faster. So it gets easier to spread the bug, and that’s really why we’re seeing a doubling in the spread rate of dengue cases.”

Outlook

Looking to the future, the report also explores how climate change could bring new health-related woes, including an increase in the displacement of people as a result of sea level rise.

It is clear that both the current and potential future impacts of climate change on health demand immediate action on tackling fossil fuel use, says Cox, adding that it is not too late to stem some of the effects of climate change on human health. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The co-benefits of action on climate are so huge, I think, well, maybe we present this the wrong way. Rather than saying ‘we should tackle climate change and there’s a co-benefit for health’, it should be ‘we need to do this for our health, and there’s a co-benefit on climate’.”

Montgomery echoed the call for immediate action to tackle climate change for the good of human health. He told the press conference:

“It is too late to avoid impacts, they’re here and if we all die tomorrow and stop producing any CO2, we’re still locked in for a temperature rise. There is a lag between CO2 emissions and the warming that will come. It’s like sticking an extra duvet on, the temperature will slowly rise to a new equilibrium. So we’re locked in for change for a long time to come and those harmful effects we’re seeing already from perhaps little around 1C of temperature rise, we’ve got another half degree as a minimum yet to come.”

However, there are reasons to be hopeful, he adds, pointing to progress on climate action within the last decade, including a shift away from electricity produced from coal and an increase in the investment into electric cars. He adds:

“Climate change can be fixed right now, there isn’t a problem with the technology, it’s readily available and deployable. The money is available for it, the only thing that’s lacking is the political will to connect the money to the infrastructure.”

Carbon Brief , October 30, 2017Published under a Creative Commons license. 

Climate Change Anxiety

Campaign against Climate Change Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Nick Fillmore, Boomer Warrior: http://www.boomerwarrior.org/2016/06/climate-change-anxiety/

In this post, Nick Fillmore discusses the emergence of climate change anxiety. As people around the globe begin to encounter the truth about climate change - the anticipation of where the next climate-related disaster will hit and issues of personal safety and survival - medical experts are warning that we are “not even close to being prepared for the damage being done to our mental health” (Rolly Montpellier~Editor for BoomerWarrior).

 

Climate Change Anxiety

Image credit: Australian science communicator Joe Duggan, as a master’s student, began asking climate scientists in 2014 how being on the front lines of climate science makes them feel. The hand-written responses he got back showed a level of emotion and concern the public never sees.

About three years ago I decided to devote a lot of time to writing about the threat of climate change. I felt then - and feel now - that the planet is going to be in one hell of a worse mess in a few years unless we take action on a scale never seen before. It is unlike any previous threat we’ve ever faced in history.

After I had published two or three items on various news sites, I was surprised - actually shocked - to learn that, compared to other topics I have written about - such as international financial mismanagement and neo-liberalism - very few people read the climate change articles.

To try to find out why this is the case, I spoke with a few friends. Most said the thought of dramatic changes occurring on Earth were overwhelming. Worse still, they felt powerless to change the course of history. As it turned out, hardly any of my friends wanted to learn more about the threat or find out how they might help fight climate change.

I don’t know the psychological state of my friends, but an Australian psychologist believes she knows why millions of people are reacting emotionally to climate change.

Dr. Susie Burke of the Australian Psychological Society says that, as life on earth becomes more abnormal over time, it can bring on all kinds of feelings in people. Knowing this, I’d say some of my friends are in what is perhaps an early anxiety stage concerning the threat of climate change. As conditions worsen, their symptoms can be expected to worsen.

“Many people may feel seriously concerned, frightened, angry, pessimistic, distressed, or guilty in response to climate change,” she says. “Qualitative research finds evidence of some people being deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel they are making a difference in stopping climate change".

Photo credit: Getty images

“New terms such as ‘eco-anxiety’ or ‘climate change anxiety’ are sometimes used to describe this.” Dr. Burke says that if people experience something like an extreme weather disaster, the impact on them can get worse. So disasters occurring because of climate change, in addition to destroying our environment, will also affect us psychologically and mentally.

Depression, PTSD and complicated grief reactions are the most common mental health problems … and many, many more people who do not end up with a diagnosis of depression or PTSD, nonetheless end up with heightened distress, grief, stress and strain.

The most disastrous impacts are occurring in some developing countries. Recently a city in western India suffered through the country’s highest ever recorded temperature - a scorching 51 degrees Celsius (123.8 F). As a result of crops being wiped out by excessive heat, hundreds of depressed farmers across 13 states have killed themselves.

In Karachi, Pakistan, in anticipation of another heat wave this year, officials hired a digger to excavate three elongated trenches big enough for 300 bodies. In Canada, while climate change is not nearly as damaging - at least so far - as in many other countries, it already is having an impact on the mental health of many people.

Worst affected are the northern First Nations and Inuit, peoples who have a close relationship with nature. Melting permafrost is damaging vital ice roads, making them unstable and unsafe. In the past, roads in Ontario used to import vital goods, were safe about 70 days a year. Now they’re passable only about 35 days. The changes have made hunting more unpredictable. Changes in ice flow patterns have made hunting walrus more difficult.

Isadore Day, Ontario’s regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, says that despair over climate change is contributing to mental health and social problems, possibly even record-breaking suicide rates.

Ashlee Cunsolo Willox, an assistant professor of indigenous studies at Cape Breton University, says the impact of climate change on northern peoples was evident back in 2009, when she did her PhD dissertation in Labrador. She says family stress was elevated. Anxiety and depression seemed to be amplified. More people were turning to drugs and alcohol and having suicidal thoughts.

Interestingly, Willox said the people she interviewed weren’t talking to each other about their fears - which, I think, is similar to the way some of my friends are responding to the emerging crisis.

Some farmers on the Canadian prairies are also experiencing severe anxiety. Farmers have always been at the mercy of the weather at the best of times. But Kim Keller, who worked on her family’s grain farm about 200 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, told The Toronto Star that climate change is hitting some farmers hard. The dramatic changes are amplifying mental distress as farmers struggle with the floods, unseasonable frosts, and windstorms that scientists say are becoming more frequent and severe.

Planting crops year to year is becoming a “roll of the dice,” said Keller, a third-generation farmer. “The weather we tend to experience lately seems to be at one extreme or the other - drought or flooding, -40 C or 35 C. These unpredictable and extreme weather patterns add to all the other stressors farmers experience and deal with.”

In Alberta, the lives of thousands of people have been upended by the massive Fort McMurray wildfires, an event that is consistent with the predictions of climate change scientists. It’s not hard to predict that many people who will continue to live in the area will suffer anxiety. Meanwhile, the CBC reports that children who experienced the fires are suffering from stress.

On a worldwide scale, it appears that the impact of climate change on human health will be receiving much more attention in the future. A report by the United Nations Human Rights Council released in May says that massive action is needed to protect the human rights - particularly the mental health - of people.

The report warns: “The negative health impacts of climate change will increase exponentially with every incremental increase in warming. Limiting warming to the greatest extent possible and achieving the target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels should therefore be the objective of all climate action.”

The problems in developing countries the report addresses also apply to native groups living in the Canadian North and prairie farmers: “States should establish, inter alia, early warning systems; utilize community-based monitoring, including traditional knowledge; enhance emergency response capabilities; and improve coordination in addressing climate migration ...”

While many Canadian mental health and some government officials are aware of the impact of climate change on human health, it does not appear that the actions recommended by the UN are being carried out in Canada.

This post was originally published at nickfillmore.blogspot.com.

Nick Fillmore is a Canadian freelance journalist and social activist who specializes in issues such as climate change, international finance, and media. Nick often writes about issues that are censored or poorly covered by mainstream media. You can visit his blog: nickfillmore.blogspot.com, Facebook and Twitter.