Climate Change and Mental Health: Interview with Dr Gesche Huebner
The climate crisis has been unfolding for decades and has been recognised as a major threat to our health. It’s a complex emergency, involving politics and policy, socioeconomic and environmental sciences, justice and sustainability. As a PhD student in Mental Health Science, I’m particularly interested in present and future effects of the climate crisis on mental wellbeing.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Gesche Huebner, Senior Research Associate at the UCL Energy Institute and Lecturer in Sustainable and Healthy Built Environments. Gesche has an extensive publication record, spanning topics such as gas and electricity consumption, energy supply systems, and the relationship between light and thermal comfort among others. She started her academic career with a PhD in Psychology, specialising in visual cognitive neuroscience.
Gesche was kind enough to answer some questions on what we currently know about the relationship between climate change and mental health.
You can also read , watch, or listen to Gesche’s previous communications on mental health and the climate crisis, and follow her recommendations for further reading below.
Q: What brought you from a PhD in visual cognitive neuroscience to research on (mental) health and climate change, as well as domestic energy and heating demand?
A: I had always been interested in environmental issues –back in the 1980s and 1990s, in my circles, it wasn’t really about climate change but about protecting forests, waste, acid rain etc. I was wearing my oversized Greenpeace t-shirts and doing my homework on recycled paper! When it came to choosing a subject for university, I decided to study psychology – and then almost immediately I became incredibly fascinated by human perception and then I stuck with that. I also really fell in love with doing research; coming up with ideas, testing them and having lots of numbers to analyze. I really enjoyed my PhD but it was a lab-based one with a basic science focus – and by the end of it, I just knew I really wanted to something with a more applied focus – but within academia. And since the topic that I had always cared about was related to protecting the environment, it seemed like a good decision to move into this area. That it ended up being heating demand is partly due to chance though, in hindsight, I am glad it was focussed on buildings given how important they are for carbon emissions.
Q: How does the current climate crisis affect people’s mental health over and above other traumatic life experiences, through its large scale indirect and direct effects?
A: There is more and more evidence that climate change has a negative impact on mental health. In terms of direct effects, there is pretty good evidence that heatwaves and high ambient temperatures are linked to an increase in suicide rates and other negative mental health outcomes. A recent paper also pointed to links between relative humidity and suicide rates. Experience of flooding and other extreme weather events have been linked to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Increases in substance abuse have also been reported. In terms of indirect effects, climate change can lead to physical harm but in particular also economic disadvantages which can in turn lead to poorer mental health outcomes. Because of climate change, these events such as heatwaves and flooding occur with greater prevalence, i.e. more and more people will be exposed to them.
I also think we need to look at drivers of climate change and how they relate to mental health; e.g. air pollution coming from burning of fossil-fuel – think traffic – has been linked to negative mental health outcomes, too.
In addition, our recognition of climate change happening has been linked to the experience of “eco-anxiety”, a chronic fear of environmental doom, even when not personally affected by any consequences of climate change.
Q: How is climate change having a detrimental impact on mental health? Why has this important link between the two been neglected?
A:The question of HOW climate change is having a detrimental effect on mental health is a really important one – but one to which I actually don’t have the best answer and I am not sure there is a commonly accepted one. Regarding high temperatures, it is known that psychiatric medications can interfere with a person’s heat regulation; also, heat can disrupt thyroid functioning which can cause mood disturbances and cognitive impairment; finally, with high temperatures we are more likely to dehydrate which can impair cognitive functioning. Regarding something like experiencing PTSD after an extreme weather event, I imagine the pathways are similar to experience of other traumatic events but I have been gone too long from neuroscience to remember how this works exactly!
I think we see in many areas a greater focus on physical health than mental health. What might exacerbate this disparity, is that mental health is still stigmatised in some countries so a country might not collect relevant data so we know a lot less about what is happening. Also, there are wide-ranging timeframes for the psychosocial impacts of climate change- related events; often, relief effect is focused on providing immediate physical help but ongoing monitoring of mental health effects might not happen.
Q: Our Mental Health Science PhD programme recognises and values the importance of interdisciplinary research. What are the next necessary steps in climate and mental health research, and how does sharing expertise play a role?
A: I would love to see some PhD projects on this topic! There is a lot to be done, starting with primary research on how exactly climate change impacts mental health, for example, what are the underlying causal pathways, and also what are particular risk factors. There are still a lot of unknowns. But then we also need to see research around mitigating and preventing negative mental health effects due to climate change, and this will need to be done in close connection with affected communities and local health care providers. We also need to calculate/quantify the economic burden of climate change impact on mental health – even though that always sounds a bit cynical to me; it is crucial to enable calculating the true costs of climate change and the benefits of mitigating it. There are lots of academic disciplines and also external stakeholders that should get involved; obvious ones in addition to mental health researchers are economists, planners, health care providers, policy makers, and affected communities.
Q: Lastly, can combating climate change also improve mental health?
A: Yes, we can definitely think about co-benefits of climate change mitigation. As a simple example, walking instead of driving is beneficial for mental health and helps to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution. Creating more green spaces is also good for mental health and can be a tool in climate change mitigation.
There is also evidence that climate change activism can have positive outcomes, creating a sense of community, promote wellbeing, helping someone to feel less powerless.
Q: Do you have any reading recommendations for anyone who’d like to know more?
A: Shameless self-promotion: I have done a blog, a talk, and a brief explainer document on this, so options to read , watch, or listen for more info on this topic.
For anyone who would like more details, I can really recommend a recent briefing paper from Dr Emma Lawrance and others at the Grantham Institute & Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperical College.
Written by Giulia Piazza.
