I knew he was crazy; I didn’t know it was contagious.

“Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of ‘climate change delusion’.”

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2009/02/09/climate_change_takes_a_mental_toll/

Hardly the first case, doc. One preeminent sufferer won an Oscar.

This article goes on to point out many obvious things, such as “extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, cyclones, and hurricanes, can lead to emotional distress” and “Such anxiety over current events is not a new phenomenon.”

In addition to the 17-year-old, “Robert Salo, the psychiatrist who runs the inpatient unit where the boy was treated, has now seen several more patients with psychosis or anxiety disorders focused on climate change, as well as children who are having nightmares about global-warming-related natural disasters.”

See, this tickles me, because the author of the article points out that kids are having nightmares, then goes on to include such gems as “Over this century, the average global temperature is expected to rise between 1 degrees and 6 degrees Celsius. Glaciers will melt, seas will rise, extremes in precipitation will occur”, “Climate change is expected to create about 200 million environmental refugees by 2050”, and “climate change may eventually deplete natural resources, make it more difficult for people to live off the land, and disrupt the global food supply…That will mean declining socioeconomic status and quality of life across the world.”

Damn, people. You had the sympathetic vibe going on with the kids, then blasted them with even more doomsday prophecies. That’s like writing an article about coulrophobia, which is the fear of THE CLOWNS THAT ARE RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!!!

Jesus, it pisses me off to see crap like this getting published when I can immediately name five better writers who are unemployed.

Yes…I’m one of them.