'Ecological grief': Greenland residents traumatised by
climate emergency
Islanders are struggling to reconcile impact of global
heating with traditional way of life, survey finds
Life on thin ice: mental health at the heart of the climate
crisis
Dan McDougall in Ilulissat and Tasiilaq, Greenland
Mon 12 Aug 2019 09.00 BST Last modified on Mon 12 Aug 2019
10.55 BST
The climate crisis is causing unprecedented levels of stress
and anxiety to people in Greenland who are struggling to reconcile the
traumatic impact of global heating with their traditional way of life.
The first ever national survey examining the human impact of
the climate emergency, revealed in the Guardian on Monday, shows that more than
90% of islanders interviewed fully accept that the climate crisis is happening,
with a further 76% claiming to have personally experienced global heating in
their daily lives, from coping with dangerous sea ice journeys to having sled
dogs euthanised for economic reasons tied to shorter winters.
The Greenlandic Perspectives Survey was carried out by the
University of Copenhagen’s Center for Social Data Science, the Kraks Fond
Institute for Urban Economic Research and the University of Greenland. The
study samples almost 2% of the population, spanning an area almost three times
the size of France. An equivalent study in the UK would involve a sample of
almost 1 million citizens.
Scattered across 17 small towns and approximately 60
villages, all situated on a narrow coastal strip, Greenland’s residents have
often been overlooked by data science. The island faces some of the most acute
social issues in the world with high levels of alcoholism and historically
disproportionate rates of suicide.
According to its lead author, Kelton Minor, the survey
finally gives Greenland’s most remote and inaccessible communities a voice on
the climate crisis.
He said: “The Arctic is a bellwether for the unequal impact
of global warming on social and economic systems. As countries struggle to
limit future risks and overall warming to 1.5C [an increase of 2.7F], many
Arctic and Greenlandic residents are already living in regional climates that
have changed by more than this, in less than a lifetime.
“Therein lies the
paradox: while satellites and sensors monitor the surface of Greenland’s ice
sheet, chase icebergs and scan sea ice daily, relatively little is known about
what the residents of Greenland think about their changing surroundings.”
According to the data, detailed in a Guardian investigation
carried out across Greenland in the last month, the majority of local residents
interviewed believe that the climate emergency will harm its people, sled dogs,
plants and animals. The revelation contradicts arguments that local people
believe climate breakdown will benefit the Arctic and raises concern over a
growing mental health crisis around climate in the polar region.
Minor said: “We find that a large majority of the
Greenlandic population thinks that local sea ice has become more dangerous to
travel on in recent years, suggesting that perceptions of growing risk are
widespread for this important social, ecological and economic platform used by
residents from all regions. Importantly, we find that residents are more likely
to feel negative rather than positive sentiment when thinking about climate
change, recent changes in sea ice, as well as glacial changes.”
The survey is revealed as the Arctic faces potentially
record warming levels. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in
Colorado, US, Greenland has already lost more than 250bn tonnes from a combination
of melt runoff and low total snowfall in July.
For mental health professionals who specialise in the polar
region, the latest survey findings from Greenland will present another red flag
for the Arctic’s vulnerable Inuit communities. According to Courtney Howard,
the board president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the
Environment, who lives and works in the Arctic, the intersection between the
climate emergency and mental and physical health will become one of the world’s
major issues.
Howard said: “Temperature change is magnified in circumpolar
regions. There is no question Arctic people are now showing symptoms of
anxiety, ‘ecological grief’ and even post-traumatic stress related to the
effects of climate change.
“We are challenging the medical profession to acknowledge
the world we are inheriting. Schools and universities aren’t considering how
climate change will affect people, from a medical or a psychological
perspective, so we are not training a new generation of medical professionals
to help people in a fast-changing planet and this is intolerable. We are moving
too slowly on this.”
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