Global Warming and Freezing Cold

This video series is taking a short break while Dr Moffic travels. For now, enjoy the rerun of this video with updated commentary.

Remember when the term “global warming” was so popular as concern for climate change grew? Of course that ignored the other side of the potential climate concern, that of increased cold. In other words, the climate change challenge consisted of climate instability, that is, not only general warming, but the ensuring destructiveness of various climate disasters, including cold spells. We just had such a record-setting cold, snow, and ice spell at the end of January and beginning of February. Simultaneously, over the last year, administrative politics in the United States has been reinforcing the use of traditional carbon-emitting energy, the ongoing problem that led me in the related column from a year ago to warn of the continuing escalation of climate and environmental concerns.
One new sustainable energy source offers some hope. Our granddaughter Mira has been a cub reporter for Psychiatric Times over recent years. Now she is entering the field of geothermal energy, using the heat of our own earth to provide sustainable energy. Paradoxically, on the surface it seems almost like drilling for oil, but this time for heat.
In the meanwhile, we have to continue to find ways to increase public concern about the climate and help patients who are dismayed and anxious about our climate future.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.