
Going Green is Sexy
What are the psychological aspects of “going green”? How should we address what some call climate instability and global heating?
My very
Right now, we have some cogent clues to the instability and heat, given the rare hailstorm in Hawaii, a snowstorm in Arizona, and thousands of record high temperatures in the upper Midwest. Even so-and even though human behavior has been thought to be a major culprit-organized psychiatry remains apparently unconcerned.
Many others have looked at this problem from other perspectives: cultural, economic, political, and whatever the state of science about the climate may currently be. Strategies range from advocating personal life changes to political protests. But progress has been slow.
However, Spring is here, officially starting March 21, and, as it is said, hope reigns eternal. Those environments emerging from a cold and barren winter see green again. Romances are thought to bloom and many people supposedly feel sexier.
Sexier?! What does that have to do with climate instability and global heating? Have I been barking up the wrong tree, so to speak? If not exactly an epiphany, at least this seems to be the shock of insight that you might be lucky enough to get in
Then, what did I find in the Table of Contents but the article “
Although the article focused on the planet’s diminishing biodiversity, it is within the universe of climate change. Indeed, climate change is poised to exceed habitat loss in causing the extinction of species. Another psychiatrist, Eric Chivian, MD, has edited a well-received book on the importance of biodiversity for human health called
Certainly, plants have been very important in the early development of psychopharmacology. One of our early manufactured medications, reserpine, came from plant roots. Research indicated some benefits for depression and psychosis. Actually, it was used in India for centuries to treat “insanity,” and even Gandhi used it in modest quantities for its tranquilizing effects. In more recent times, we’ve had so many synthesized “me-too” medications that our APA has begun to lobby for a revived pharmaceutical push for new kinds of medications. So, a return, if not too late, to plant derivatives, may contribute to new medications in psychiatry and medicine, among them perhaps cures for baldness and impotence. And the latter gets us back to sex and the punch line. Maybe the motivation for behavior change conducive to the environment is much simpler, as the article highlights:
“If you want men to care about biodiversity, tell them it will help them live longer, avoid baldness, and have better sex.”
Is this the pitch we need to give men, especially the baby boomers still in control of politics and the economy? All we may need to do is clarify the links to climate instability, and see what core issues are of concern for women.
At one time in psychiatry, it would have been hard to ignore the connection of sexuality to anything. However, since the demise of interest in Freudian concepts, sex doesn’t seem to be on the minds of most psychiatrists. Not that Freud himself didn’t anticipate the importance of biology in psychiatry, but I doubt at the disappearance of exploring sexual conflicts. Selected interest remains in the sexual side effects of some of our medications, as well as any history of sexual abuse in our patients. The sexual misconduct of (mainly male) psychiatrists with their patients has also dramatically decreased, especially since the APA deemed it an ethical violation in 1993 for such interactions with any current or former patient. I guess I’ve been affected by this change also, since this is the first time I’ve mentioned sex in any blog!
Sex sells, though. Advertisers know that, and use psychologically astute overt and subliminal sexual images. Could we do so, too?
Have you noticed that our weathermen and weatherwomen on TV are getting more and more attractive? Maybe they could advertise our environmental problems on billboards and the Internet, saying something like:
•Getting “hotter” may be attractive for humans, but not for our planet!
Or, maybe even recruiting an attractive psychiatrist to say:
•We have no known cure for climate instability!
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