Opinion: The World Is Not Becoming A Better Place To Live In At All! Climate Crisis Escalating, Results In Mental Health Problems!

Recently, the world celebrated Environment Day and today we are celebrating ocean day across the globe with themes such as revitalizing the water body or saving our one and only planet Earth. Despite, being aware of the facts like the importance of essential natural elements like Ocean, planet, air, etc humans continues to take nature for granted because of which we are facing the serious issue of climate change.
Taking from forest fires to unseasonal rains, frequent cyclones in different parts of the world has to lead to the mass destruction of infrastructure, human life, and of course the environment. Now, as per the latest reports of the World Health Organization (WHO), the issue of climate change is leading to a rise in mental health problems and hence have asked the nations to emphasize mental health support as a part of their climate change crisis response.

According to the research of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in February rapidly increasing climate change crisis results in a rising threat to mental health and psychological well-being. This includes problems such as emotional distress, anxiety, depression, bereavement, and suicidal behavior.

People who are actually affected by natural disasters like for instance flooding or cyclone have to leave behind their homes and everything just to keep themselves secure. Hence it results in anxiety, depression, and emotional distress. They have to start their life from new. They lose a lot of things in the disaster. Unfortunately, these people are neglected and don't get enough support and very little care is taken about their mental well-being of what they are going through.

As the consequences of the climate crisis, people face financial problems which directly affect their mental health. WHO had conducted a survey in 2021 as per findings from 95 countries, only nine nations provide mental health assistance as a part of their national health and climate change plans.

Dévora Kestel, Director of the WHO's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, says, "The impact of climate change is compounding the already extremely challenging situation for mental health and mental health services globally. There are nearly one billion people living with mental health conditions, yet in low and middle-income countries, three out four do not have access to needed services."

Hence, We as humans should address the climate change issue seriously not just limiting it to celebrate specific days and saying trying a make the world a better place to live in because, in reality, we are actually making this planet the worst to live in! Even after having several types of research and facts in hand, we tend to adhere to our old behavior being negligent about every step we take that harms our environment taking from purchasing a plastic bottle to deforestation everything impacts the ecological cycle.

Thus, it's a high alert for each one of us to decide how we want to live as you never know you can be the next victim of some natural disaster.