OP-ED: The Climate Crisis is a Mental Health Crisis. Building Smart-Surface Public Spaces is an Easy Prescription

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By Greg Kats, Howard Frumkin, and Georges C. Benjamin · Amsterdam News · August 15, 2024

Co-Authored by Howard Frumkin, Nature and Health co-founder and Steering Committee member

A high rise building with a green/planted roof
Credit: Lucas Gallone, Unsplash

As the Conference of the Parties (COP) 28 closed with much fanfare and a first-time “transition away” from fossil fuels commitment that’s drawing skeptics, here’s what we do know: The planet we live on and need survival for is getting hotter. The hotter it’s getting, as even the COP28 admits, the less livable it becomes.

However, what the COP28 conveniently omitted—among other essential conversations—are the mental health consequences boiling rapidly from a hotter world. We also know that a hotter planet means we’re dealing with hotter surfaces. Surfaces determine heat, and plenty of cities in the United States were overheating this summer, along with other cities around the globe that are still overheating because they take no winter breaks.

We must explore and respond to the urgent mental health aspects of that. In the U.S., for example, even as 90% of the population can access air conditioning, hotter temperatures translate into more people staying indoors versus enjoying the company of others.

Assessing and Addressing Environmental Disparities to Improve Psychological Well-Being

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Dr. Kim Meidenbauer is Assistant Professor at Washington State University’s Department of Psychology, Health Equity Research Center. During our January 2023 Community Dinner, Kim examined how features of the physical and social environment affect individuals’ brains and their behavior. Currently, she studies how heat exposure can lead to deleterious psychological outcomes and antisocial behaviors, and how greenspace interventions can be used to buffer against these negative outcomes. Her research employs an environmental justice lens, working with community organizations to examine how place-based interventions may address the compounding effects of economic marginalization and environmental racism. She is also interested in the creation and validation of research methods that allow us to “take the lab outside”, via browser-based tasks, mobile neuroimaging (fNIRS), and experience sampling techniques.

Bio

Kim joined WSU in January 2023 after completing a postdoctoral position at the University of Chicago. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology, specializing in Integrative Neuroscience, from the University of Chicago in 2020. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2012.

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