
Global warming, pesticides in food, nuclear waste — it's enough to keep a person up at night.
Indeed, a growing number of people have literally worried themselves sick over various environmental doomsday scenarios.
Their worry even has a name: eco-anxiety.
Melissa Pickett, an eco-therapist with a practice in Santa Fe, sees anywhere from 40 to 80 eco-anxious patients a month. They complain of panic attacks, loss of appetite, irritability and unexplained bouts of weakness, sleeplessness and "buzzing," which they describe as the eerie feeling that their cells are twitching. Pickett's remedies include telling patients to carry natural objects, like certain minerals, for a period of weeks. Making environmentally friendly lifestyle changes can also prove therapeutic, she said.
The fears of the eco-anxious are fueled by abundant media coverage of crises like global warming, collapsed fisheries and food shortages. The Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" warns that only 10 years might remain to avert a major environmental catastrophe.
So, whenever you fart, simply send Al Gore a five dollar bill and he'll absolve you of your methane sin. And when you can't cope with the stress of the coming floods, pestilence, and famine caused by global warming, simply pay Melissa Pickett $90 an hour and she'll give you a pet rock to carry in your pocket.
No comments:
Post a Comment