Filth

Imagine, if you will, a person suffering from schizophrenia. It is one of the most debilitating mental illnesses, turning life into quite literal hell. Imagine, now, that the hallucinations and the delusions of that suffering person can generate energy. Imagine further that the psychiatrist treating the schizophrenic patient has delusions of their own of a broken world in need of fixing— with energy.

The psychiatrist wants to use the patient’s energy to change the world in a way corresponding to their own delusions. Will that psychiatrist overcome these delusions in favour of ethics and treat the patient or rather try to amplify his symptoms so the patient generates more energy for the psychiatrist’s delusional ends?

The answer, of course, is that the psychiatrist will try to amplify the patient’s symptoms. It is happening in real life, and not with schizophrenia sufferers but with otherwise mentally healthy people who have been fed so much climate catastrophism they have developed anxiety disorders that climate activists with psychology and psychiatry degrees are using for their own ends. They’re calling it climate action.

Time magazine recently published an extensive article about climate anxiety, how it is a growing trend, how the cause of its emergence was climate change, and how, importantly, it can be used to change the world so there’s no climate change in it. Incidentally, what the article does very successfully is fuel even stronger climate anxiety through the pointed use of catastrophist language. The author is clearly a pro. And he’s not alone in the undertaking of turning people into radical activists by causing a mental illness. It’s the weaponisation of minds.

Here’s a quote: “Whatever name the phenomenon goes by, it spares no one; simply by dint of being exposed to a warming world, you have cause to feel distress about it.” What follows is over a thousand words about how terribly awful the situation is, only to get to the call-to-action moment.

“If there is anything good that can come from all of this distress it’s that a worried or anxious or angry person can become a very motivated person, taking action through public protests or boycotts or reducing carbon use or simply voting out politicians who are resistant to taking climate action.”

But here’s another quote from a report by the Yale School of the Environment: “Using national surveys, the researchers found that 16% of adults report feeling at least some anxiety or depression from thinking about or experiencing the impacts of climate change. They also found that those individuals are more likely to engage in collective climate action, whether that’s participating in protests, writing to elected officials, volunteering, or even just having conversations with friends and family.” Yes, well, that’s only to be expected when news consumers are on a strict climate catastophism diet.

Or how about this, from Earthday.org: “A 2023 report by the American Psychological Association (APA) found that Gen Z experienced heightened levels of stress and trauma associated with the threat, or even the direct influence, of climate disasters. In 2021, a global study further emphasized that 45% of Gen Z reported that climate anxiety affected them daily — a figure that will likely increase in 2025 as environmental uncertainty rises.” Which is what happens when you tell kids normal weather patterns are actually disasters. Repeatedly.

And here is the thinking, as expressed by one Gen Z undergrad in King’s College London: “Eco-anxiety should not be viewed as a problem to be solved, but rather a rational response to the difficult situation we are facing. Recognising the emotional weight of the climate crisis is an important first step towards translating eco-anxiety into meaningful action. By doing so and consequently shifting emphasis from the daunting scale of the issue to the tangible steps we can take, we empower ourselves to drive change and inspire others.” From medicalising normal behaviour to normalising disturbances in just a few short years, way to go.

Let’s return now to our schizophrenic patient and his doctor, who is telling the patient that his schizophrenia is not actually a mental illness but a source of power that can be harnessed for the greater good. “It is good to have voices whispering in your head,” that doctor tells the patient, “and it is even better to believe that everyone around you is an enemy who’s out to get you. They really are all your enemies and they want you dead.” This is the core of the messaging about climate anxiety and those pushing it see absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging it — for the greater good, of course.

Now, I know some of you would argue that it’s about money for these people with diplomas they don’t deserve and I will agree. But something tells me (a tiny little voice in my head) that it’s about more than just the money — it really is about effecting what the effecters see as positive change. For the greater good.

Now, why would I so naively believe that little voice instead of the ample historical evidence suggesting people would do anything for money? Simple. It’s because very few people are driven purely by the desire for material gain. Sure, that’s nice but power’s even nicer and power to do what you see as good is a step further up on the nice scale.

And we do like to think we do good — unless we’re cartoon villains, doing evil for evil’s sake. Outside cartoons, however, most of us, except sociopaths and deeply traumatised individuals, like to think they are good people. We like to think we are guided by good intentions, that top-notch paving material for the road to Hell. It must have something to do with the size of our brain and all that abstract thinking we got saddled with to make our lives miserable.

It is this assumption of good intentions that led the Yale reporters to write that “the researchers found no evidence that higher levels of distress would be debilitating or lead to less action,” to imply that climate anxiety is a force for good rather than a problem.

It was this assumption of good intentions that led CBC to report on the story of a gender confused 11-year-old who turned her climate anxiety into activism by means of leaflet distribution after refusing to go to school due to that anxiety, implying that climate activism is better than acquiring knowledge.

The same assumption led researchers from Australia to identify several different types of what they dubbed “climate anger” and to report that “People who were angry about inaction and apathy reported more environmental behaviors such as reducing their meat consumption, or joining climate marches. This was especially true when they were angry about ordinary citizens not doing or caring enough, or governments not doing or caring enough.” Incredulity is our strength, I guess.

Axios, meanwhile, helpfully reports that we have a “burgeoning mental health crisis tied to climate change” but not to worry because we also have “climate-aware” therapists to deal with the crisis. The manner of dealing with the crisis? Activism, of course.

By the way, I simply must share with you what a “climate-aware” therapist is because I’m sure you’re dying to know. Here it is, per the Climate Psychology Alliance, which is not at all an activist organisation.

“Climate-aware therapists are professionally-trained psychotherapists who recognize that the climate crisis is both a global threat to all life on Earth and a deeply personal threat to the mental and physical well-being—the sense of safety, meaning, and purpose—of each individual, family, and community on the planet.”

Yes, psychotherapy is a business, with often cynical practitioners. Yes, a minority of climate activists are career activists who do it for the money. But the crowd busy turning an artificially created mental problem into a full-blown health crisis for the purpose of “climate action” is going a step further. It is a big step and a stealthy one, in the direction of mass psychosis of most epic proportions. Oh, do excuse me, did I say mass psychosis? There is no such thing.