Exploring emotional reactions to a changing world
by Kathy McMahon, Psy.D. (I extend my sympathies to all of those who have lost loved ones, or are suffering as a result of Hurricane Sandy. It is my hope that this post (updated from last year) will be of use.*) Over this next week, too many people who survived Hurricane Sandy will die from preventable causes. [...]
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A new study by UCLA scientists has shown that even brief exposure to ultra-fine particles found near freeways is enough to boost the tissue inflammation that exacerbates asthma. Air pollution particles one-thousandth the width of a human hair incited inflammation deep in the lungs.
Continue reading...Come join me at HUFFPOSTLIVE today at 3:50 pm, for a live broadcast on How Quickly We Forget After Natural Disasters, with interviewer Nancy Redd. In times of crisis, Americans are quick to respond with precautionary measures, but why do we let our guard down in the calm between the storms? Please join me!
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The economic hardship of one farm family, if they are our neighbors, affects us more painfully than pages of statistics on the decline of the farm population. Wendell Berry Today, as I read about the price of pork, and how we’ll be experiencing a world-wide shortage (less so in the USA) I feel sad. I [...]
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Got a pink-slip? Are you one of the unlucky ones who had to face the chopping block? Here are a psychologist’s ten best suggestions for managing emotionally when economic bad times hit your family. (1) Make a pact that hard times come and go, but your relationship, your family, is here to stay. Financial pressures [...]
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Our families, friends, and true companionship are thus among consumerism’s principal casualties…We are hollowing out whole areas of life, of individual and social autonomy, of community, and of nature, and, if we don’t soon wake up, we will lose the chance to return, to reclaim ourselves, our neglected society, our battered world, because there will [...]
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Crazy for Comfort During the last Great Depression, financially desperate people ended up entering convents, seminaries, prisons and mental hospitals, when homeless shelters had no room for them. If the goal was three “hots and a cot,” being admitted to an insane asylum allowed you to eat well, sleep off the streets, and get [...]
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In the past 18 months it has dawned on me that I have been caught in one of the oldest cons in history, the shell game. This shell game is of a different sort. Let’s call this one the Crisis shell game. In this game each shell is marked with an “E” standing for Energy, [...]
Continue reading...In recent years I have witnessed the descriptions of several resource peaks, from oil to water, grain to gold, and peak economy. One additional resource peak that has drawn my attention over the last several months, occurring even as I write this piece, is “peak” education. Education is the sacred political issue that no one [...]
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James Howard Kunstler describes himself as an “all-purpose writer,” and boy can he write. His latest book “Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation,” has taken otherwise ‘hard to write clearly about’ subjects such as financial instruments, what’s happening to our environment and shale oil, and made them interesting and [...]
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Kathy McMahon Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist who is internationally known for her writing about the psychological impacts of Peak Oil, climate change, and economic collapse. She's written for Honda Motors, and has been featured in American Prospect, Greenpeace International, the Vancouver Sun, Freakonomics, Itulip, Ecoshock Radio, and Peak Moments Television.
Scienceblogs.com calls POB "interesting...useful."
