The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is attacking objective scientific evidence and the consensus position of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by claiming global warming is harming mental health by causing more global drought.
Fortunately, we have ample scientific evidence to provide a more accurate picture.
The AGU on Tuesday published an article in its journal Eos, titled “Long-Term Drought Harms Mental Health in Rural Communities.”
While long-term drought may indeed harm the mental health of farmers and people in rural communities that depend on sufficient rainfall, any link between mental health and climate change relies on the assertion that the Earth’s modest recent warming is causing more frequent and severe drought.
The scientific evidence, however, clearly contradicts any such notion.
The Eos article asserts, “Climate change is worsening drought conditions around the world and shifting natural drought cycles out of sync with agricultural growing periods.” That statement is false.
In its most recent assessment, the IPCC reports, “[t]here is low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought. There is low confidence in attributing changes in drought over global land areas since the mid-20th century to human influence.”
Moreover, as Climate at a Glance: Drought reports, the IPCC has “high confidence” precipitation has increased over mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere during the past 70 years, and “low confidence” about any negative trends globally.
Interestingly, the study cited by Eos examined the impact on the mental health of rural Australians who lived through what was referred to as the Millennium Drought, which lasted from 1997 to 2010 (only to be followed by nearly a decade of above-average rainfall across the Australian continent).
This is interesting because the IPCC reports that drought has likely decreased across Australia since 1950.
Finally, objective crop data reported by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization shows global crop production sets new records nearly every year, destroying the AGU’s assertion that drought damages the mental health of farmers and rural communities because it is “shifting natural drought cycles out of sync with agricultural growing periods.
If the AGU still valued science over political propaganda, it would report the truth that scientific evidence and the United Nations IPCC indicate no worsening of drought as the climate modestly warms.
Assuming more frequent and severe drought brings mental health farms to rural areas, any impact of recent climate change is to reduce mental health harms in rural areas.
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“….(T)he impact on the mental health of rural Australians who lived through what was referred to as the Millennium Drought, which lasted from 1997 to 2010 (only to be followed by nearly a decade of above-average rainfall across the Australian continent)” is potentially misleading. Australia is a continent, plus one of the World’s largest islands. There is no single, uniform climate here, just as there is not one in the United States. Broad sweeping statements are, themselves, not helpful as they mask the complexity of the Australian climates.
As an irrigator who suffered depression due to the ‘Millenium’ drought, at one stage I thought of writing a book of farming drought stories along the hundreds of miles of Hume Freeway from Melbourne to Sydney, under the working title of “Hume and Dry.” I did not think of expanding the geographical scope because Australia is just too big.
However, as a non-believer in AGW, the biggest problem would have been the climate catastrophist role of Australian publishing houses this century.
We should not downplay the significant rural mental health implications of drought in Australia any more than we should seek to pin them on carbon dioxide emissions.
Many Australian farmers would shun identifying themselves as having drought-related mental health issues. I know that I did. Therefore, under-reporting is rampant.
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