For a holiday house in the 1970s it had great promise, perched on the hillside road with a panoramic prospect of ocean and islands. It was also small, atop a single field and open to every wind that blew.
Built from fieldstone as a “labourer’s cottage” in the early 20th century, it was exactly half a farmhouse. Its three small rooms had stood empty long enough for jackdaws to fall down the chimney and die. Turf smoke still breathed sourly from its walls.
At the shore below, sea-level rise will subsume the dunes and the fen by the end of the century, a sight we are left to imagine. But the Atlantic remains a cradle of worry over what might arrive as a cataclysmic hurricane
To double its space meant knocking a companion cowbyre and using its rocks for a foundation. The new extension had teak windows and single glazing; the flat felt roof that was all we could afford.
Moving there from Dublin meant sitting by the fire through winter storms and watching the ceiling lift and resettle, just a little bit, with every bad gust across the roof. The wind bowed the glass of the seaward windows, and I reinforced the big panes with timber struts and three-inch screws. On one occasion a gust sprang a strut and shot it into the room, but the windows never did break.
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That could all be rather scary, but never deeply disturbing once we felt we’d been through the worst. Double glazing, a proper roof and the mounting shelter of trees have since held the storms at bay.
In our first year a major flood had swept away local bridges. We have memories of the swollen stream filling half its deep ravine and of nights when churning boulders clanged off each other like cannonballs.
Here again we can hope we’ve known the worst. We’re glad we live on a hill of steady ascent to a modest ridge and not to clinging peatland that could threaten a landslide.
At the shore below, sea-level rise will subsume the dunes and the fen by the end of the century, a sight we are left to imagine. But the Atlantic remains a cradle of worry over what might arrive as a cataclysmic hurricane.
It is something like ‘solastalgia’, the longing for a less anxious past in which one could feel ‘at home’ in a safe place on Earth, that has me checking Atlantic storm maps for any breakaway, red-curled hurricane heading north
For all its ungovernable wilfulness in the past, there had been a continuity of seasons, a seemingly steadfast limit to climatic extremes, to serve as an anchor for the human psyche. But, as Bill McKibben wrote in his End of Nature: “The uncertainty itself is the first cataclysm, and perhaps the most profound.”
The UK environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht has coined the term “solastalgia” as the longing for a less anxious past in which one could feel “at home” in a safe place on Earth. It is something like this that has me checking Atlantic storm maps of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for any breakaway, red-curled hurricane heading north.
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Harm and trauma from extreme weather events are, however, causing mental illnesses: anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, even suicidal ideation.
At University College Cork a team headed by Dr Jean O’Dwyer has attempted the first global analysis of mental-illness data from populations exposed to climatic crises over the past 20 years. It is published in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health.
Many of the 59 studies it reviewed were from Asian countries hit by the worst floods and storms, and showed the highest rates of “psychological impairment”.
In Australia, scourged by droughts and wildfires, rural populations are among those specially prone to PTSD, their access to health aid often discouraged by “rural stoicism, self-reliance and prevailing stigmas associated with mental disorders”.
In the US, an emerging concern is for the many older people who retire to homes in east-coast communities at high risk from floods and storm surges: they have “physical and psychosocial vulnerabilities” that need help.
One in six UK properties are now at risk of flooding, with long-lasting mental impacts. ‘Even years after the event,’ says one study, ‘respondents affected by flooding experienced anxiety after heavy rain’
The report with most affinity to Ireland is from the UK, where flooding and heatwaves are on the rise. Preventing more mental illness in flood-prone populations should, it urges, be a public-health priority.
One in six UK properties are now at risk of flooding, with long-lasting mental impacts. “Even years after the event,” says one study, “respondents affected by flooding experienced anxiety after heavy rain. Anxiety was associated with increased levels of stress, sleep problems, panic attacks, difficulty in concentrating on everyday tasks, lethargy, nightmares, anger, mood swings and increased use of alcohol or prescription drugs.”
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Women were hit worse than men, as with people who were renting their home. The loss of emotional bonding and sense of place and home could lead to the distress of “solastalgia ... caused by environmental degradation and loss of home and belongings”.
The UK Met Office has recently warned of severe flooding in England in February, after a cold, dry winter, all part of La Niña’s impact on the globe. And Ireland will probably take its share.
Meanwhile, Dr O’Dwyer’s research offers evidence for new initiatives in public health, reaching far beyond mere compensation after the event.