The latest issue of Wired has a short piece by Clive Thompson about the distress we experience from our rapidly changing environment. Glenn Albrecht, a professor at the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle in Australia has coined a term to describe our sadness in the face of profound environmental change.

Solastalgia … the distress caused by experiencing the environmental degradation of one’s home, leading to a sense of loss and lack of belonging.

Albrecht has witnessed this profound sense of loss in Australia due to years of crushing drought. The drought has dramatically altered the landscape, causing gardens to fail, familiar plants to disappear and a migration and loss of familiar wildlife.

These symptoms have been seen before in indigenous people that have been removed from their familiar homeland. It’s an interesting insight into the human reaction to global change, and a growing mental health issue as the stability of our surroundings becomes disrupted.

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