Storyline
The polar ice caps have melted, and the earth is covered by water. The remaining people travel the seas, in search of survival. Several different societies exist. The Mariner falls from his customary and solitary existence into having to care for a woman and a young girl while being pursued by the evil forces of the Deacon and his gang of smokers.
Movie Trivia:
The language Kevin Costner speaks to the lemon-stealing drifter early in the movie is Hindi.
The shoot was shut down 3 times due to hurricane alerts.
Midweek Mental Greening
If you keep up with news that’s related to both your mental health and the environment, you might have stumbled across thisBoston Globe piece: Climate Changes Takes a Mental Toll. In it, Emily Anthes describes the mental toll events like global warming and natural disasters can take on us. The anxiety, trauma and depression such events (and even the possibility of such events) can cause some people seriously impacts the quality of their lives.
The article is only a couple of days old, but it’s no surprise some folks are already meeting it with skepticism. American Thinker’s Matt Spivey, for example, calls it “the most illogically crazy article [he’s] seen.”
Whether it’s damage caused by climate change or the havoc wreaked by disasters like Hurricane Katrina, I don’t know why it’s so difficult to believe the possibility of our collective environment as we know spiraling out of control could deliver a blow to our psyches. I don’t know why Spivey feels that, instead of caring about what happens to our planet “in the next 100 years,” basically we should all just suck it up.
We all have our ways of dealing, I suppose.
Anthes wraps up her piece with a nod to the associate director for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, Paul Epstein:
In the long term, we may also derive some psychological benefit from banding together with other citizens to mitigate the effects of global warming. Taking action might not only give us back a sense of our own sense of efficacy against a powerful outside force, but also help us build community and social ties that offset stress, said Epstein and other specialists.
“Getting involved can be an antidote to the depression that can come from the overwhelming realizations that we have to face . . . ,” Epstein said. “It can be empowering to realize that what you do is effective.”
Negative Psychological Effects:
-Some experts have drawn a direct correlation between rising temperatures and an increase in agressive and violent behavior, including violent crime. (Anderson, C., PhD 2007)
>> An example of aggressive and violent behavior would be when a group of "eco-terriorists" nearly destroyed a car dealership in Maryland in 2003.
>> Another example, A group of eco -terrorists destroyed a housing complex in San Diego, which was easily worth upwards of 50 million dollars. Which was incidentally, considered to be, "too luxurious and energy consuming that same year (2003).
Physical Effects:
Changes in the environment due to global warming could lead to probable drought conditions caused by scarce rainfall, which could ultimately result in decreases in nutrition levels due to poorer harvests and improper distribution of food. If winter temperatures rise there may be fewer premature deaths due to winter cold. But if summer temperatures also rise there may be additional fatalities from heat stress. The pattern of the world’s diseases may also change. Diseases such as malaria, eradicated from Europe, could return to some areas. Many scientists warn of health effects of extreme weather events such as storms, tornadoes, hurricanes and precipitation extremes that could lead to destruction of property and flooding bringing with it diseases such as malaria and dengue and yellow fever.
A. FINDINGS
1. Weather has a profound effect on human health and well-being. It has been demonstrated that weather is associated with changes in birth rates, and sperm counts, with outbreaks of pneumonia, influenza and bronchitis, and is related to other morbi dity effects linked to pollen concentrations and high pollution levels.
2. Large increases in mortality have occurred during previous heat and cold waves. It is estimated that 1,327 fatalities occurred in the United States as a result of the 1980 heat wave; the number occurring in Missouri alone accounted for over 25% of the total.
3. Hot weather extremes appear to have a more substantial impact on mortality than cold wave episodes.Most research indicates that mortality during extreme heat events varies with age, sex, and race. Factors associated with increased risk from hea t exposure include alcoholism, living on higher floors of buildings, and the use of tranquilizers. Factors associated with decreased risk are use of air conditioning, frequent exercising, consumption of fluids, and living in shaded residences. Acclimatiza tion may moderate the impact of successive heat waves over the short term.
4. Threshold temperatures for cities, which represent maximum and minimum temperatures associated with increases in total mortality, have been determined. These threshold temperatures vary regionally; for example, the threshold temperature for wint er mortality in mild southern cities such as Atlanta is 0deg.C and for more northerly cities, such as Philadelphia, it is -5deg.C.
5. Humidity has an important impact on mortality since it contributes to the body's ability to cool itself by evaporation of perspiration. It also has an important influence on morbidity in the winter because cold, dry air leads to excessive dehydr ation of nasal passages and the upper respiratory tract and increased chance of microbial and viral infection.
6. Precipitation in the form of rainfall and snow is also associated with changes in mortality. In New York City, upward trends in mortality were noted the day after snowfalls that had accumulated 2 inches or more. In Detroit where snow is more com mon, the snowfall accumulation exceeded 6 inches before mortality increases were noted.
