Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a bi-weekly podcast from the American Psychological Association.

I'm your host, Caitlin Luna.

The topic for this episode is climate change.

And just a reminder, before we get started, if you have any ideas for us, questions or

comments, please email me at K-Luna at APA.org. That's K-L-U-N-A-A-A-D-Rog. Polar Vortexes, melting glaciers,

historic flooding, and devastating wildfires. People are now ranking climate change as one of the

world's top threats alongside ISIS and cyber attacks.

That's according to a new Pew Research Center poll.

As we grapple with the warming world and increasingly unstable weather, our mental health is at risk.

Many scientists predict that stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD will increase as climate change's physical impacts accelerate.

Is there anything we can do to mitigate the mental health risks of climate change?

Our guest is Dr. Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology and environmental studies at the College of Worcester.

Welcome, Dr. Clayton.

Thank you, Caitlin.

I want to start off by talking about a book you co-edited called Psychology and Climate Change,

human perceptions, impacts, and responses.

How can psychology contribute to our understanding of climate change?

I think that psychology is really important to climate change through both our set of research skills and tools,

as well as our focus on an individual level.

As psychologists, we really conceptualize and prioritize individual well-being in a very broad way,

more, I think, than any other discipline.

And we also emphasize individual behavior and influences on individual behavior, which is very

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