Climate trauma is real. Could nature be the cure?
As California works through the devastating consequences of catastrophic flooding, today on \u201cPost Reports\u201d we look back at another climate disaster and ask if survivors can find healing on the very land that holds the scars of climate change.
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From deadly flooding to destructive wildfires, Californians have been coping with the perils of climate change for years. More than four years after the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, one study on the fire\u2019s aftermath said survivors experienced PTSD at rates on par with veterans of war.
Research increasingly shows that victims of climate change disasters are left with deep psychological wounds \u2014 from anxiety after hurricanes to surges in suicide during heat waves \u2014 that the nation\u2019s disaster response agencies are ill-prepared to treat.
But in the burned and battered forests near Paradise, a small program run by California State University at Chico is using nature therapy walks to help fire survivors recover.
Today on \u201cPost Reports,\u201d climate reporter Sarah Kaplan explains how the program is testing a fraught premise: that the site of survivors\u2019 worst memories can become a source of solace.