I just posted one of these the other day, and I already have more to post. I might have waited a week, but the Australia feature from Planet Ark/Reuters fit in too well to the earlier stories, about "drought depression." I've been looking to see if this "Solastalgia" is mentioned anywhere else, but it appears to be a creation of Prof. Glenn Albrecht, in the Geogaphy and Environmental Science Dept. at the University of Newcastle in Australia. More about that later, as I collect more info.
Africa
Drought-hit North Africa seen hunting for grains
Europe
Drought Knocks Off a Third of Spain's Wheat Crop
Americas
Oceania
Drought Casts Suicide Shadow over Rural Australia
SYDNEY - The rate of rural suicide in Australia is amongst the highest in the world as farmers battle the stress of years of drought, failed crops, mounting debt and slowly decaying towns.
"Every day I look outside and I say to myself: 'I get so sick to death of blue sky'," wrote farmer Mick in a recent book, "Tough Times", in which 10 country men talk about their fight with depression and thoughts of suicide.
"I just want to see some clouds and some rain," said Mick, who has lived on a small farm all his life.
"The strain is just so constant and long and it's like someone grabbing at me by the throat and slowly choking you a bit more each day."
A total of 2,213 Australians committed suicide in 2003, the latest available statistics. The vast majority were men.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says Australia has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, exceeding nations such as Canada, the United States and Britain.
My Grandpa Hanes grew up on a farm in Western Michigan, before he ran away in 1913 to be a cowboy. My Mom tells stories about her Uncle Emil, who was a shell-shocked WWI vet, and how he would run into the house at the first sound of thunder from an approaching storm. So I have always thought of farms as a place where mental illness and boredom unto death happens. But these descriptions take place in a mental landscape beyond what I can really picture. I've camped out in the Nevada desert, but even there it's not so bad because you know it will be dry and featureless. The later description of Coral Russell is just brutal, of her holding up a picture of her verdant farm in 1978, and then looking out onto the drought-blasted landsape of this century.
"There are days when you just despair. This is beautiful country -- as long as you get the rain."
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