A phenomenon to watch: As the environment changes, we may get more depressed, even in this hurling and burling world where people move about. There are places and people who don't move about at all--they presumably will be most upset when the sea level rise and flood them out of their homes. And people in the "safe" area, like Colorado, will get upset when displaced refugees from cities that are extinguished like New Orleans move in. Like the indigenous peoples, they will feel the loss of their land. The world shall fall into violence--such is the way--when they find out personally what anthropogenic global warming means beyond the abstraction of statistics and science.

Global Mourning | Download PDF (88 KB)
Wired contributing editor Clive Thompson takes a look at the scores of Australians who feel a deep, wrenching sense of loss as they watch the landscape around them change.