03 January 2008

New word: solastalgia

It seems that some parts of Australia are suffering quite a rapid climate change, which means that it has been possible to study how people have reacted when their place starts to change around them. With sadness and depression, is apparently the answer.
The researcher, Glenn Albrecht "has given this syndrome an evocative name: solastalgia. It's a mashup of the roots solacium (comfort) and algia (pain), which together aptly conjure the word nostalgia. In essence, it's pining for a lost environment. 'Solastalgia,' as he wrote in a scientific paper describing his theory, 'is a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home.''"

Expect to see more of it. I note too that it appears to be a mashup of languages too: Latin and Greek respectively, if I'm not mistaken.
Clive Thompson on How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds:

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