Neurodiversity and Climate Change

This week, environmental activist and founder of the Youth Strikes for Climate movement (and 15-year-old girl!) Greta Thunberg is in London speaking to politicians and inspiring action on climate change. The Swedish schoolgirl received a standing ovation from Members of Parliament after taking the U.K. to task for not doing enough to fight climate change and accusing it of creative accounting when it came to counting emissions. Environment Secretary, Michael Gove (a Conservative), admitted the country hadn't done enough.

It was one in a long list of achievements for Thunberg, which includes being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

So why might Greta Thunberg be the focus in a blog on the history of mental health? Apart from the fact that the impact of climate change should cause anxiety and depression, it has also become public knowledge that Thunberg has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD. While the big discussion surrounding her has rightly been about climate change, it's possible that we should also see her story as evidence that we should be thinking more about neurodiversity.

A diagnosis of ADHD or autism can elicit a number of responses. Such a diagnosis can be seen as a negative, as evidence that an individual is somehow flawed and in need of '"fixing." More positively, people (adults, more than children) can also see a diagnosis as a powerful explanation for why they are the way they are. But even in such cases, lingering behind the label is the idea that the diagnosed individual is disadvantaged.

Thunberg's remarkable success, along with that of a growing number of other successful individuals on the autism spectrum or with ADHD, provides a compelling case that we should go even further and embrace the idea that—given the right opportunity and supports (as Thurnberg has been given)—people with different or unusual characteristics, interests, and behaviors might be better able to look at the existential issues we face in this century with the sort of creativity, imagination, and passion that will actually make a difference. Maybe they can see the forest for the trees a bit better than people whose vision is obscured by the everyday realities and pressures of doing what we're meant to do.

History helps to make this point. Autism and ADHD have only been diagnosed since the post-World War II period. Sure, people presenting such characteristics might have been seen as unusual, different, and challenging, but they were not medicalized as they are today. As I have explained elsewhere, a wide range of changes in the educational, technological, social, political, and cultural landscape altered expectations of children during this period, with the result that the characteristics of children who didn't meet these expectations were pathologized or described as exhibiting symptoms of disorders like ADHD and, to a lesser extent, autism. In addition, changes to the social, physical, domestic, and technological landscape in which children grew up also led to more of the behaviors associated with ADHD and autism. With new drugs (at least in the case of ADHD) available to treat such behaviors, and psychiatrists and pediatricians eager to prescribe them, such disorders flourished. What emerged was a narrower definition of what was normal and the desire for and the ability to attain "neuroenhancement."

Greta Thunberg has helped me reaffirm my view that this was not a particularly positive development. While I certainly understand that many people on the autism spectrum lack the capability to live an independent life, let alone save the planet, it is possible that others, along with many diagnosed with ADHD, are not given the chance to shine, as Thunberg has. Perhaps we should learn a lot from her about saving the planet, and a little about embracing neurodiversity.