45
46
52 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
FROM TOP: ARIF ALI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; BOB GOMEL/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; FACT MAGAZINE VIA WIKIMEDIAThe Equator
Could Be
Uninhabitable
❯
IN THE HEAT of the 1964 presidential election
campaign between Lyndon Johnson and Barry
Goldwater, FACT magazine published a fiery
headline: “1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater Is
Psychologically Unfit to Be President!” Goldwater sued
FAC T for libel — and won.
The American Psychiatric
Association (APA), the world’s largest
association in the field, reacted to the
incident by declaring it “unethical for
a psychiatrist to offer a professional
opinion unless he or she has
conducted an examination and has
been granted proper authorization for
such a statement.” The 1973 change
became known as the Goldwater Rule.
The guidelines remained largely
uncontroversial for decades, until
Donald Trump’s presidential election
prompted some mental health
professionals to call foul — and go
rogue. “After he was elected, people in
mental health started getting agitated
about the restriction,” says psychiatrist
Prudence Gourguechon, an APA
member and former president of the
American Psychoanalytic Association.
A February letter to The New York
Times, signed by 33 psychiatrists
and psychologists, cited Trump’s
inauguration speech as proof of “grave emotional
instability” and declared him “incapable of safely serving
as president.” Several prominent psychiatrists resigned from
the APA to protest what they saw as attempted restriction
on their freedom of speech.
In response, the APA doubled down, reissuing a
reminder to members that the rule remained in effect.
Meanwhile, the much smaller American Psychoanalytic
Association made headlines when it told members they
were free to decide for themselves whether or not to
publicly comment on Trump’s behavior.
Gourguechon argues the media interest in the ethics
rules of otherwise obscure professional associations may
be a symptom of something else entirely. “Journalists
feel troubled by the demands of their own profession for
neutrality,” she says. “I think journalists are displacing their
own conflict onto us.” ANDREW CURRY❯
HEAT WAVES CAN KILL PEOPLE,
and by 2100, half of Earth’s
population could experience
20 days or more of life-threatening
heat every year. And that’s if humans
drastically reduce their CO2 footprint. In
the worst-case scenario — if greenhouse
gas emissions keep growing — some
75 percent of humans could feel that
deadly heat, according to a June paper
published in Nature Climate Change.
The research team, led by University of
Hawaii scientists, analyzed future climate
trends by looking at studies of past heat
waves. They found that combinations
of heat and humidity exceeding our
ability to cool ourselves with sweat
could regularly threaten large swaths of
humanity by 2100.
What’s more, the analysis indicates
that many regions near the tropics in
particular — where billions of people live
— would experience conditions regularly
exceeding that limit, making the areas
effectively uninhabitable.
NATHANIEL SCHARPINGESSAY
DIAGNOSING
FROM AFAR