It's the End of the World as We Know It ... Again

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." – H.L. Mencken

Welcome to the Alarmism Time Capsule... Updated 02/01/2006.

If you look at a the news and try to see the incentives that drive the key players, you'll realize that Mencken's quote does not just apply to politician.

Many scientists get government grants to do their work. The more urgent the need for their research, the more likely that they will get funding for their projects.

Also science, especially environmental science, is not always as rationally detached from ideology as we are led to believe. Most environmental scientists choose their field of study because they are convinced that human activity is destroying the planet, giving us cancer, etc. All data they study and compile will be viewed through the clouded lens of these preconceived notions.

Check out this link for more scholarly insight into these matters.

The media needs to attract viewers/readers. Stories about imminent disaster attract more attention than stories about the world going on as it has for ages, business as usual. Oh, perhaps we have a few more gadgets as technology advances– ever notice that the gadgets are usually portrayed as "evil" – cell phones microwaving our brains, iPods making us deaf, Teflon cookware causing cancer?

Also, many journalists have gotten into their field for reasons quite similar to the environmental scientists– they're crusaders, out to save mankind by revealing the "truth" about how greed, power and toxins are going to destroy everything we hold dear.

Below you'll find a list of DANGERS that we were told to fear by "leading scientists" our government and, of course, the media. It's purpose is to enlighten us about past scare stories so that we can approach today's "news" with our eyes and our minds open. I'll update the list as time goes on:


1970's
Global Cooling– Leading scientists claim that state of the art climate models show the earth is cooling, supposedly caused by humans polluting the atmosphere.
So Far, no cooling.

1976
Swine Flu "Pandemic"– One person, Pvt. David Lewis, dies of Swine Flu at Fort Dix, New Jersey Five hundred or so catch it and recover. 40 million people in U.S. vaccinated in response. Dozens of cases of often fatal side effects from the vaccine, such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome reported by doctors.

1987
Experts predict that by 1990 one in five heterosexuals in the United States could be dead from AIDS. It was even on Oprah. 1990 came and went. Never happened.

Late 1980's-1990's
Killer Bees– Not just a Saturday Night Live skit, they were supposedly working their way north from Brazil to kill us all. So far, Nuttin' honey.

Late 1990's-2000
Y2K– Computers worldwide were supposed to stop working when the year 2000 rolled around. We were told to expect massive power failures, planes would fall from the sky, the end of the world as we know it, etc. A lot of programmers worked a lot of overtime. There were a few glitches. They were corrected. The world went on, business as usual.

Late 1990's- present
Global Warming– The same scientists who warned us of global cooling are now predicting global warming, (with their new and improved state-of-the-art computer climate models). The Earth has warmed and cooled throughout it's history, with no help from human activity. If it's warming now, why are they so sure we're causing it?

2004
SARS– the predicted pandemic du jour last year. It never amounted to anything. So we've moved on to...

2005
Avian Flu– If avian flu mutates to be easily transmissible between humans and if it maintains it's 60% fatality rate we'll all be in big trouble. Of course, if you're a "the glass is half full" type of person and you beleive in global warming and that we're running out of oil... knocking off 60% of the population could be a good thing: Less people to consume fossil fuel and pollute. It could put an end to global warming! But if you're a "the glass is half empty" type, just to be sure, perhaps you should start...

That's it for now. Remember:

"Politicians need fear to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience." – excerpt from "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton

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