The Only THing we Have to fear: Part Two

I’m not sure what grade I was in when I first heard of the imminent threat of over-population; but, I remember that I spent a great deal of time worrying about the fact that in a very short time there would be no place for people to live and we were all going to starve to death. Then we drove to the Canadian wilderness and it struck me—what are they talking about?

Global warming is just the latest in a series of prophecies and predictions on the demise of the planet earth.

Before the over-population scare they had children hiding under desks to save them from nuclear holocaust—like that was going to help. There was the 1975 threat of Global cooling (http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/cooling1.pdf), the danger of acid rain where our rivers and streams would all be poison and our hair would fall out from eating fish, the 1997 Doomsday Asteroid scare and of course, the ever popular warning of impending nuclear winter.
There were the shark scares, when the truth of the matter was that 15x more swimmers were killed each year by falling coconuts than by sharks, there was Ebola—the virus that would eat your flesh, the electrical wires and cancer scare, the cell phone and cancer scare, and the grilled meat and cancer scare.

And don’t forget the KILLER BEES which sent children and adults alike screaming into the house at the sight of a sweat bee.

In the late 80s came the Asbestos scare where despite the fact that in most schools asbestos levels were extremely low (less than the amount that in 10 years of exposure might cause one additional death in 100,000 over a lifetime -- one-third the risk of being struck by lightning), by 1990 some $6 billion had been spent on asbestos abatement in schools. Many experts believe that asbestos removal, which increased airborne asbestos, created a far greater hazard to the children, who might have benefited far more had this money been spent on enhancing their education. (NY Times).

And finally, let’s not forget about the deadly SARS outbreak which had in April of 2003 claimed a total of 100 deaths WORLDWIDE. Yet, here are just a few of the headlines from that time:
SARS claims 116 as lethal virus spreads
How a killer was unmasked
Gloom is contagious
China raises SARS death toll to 55
Killer virus here to stay, say experts
Beijing urged to come clean on extent of infection
Australia's only SARS case 'false alarm'
Cockroaches linked to virus outbreak
SARS fear in US Chinatown neighbourhoods
Disease hunters like rock stars in China
World Bank chief warns of SARS fallout
Virus kills doctor

Even if all of these dire predictions had a grain of truth to them, why do politicians and the media—the great protectors of children-- feel it necessary to make them prisoners to fear? As parents, we try and protect children from losing their innocence too quickly. There are certain things we don’t share with them; our worry that dad might lose his job or the fact that the checking account is nearly empty . Yet, we allow the schools to frighten them unnecessarily with visions of starvation, poison rivers, floods and dying animals. Children cannot affect change so the only thing left for them to do is to become fearful and anxious

The headline of my 3rd grade nephew’s Weekly Reader was: “Unhappy Feet: Over-fishing and melting ice spell trouble for penguins”. The article went on to say that global warming is caused by driving cars and using electricity. Translated to a 3rd grader: every time mommy drives me to school or I watch television, somewhere in the world a penguin is dying.

So just what is the purpose behind bombarding them with these images and scenarios of destruction?

It is obvious why the media has a stake in the concept of a fearful public. It keeps viewers coming back and it keeps their industry viable. For instance, the Center for Media and public Affairs reported that during the 1990s the homicide rate in the U.S. dropped 50 percent, yet homicide news coverage increased by an incredible 700 percent. Stories involving murder, shark attack, road rage, and carjacking are cited as examples of reporting that was skewed by the overuse of frightening headlines and images, incomplete research, and the tacit rule "If it bleeds, it leads."

It is equally as obvious why politicians continue to indoctrinate with fear.

There is power in causing someone to be fearful. It puts people at the mercy of someone who has the apparent power to prevent this terrible thing from happening. It is how for hundreds of years people in power have lorded it over others. The church kept people under control using the fear of eternal damnation while communism utilized the fear of retribution and death.

By painting the picture that regardless of the problem-- the answer is Government--Liberals have a captive audience. Ultimately, fear is just another way to hold people captive. Self-sufficiency renders the notion of Liberalism irrelevant and by indoctrinating our children with the belief that they cannot survive without the help and influence of government they have an entire generation of potential voters.

Even people who believe in the concept of man-made global warming agree that man is only responsible for a small percentage of the earth’s greenhouse gas. These percentages are dwarfed by natural causes over which we have no control. Yet we show Al Gore’s movie in our schools—present it as fact-- and a new generation of children are captive to the fear of something over which they are powerless-- as if they don’t have enough to worry about.

You’d better recycle that bottle little Jimmy—or you, mommy, daddy and the polar bears are going to be incinerated by the sun. That is not just irresponsible it’s criminal.