November 8, 2017 Article

The Old Coot fights the fear mongers!

By Merlin Lessler

It’s the end of the world! Civilization is doomed! Life as we know it is over! This is what someone would think if they woke from a fifty-year coma and turned on a radio or TV. EVERYTHING is a crisis of epidemic proportions these days! Media descriptions of unfolding events claim them to be: the worst ever, the hottest, coldest, driest, longest, most tragic, never before seen, or some such apocalyptic description. Each new twist and turn in civilization seals our fate.

How did we get here? Scared to death by the media. Living in dread of an impending doom. It’s especially puzzling to those of us who, when we were small children, were exposed to the fable of Chicken Little, who panicked and ran around screaming, “The sky is falling,” when an acorn fell on its head. Apparently, Chicken Little grew up, graduated from Journalism or Meteorological college and is now employed by network news and cable.

Oh sure, there are tragedies of staggering proportions taking place. Nothing new; thousands of years of history tell the same story, yet the world still spins; the sun comes up every morning, despite REAL natural disasters, like the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 that resulted in “the year without a summer,” and that of Krakatoa in 1833, an explosion 13,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It created a tidal wave that circled the earth 3½ times, dropped global temperature by 1.2 degrees for 5 years and sent ash plumes 50 miles into the atmosphere. Kind of makes the conventional wisdom that strives to keep us in constant state of fear over climate change seem a tad dramatic, if not downright silly. Ours, is a resilient species, but you’d never know it from the Chicken Littles who dominate the media and the scientific community. If they were around in prehistoric times we’d still be cowering in caves.

It’s time to push back. Before Chicken Little has us running for cover every time a raindrop plops to the ground (or is simply in the forecast). It’s time to scoff at the apocalyptic descriptions that are employed to panic us into staying tuned. It’s time to reject the gloom and doom, to stop stampeding like sheep in a state of fear and dread. Flowers are blooming all around us. Turn off your radio; turn off your TV, and smell the roses.

Comments, complaints, new things to fear? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com