Why the long face?

Tuesday January 18, 2011

Apocalyptic scaremongers are routinely proved wrong yet still they queue up with their doomladen forecasts. Why, asks Martin Cullip.

In his latest book, The Rational Optimist, former Economist correspondent Matt Ridley ponders why some are so very addicted to bleak predictions for the future of mankind.

In the 1970s, he argues, “the population explosion was unstoppable, mass famine was imminent, a cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was beginning, the Sahara desert was advancing by a mile a year, the ice age was returning, oil was running out, air pollution was choking us and nuclear winter would finish us off. There did not seem to be much point in planning for the future”.

Of course, all such scares have subsequently been proven to be either untrue or exaggerated, just as doomsaying has consistently been discredited since ancient historical times. Every predicted end of the world has passed without incident; ancient Greek volcanoes didn’t result in vengeful gods purging the populace; the appearance of Halley’s Comet didn’t foretell the apocalypse; the millennium bug was swatted; swine flu is now more known for the associated panic than for its societal devastation.

Extreme

So, faced with such a history of failure, why is it that we are still surrounded by so many who seem to have nothing else to offer except ever more extreme forecasts of imminent collective death and social collapse?

The dangers of increased car ownership used to be gridlocked roads, now cars will be responsible for the end of the world as we know it; no-one is just overweight anymore, they are now (sometimes ‘morbidly’) obese; salt shouldn’t be used in moderation, it should be eradicated entirely; in the past smoking may have damaged your health, now it kills; likewise alcohol, and even certain forms of speech, are irrevocably destroying society.

They’re not just irritations, problems or simply undesirable anymore, either. Everything is now a scourge, epidemic, or even pandemic. The end of the world is nigh, they say! It must be true, too, as they shriek it at us every day, from every avenue of the main stream media.

Catastrophe

Yet, despite the unending prophecies of catastrophe, cancer rates continue to fall – as do heart attacks and other diseases – while GDP inexorably rises along with life expectancy … on every continent.

Even then, the gloom continues as wealth and longevity become targets in their own right for the pessimistic. Over-population will lead to the planet’s resources being exhausted, they say, whilst our new-found financial freedom should be curtailed because excessive consumerism – you guessed it – harms all of us, without exception.

So when do we get the good news? All apocalyptic scaremongers, throughout human experience, have been comprehensively disproven by the events of history, yet still there is no decrease in the massed ranks of Chicken Lickens who queue up to offer their theories of how, and when, we are all going to die.

It seems the pessimists are only ever optimistic when believing that their own particular brand of doom is somehow going to be the first to buck the millennia-old trend of failure.