In today’s NYTimes, John Tierney stirs up trouble with a list of popular scaremongering tactics you shouldn’t really be concerned about. Hysteria sells politics and papers.
Tierney’s fun and often polarizing. His blog is fun to follow, especially the comments.
A quick response:
1: Killer hot dogs. I wasn’t worried.
2: AC in the car. I’ve had this debate with the neighbor. At highway speeds, it makes sense that, with all the newfangled car designs kids have today, rolling the windows down would increase drag. Scooting around town, however, you should suck it up and roll down the windows. Tierney neglects that side of the equation.
3: Foreign fruit. I hadn’t even really considered it before.
4: Cellphones causing cancer. I wasn’t worried. A woman I went to grad school with swore up and down her father’s neurosurgeon friend was seeing huge masses of huge masses in the skull above the ear. It never made sense to me (Why worry about non-ionizing radiation? I’m no expert of course, but nobody can explain to me how it works other than raising their voice that it must be so) and I chalked it up to the general EMF hysteria (that’s so unbelievable, Oh!). Later when I worked for neurosurgeons at Penn, I heard nary a peep about a supposed onslaught of cellphone-induced brain tumors. (In a somewhat related note, I met Ron Herberman this Spring while meeting with legislative types. I thought he was a nice fellow, but I think he’s talking before the science is in on this issue.)
5: Evil plastic bags. Sure, vs. paper, as Tierney states, “They generate less air and water pollution. And they take up much less space in landfills.” But they tend to look nasty as they hang from trees all winter long. Ick. I’m for plastic, my big reusable plastic IKEA bags. Cheaper than the wussy bags they sell at Trader Joe’s and about 8 times the volume.
6: BPA in bottles. I was worried. But to quote Tierney “Dose makes the poison.” I miss my Nalgene bottle.
7: Sharks. Yes, I know that, statistically, you’re more likely to die from dog bites and bee stings…but hell, I’m afraid of crap in the ocean that will eat me. I take pride from the fact that I recognize my fears are irrational. That is, at least I admit I’m nuts.
8: Melting ice. I wasn’t worried. Well, I was a little, but I was skeptical. Not of global warming, but skeptical of how it is reported.
9: The universe’s missing mass. I wasn’t worried. I figured if the universe collapses it’ll take it a little while. To be honest, I’d prefer the universe to contract on itself in the Big Crunch. The idea of the universe just petering out is almost more frightening. Gives me chills…which I guess is natural given all the entropy.
10: Unmarked wormholes. I wasn’t worried, but I am now. Thanks John.
Where’s the CERN Large Hadron Collider hysteria? (I asked the same in his comments section.) I guess John was looking for things that might happen this August, the first collisions aren’t supposed to happen until October. I do hope that I make it to my anniversary before the earth is sucked into a supermassive black hole…I’m looking forward to a dinner alone with the missus.