The Environment Made me Do It

By Alston Chase
Copyright 1997 The Washington Times


Here are some news stories you may not have heard:

As these examples attest, environmental reporting seems almost willfully perverse. Rather than dispense facts, the media sell fear--fear of PCBs, DDT, dioxin, Alar, smoking, breast implants, irradiated foods, nuclear power, high-voltage lines, radon, acid rain, pesticides, herbicides, asbestos, ozone depletion, global warming, species extinction, deforestation and overgrazing, among others. Yet none of these stories accurately reflected sound science. Some were clearly false, and others remain controversial.

Why have the media become such demons of disinformation? The Journal suggests the cause is " chemophobia," which it defines as "the unreasonable fear of chemicals." But whose chemophobia? Rather than blame journalists, editors and television producers for persistent refusal to confront reality, perhaps we should consider that these folk would not be hyping doomsday if it didn't sell.

In truth, Apocalypse remains in high demand. According to an October Wirthlin survey, fully 60 percent of respondents accept media environmental claims without question. By contrast, another recent poll found that nine out of 10 scholars believe the press doesn't comprehend "the tentativeness of most scientific discovery and the complexities of the results" and that 61 percent of scientists hold that news reports are "unduly alarming to the public."

In short, most Americans believe the press, even though it consistently deceives them. Why? Because, I think, they want to believe. Such environmental fictions pander to their own fear of death and their desire to escape responsibility.

Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, many have been lulled into supposing that health and immortality are the norm, and that if they get sick or die, someone usually in a hospital, industry or government - must be to blame.

Rather than accept responsibility for their own choices, they blame chemicals. They find it easier to attribute declines in SAT scores to the presence of DDT in the womb, as Miss Dumanoski and her colleagues did, than on schools, divorce or poor parenting. They find it more convenient to accuse tobacco companies of causing smoking deaths, than themselves for taking up the habit in the first place. They find it less difficult to ascribe heart disease to diet pills than to overeating (a habit that kills many more folks that cigarettes do).

Think of it as a national version of the Twinkie defense: "The environment made me do it." If scare sells, that's because we're buying.

Alston Chase is a nationally syndicated columnist.


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