Taylor Dotson, “Unsustainable Alarmism”:

Consider alarmism in the climate debate. Presenting climate change in catastrophic terms has allowed activists to discredit anyone who doubts worst-case climate scenarios as “denialists.” While crusading against denialism might seem like a strategy for achieving a consensus about the problem’s seriousness, it often ends up undermining the very conditions that make public deliberation possible. As Matthew Nisbet has argued, the “denialist” label is a way of “controlling who has the authority to speak on the subject.” When expressions of personal alarm become a litmus test for who has a reasonable understanding of the problem, alarmists naturally have sole authority. The effect, as Nisbet writes, is a “culture where protecting one’s own identity, group, and preferred storyline takes priority over constructive consideration of knowledge and evidence.”

I like the concept of alarm as a finite resource. There are a lot of people out there who seem to believe that what I have called “the absolutizing of fright” is sustainable forever. When everything is a world-ending disaster, then nothing is. It’s very difficult for us to weigh our problems accurately when all day every day we’re being told that something/everything is the WORST.

(And by something/everything I don’t mean the Todd Rundgren album Something/Anything, which in fact is the BEST.)