By DAVID ROPEIK
Even today, when media warnings about the latest health or safety risk are commonplace, the incessant drumbeat of reported environmental hazards can be truly alarming, leaving us worried, like the followers of Chicken Little, that the sky really is falling. But while plenty of these threats are serious, some of the most frightening eco-bogeymen are not nearly the dangers that many presume.
Nuclear radiation, for example, still tangled in many minds with images of atomic blasts, mutant Godzillas and rampant cancer, is nowhere near as harmful to human health as most believe. Industrial chemicals at high enough doses are certainly dangerous, but most, at the low doses to which we’re exposed, are not. Oil spills are certainly horrible, but it takes just a few years before the dynamic ocean breaks down most of the mess — even for the really bad ones — and the recovery is well underway.
Why do our worries about some environmental risks dramatically exceed the actual danger, and more important, what do these worries themselves do to us?
Read more: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/the-wages-of-eco-angst/?pagemode=print
Even today, when media warnings about the latest health or safety risk are commonplace, the incessant drumbeat of reported environmental hazards can be truly alarming, leaving us worried, like the followers of Chicken Little, that the sky really is falling. But while plenty of these threats are serious, some of the most frightening eco-bogeymen are not nearly the dangers that many presume.
Nuclear radiation, for example, still tangled in many minds with images of atomic blasts, mutant Godzillas and rampant cancer, is nowhere near as harmful to human health as most believe. Industrial chemicals at high enough doses are certainly dangerous, but most, at the low doses to which we’re exposed, are not. Oil spills are certainly horrible, but it takes just a few years before the dynamic ocean breaks down most of the mess — even for the really bad ones — and the recovery is well underway.
Why do our worries about some environmental risks dramatically exceed the actual danger, and more important, what do these worries themselves do to us?
Read more: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/the-wages-of-eco-angst/?pagemode=print
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