Alarmism

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Alarmism is the production of needless warnings. The term is usually used to downplay the warnings.

The following lists some areas where warnings have been called alarmist. Inclusion in the list does not imply that the warnings are needless, only that some people have called them needless:

• Issuing early warnings on the ideas that will be the most destructive in the current century.
• The threat of terrorism, nuclear or biochemical attack, etc.
• Consumption of junk food and foods high in sodium, fat, oil, sugar, cholesterol, or calories as being deadly.
• The possibility of an oil crash in the near future.
• The possibility of an economic depression or Stock Market crash (similar to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 or the "Black Monday" in 1987 Stock Market crashes).
• The economic damage that was supposed to occur because of the Montreal Protocol on ozone depletion.
• The potential effects of global warming, and other environmental dangers.
• The economic damage that may result due to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
• The population bomb, or Malthusian catastrophe, to cause mass starvation.
• The prediction of end times events from the Bible.
• The erosion of civil liberties.
• The tendency toward more economic and political globalism and away from nationalism.
• That Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, this led up to the Iraq War.
• There are 25000 incidents of bride burning in India every year.
• The 2002-2003 SARS incident
• Possibility of a bird flu epidemic, killing hundreds of millions.
• Mutual assured destruction was the possibility of a full-scale nuclear war, causing mass extinction. The Doomsday Clock uses a symbolic clock to imply that civilization is on the verge of self-destruction.
• The severity of the Three Mile Island incident or the Chernobyl disaster and possibilities of incidents of greater magnitude.
• The possibility of an impact event on Earth, causing an extinction event.
• Y2K bug causing breakdown of the world's computer systems.
• Carcinogenity of electromagnetic radiation from power lines or microwave ovens.
• Backmasking
• The Clash of Civilizations
• Dysgenics will bring about the downfall of the human species.

See also

• Sociology of disaster
• Moral panic
• Culture of fear
• Scaremongering
• State of Fear
• Club of Rome

References

External links

• Panic Watch - Lists and blogs concerning media panic, health scares, paranoia, and conspiracy theories

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Last updated on Sunday March 16, 2008 at 05:53:12 PDT (GMT -0700)
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