Overloaded with Bad News

[tofu]

Well, I just finished watching NOVA about global dimming. I think I'm getting pretty much overloaded with bad news. I tired of waiting. Let's just get this end of the world thing over with ok?

Seriously, how do you handle all the bad stuff going on in the world? It's too much!

[Inferno]

I agree. I wonder if all this bad news is the reason for high teen suicide rates? Seriously, when faced with endless news about crime being out of control, global warming, looming world war 3, household produts that kill, etc is it any wonder that some young people think the world is a depressing place to live?

[jrkeller]

I agree. I wonder if all this bad news is the reason for high teen suicide rates? Seriously, when faced with endless news about crime being out of control, global warming, looming world war 3, household produts that kill, etc is it any wonder that some young people think the world is a depressing place to live?

Well maybe some of these young people ought to talk to someone like my mother who is her 70's and lived through the Depression and WWII. Let's see, she ate cheese sandwiches for ten years, lived in a house on the side of hill where the sewage line ran down the hill, collected rain water for drinking and washing, watched numerous friends and family go to war and some never returned, women weren't encourage to do much more than be a wife and mother, and the list could on and on.

That's right, things just keep on getting worse.

[Taks]

maybe, just maybe, some of it is alarmism? hmmm...

as bad as things are, the world standard of living is higher than it has ever been. we live to over 80 in some societies, and over 70 in nearly all developed nations. we have a level of comfort now that has never been seen in all of history, and yet we worry about how "bad" things are.

the past has seen countless ice ages, planetary disasters on a scale unimaginable by our current standard of disaster. this includes volcanic eruptions so powerful that the entire earth was covered, sometimes for years, with thick clouds as well as asteroid impacts the size of small nations... disasters which, btw, often wiped out nearly all life in one heartbeat... yet things are bad now.

taks

[Taks]

Well maybe some of these young people ought to talk to someone like my mother who is her 70's and lived through the Depression and WWII. Let's see, she ate cheese sandwiches for ten years, lived in a house on the side of hill where the sewage line ran down the hill, collected rain water for drinking and washing, watched numerous friends and family go to war and some never returned, women weren't encourage to do much more than be a wife and mother, and the list could on and on.

That's right, things just keep on getting worse.
my point exactly.

taks

[Maksutov]

A long time ago the media decided that bad news sells and good news doesn't. Therefore, guess which kind of news you're going to get a steady stream of?

It's up to each individual to filter out the noise and baloney, which, if those contribute to too large a percentage of what is being presented, should result in changing channels, or just shutting off the tube or whatever the applicable medium is.

BTW, here's a commentary on reckless youth, certain to be the downfall of our society:What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?That's a historically-modified variant of a passage from The Clouds by Aristophanes, who wrote the play in c. 419 BCE.

The "bad news" shtick has been going on for many millenia. As N C More signs her posts:An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

[Van Rijn]

I agree. I wonder if all this bad news is the reason for high teen suicide rates? Seriously, when faced with endless news about [snip] looming world war 3 [snip] is it any wonder that some young people think the world is a depressing place to live?

What news is that? I'm not that old, and I hate to do the "In my day" stories, but you do realize that many people, like me, grew up through the Cold War? There were a number of times when there really, seriously, was worrying news when you wondered if that might be it, or if it might lead to it. That really was depressing if you thought about it much. When the Cold War ended, it was almost impossible to believe, and one of the best feelings in the world.

Now, I only had to think about worrying things, I didn't actually have people actively trying to kill me. My father lived through WWII, when that was no small trick. When you have something to compare to Cold War or Hot War worries, let me know.

Thing is, I grew up hearing scare stories, and stories about how horrible things would be "in the future." However, while the world is far from perfect (big surprise) it is doing far, far better than the scare stories suggested and is in many ways better than it was then.

[Maksutov]

What news is that? I'm not that old, and I hate to do the "In my day" stories, but you do realize that many people, like me, grew up through the Cold War? There were a number of times when there really, seriously, was worrying news when you wondered if that might be it, or if it might lead to it. That really was depressing if you thought about it much. When the Cold War ended, it was almost impossible to believe, and one of the best feelings in the world.[edit]I remember with crystal clarity the evening of October 22, 1962. That was when Kennedy told the nation and the world, in a televised address, about the situation in Cuba. (http://www.jfklibrary.net/j102262.htm)

I tried to go to sleep that night thinking that New York City was only 35 miles to the southwest, and if the winds were in their usual prevailing SW-NE direction, how the the fallout plume would be directly over where I lived. Plus if one or more USSR missiles missed their targets, how all of us in that part of Connecticut might wind up incinerated before the next dawn.

But that was just another peak of the feelings we had during the 1950s to early 1960s (and later) about what a Russian nuclear attack would be like. Such an attack was anticipated daily.

It was interesting growing up thinking that every day might very well be your last. As a young person I felt as if I had been swindled out of my future.

I have no nostalgic feelings about the 1950s or early 1960s or the rest of the Cold War. It was a horrible time to be growing up, unless you were completely introverted or mindless.

[Moose]

Tofu, I felt exactly the way you did not all that long ago. My solution was to turf my cable outright, and pretty much ignore the news except for science and technology (generally positive, or at least not unfairly negative), and the "front-page" type headlines on the Reuter's feed so I know when something important's happening.

The news media is pretty much out of control right now. Ignoring them has gone a long way towards relieving me of a great deal of stress.

[tofu]

ok thx guys. I just needed a little pep talk (and maybe a vacation)

[Argos]

Seriously, how do you handle all the bad stuff going on in the world? It's too much!

Things can only get worse. You´ll miss these days...

[antoniseb]

If change is upsetting to you, you will be constantly upset. This world is changing, and it is our nature to look for things that are constant in life. There will be some changes in the near future that you are going to like. The price is the changes you won't like. You have an ethical obligation to help steer society away from the most dangerous choices it will make, and a personal obligation to be as happy as you can with what life deals you. Make wise choices.

[farmerjumperdon]

Yes indeed, these are the good old days to which someone in the future will long to return.

It's all been done. Just the details and names change. Youth has always been rebellious, for all the same reasons. The previous generation thinks they're the downfall of civilization, for all the same reasons. Every generation thinks they invented sex (or at least have the market cornered) for all the same reasons. Every generation has it's gloom and doom perspective with that particular era's global and regional problems to fuel the fear.

These are things we can count on.

I don't mean to discount the importance of understanding the damage we are doing to the environment - but that is a different issue than all the garbage the mainstream mass media dumps on us every day.

As far as that show in particular, it was OK, and had at least some representation of researchers who were brave enough and honest enough to say "We don't know for sure how this turns out." A good call to attention doesn't hurt, especially since we don't know. IMO, we should play it safe, error on the side of caution. There won't be any do-overs if we screw up the environment bad enough, and there is no way of knowing what the point of no return is, and whether or not we've already passed it.

My guess is that I am like most people. I'm not going to park my cars today and start walking to work, but I gladly support public and private efforts to get us off fossil fuels.