Almost all of us discovered as children that fear is effective. A friend of mine, father of two very active children, ages six and nine, tells them when they don’t want to go to bed and prefer to pillow-fight for hours that if they don’t go to sleep a six-headed monster will come out of the closet and devour them. It works for him. It seems a bit cruel to me (six heads are too many), but his defense is also reasonable: “The dark bags under my eyes are cruel too.” Fear has always worked. And prophetic fear, that which foretells that something terrible is going to happen, is the most effective of all.
In 1939, panic spread about the imminent disappearance of the East Greenland glaciers; panic about the disappearance of the glaciers remains, but so do the glaciers. In the 1970s, scientists predicted a new ice age for the 21st century; apparently, they meant the opposite. And in 2012, they told us that snow would disappear by 2020; I just spent a wonderful weekend skiing. Why are so many forecasts failing? Because those making them are not seeking the truth but the submission of public opinion.
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