One of the segments of the article discussed in Simple Minded was about the harm that has been done by intentional exaggeration of threats.

. . . according to the UN report in 2005 . . . "the largest public health problem created by the accident" is the "damaging psychological impact [due] to a lack of accurate information…[manifesting] as negative self-assessments of health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state."

In other words, the greatest damage to the people of Chernobyl was caused by bad information. These people weren’t blighted by radiation so much as by terrifying but false information. We ought to ponder, for a minute, exactly what that implies. We demand strict controls on radiation because it is such a health hazard. But Chernobyl suggests that false information can be a health hazard as damaging as radiation. I am not saying radiation is not a threat. I am not saying Chernobyl was not a genuinely serious event.

But thousands of Ukrainians who didn’t die were made invalids out of fear. They were told to be afraid. They were told they were going to die when they weren’t. They were told their children would be deformed when they weren’t. They were told they couldn’t have children when they could. They were authoritatively promised a future of cancer, deformities, pain and decay. It’s no wonder they responded as they did.

In fact, we need to recognize that this kind of human response is well-documented. Authoritatively telling people they are going to die can in itself be fatal.

You may know that Australian aborigines fear a curse called “pointing the bone.” A shaman shakes a bone at a person, and sings a song, and soon after, the person dies. This is a specific example of a phenomenon generally referred to as “hex death”—a person is cursed by an authority figure, and then dies. According to medical studies, the person generally dies of dehydration, implying they just give up. But the progression is very erratic, and shock symptoms may play a part, suggesting adrenal effects of fright and hopelessness.

Yet this deadly curse is nothing but information. And it can be undone with information.

One of the worst "point-the-bone" sites is World Changing and S.O.S. Jamais Cascio one of the chief culprits.

Climate scientist Kerry Emanuel knows hurricanes, and has historically been extremely cautious about drawing connections between global warming and hurricane strength or frequency. So when he published an article this past summer in Nature arguing a strong connection between climate change-driven ocean warming and hurricane intensity, the scientific world took notice. And when hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast a couple of weeks later, lots of other people took notice, too. . .

Katrina was just the beginning.

But if you read the NYT interview of Emanuel you find this:

Q. So what are the implications of increased ocean temperatures?

A. Not much for storms at the time of landfall. But if you look at the whole life of storms in large ocean basins, we are seeing changes. And even if that doesn't have an immediate effect, people ought to be concerned about this because it is a large change in a natural phenomenon. . .

Q. Given what you know about hurricanes, should we be building beachfront housing on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts?

A. Disaster specialists will tell you that part of the increasing lethality of land-falling hurricanes isn't related to nature. A lot of it has to do with human activity. We're moving to the coasts in droves, like lemmings.

We're building waterfront structures there that aren't necessarily strong. We're taxing the infrastructure and paying a big price for doing that.

Q. Would you ever buy a house on the beach?

A. I'd love to! But if I could do that, I'd insist on paying for my risk. And I'd do what is now being called "the Fire Island option," which involves putting up flimsy houses that you don't mind losing to a storm. You don't insure them.

The interviewer tried desperately to get some sort of sensational fear mongering remarks from Emanuel, and failed. Vandals like Jamais Cascio point the bone anyway. You have to ask yourself if you are supporting such organizations that so crassly exploit society what you hope to achieve in doing so? Nothing good comes from their behavior. All they do is frighten some people and alienate the rest. If you were an evil genius who wanted to cripple society so that it could not usefully deal with environmental issues you would found and fund an organization like World Changing.