Panicology
Page 32
10. S. Pacala and R. Socolow, ‘Stabilization wedges: solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies’, Science 305 (2004), pp. 968–72.
PIGS MIGHT SWIM
1. Mark Lynas, High Tide: News from a Warming World (London: Flamingo, 2004), p. 83.
2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 642.
3. Lynas, op. cit., p. 232.
4. Ibid., p. 114.
5. J. D. Orford and R. W. G. Carter, ‘Examination of mesoscale forcing of a swashaligned gravel-barrier’, Marine Geology 126 (1995), pp. 201–11.
6. Lynas, op. cit., p. 114.
7. See, for example, E. Rignot and P. Kanagaratnam, ‘Changes in the velocity structure of the Greenland ice sheet’, Science 311 (17 February 2006), pp. 986–90.
8. ‘For my people, climate change is a matter of life and death’, Independent, 15 September 2006.
GO WITH THE FLOW
1. R. I. Tilling and P. W. Lipman, ‘Lessons in reducing volcano risk’, Nature 364 (22 July 1993), pp. 270–80; www.undp.org/bcpr/disred/documents/publications/rdr/english/c2/b.pdf; www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=202.
2. ‘After the volcano’, Guardian, 18 July 2005.
3. ‘Prophet of doom’, Independent, 9 November 2005.
4. ‘Tokyo prepares for “the big one” ’, Financial Times, 17 January 2005.
5. ‘AD79 and all that’, Independent (foreign edn), 2 October 2003.
CHILLING NEWS
1. Quoted in Aaron Wildavsky, But Is It True? A Citizen’s Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 370.
2. Lowell Ponte, The Cooling (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1976).
3. John Gribbin, Hothouse Earth: The Greenhouse Effect and Gaia (New York: Bantam, 1990), p. 13.
4. John Gribbin, Future Weather and the Greenhouse Effect (New York: Delacorte, 1982), p. 107.
5. Quoted in Robert L. Park, Voodoo Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 33.
6. Bill McGuire, A Guide to the End of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 68.
Chapter 8. Our Declining Resources
WILD TALK
1. www.iucnredlist.org/info/tables/table1.
2. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (World Resources Institute, 2005).
3. www.panda.org/newsfacts/publications/livingplanetreport/livingplanetindex/index.cfm.
4. Measuring Biodiversity for Conservation (Royal Society, 2003).
5. Ibid.
6. Cited in, for example, Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 249.
THE COD DELUSION
1. Boris Worm et al., ‘Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services’, Science 314 (3 November 2006), pp. 787–90.
2. Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds and Markets (London: Earthscan, 2004), p. 244.
3. ‘Seafood could disappear by 2048’, Chicago Tribune, 3 November 2006.
4. Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (London: Jonathan Cape, 1998), p. 158.
NOT A WORD
1. ‘Language cull could leave people speechless’, Guardian, 25 May 2002.
2. ‘Dying dialect gets a voice’, Houston Chronicle, 27 November 2006.
3. ‘Like ancient forests displaced by houses’, The Times, 24 February 2007.
4. Houston Chronicle, op. cit.
5. ‘France looks to the law’, www.telegraph.co.uk, 25 October 2000.
Chapter 9. Modern Science
FRANKENSTEIN FOODS
1. Stanley Feldman and Vincent Marks (eds.), Panic Nation (London: John Blake Publishing, 2005), p. 160.
2. Frank Furedi, Culture of Fear, rev. edn (New York: Continuum, 2002), p. 174.
3. www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/work_areas/gm_crops/index.asp.
4. Emma Hughes and Jenny Kitzinger, Framing Genetic Research, BA Festival of Science, Norwich, 2006.
5. Feldman and Marks, op. cit., p. 153.
LITTLE WONDER
1. www.its.caltech.edu/-feynman/plenty.html.
2. As of August 2007, the list includes 502 products: www.nanotechproject.org/index.php?id=44.
3. ‘Safe handling of nanotechnology’, Nature 444 (16 November 2006), pp. 267–9.
4. ‘Welcome to the world of nano foods’, Observer, 16 December 2006.
5. ‘Small is hazardous’, Independent on Sunday, 11 July 2004.
6. ‘After illness, a closer look at nano science’, Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 April 2006.
EXPOSED
1. ‘The radioactive spy’, Guardian, 25 November 2006.
2. ‘Three people exposed to spy radiation are sent for urgent tests’, Evening Standard, 27 November 2006.
3. ‘Cities are swept for “dirty” bombs’, Daily Telegraph, 8 January 2004.
4. Paul Slovic, The Perception of Risk (London: Earthscan, 2000), p. 266.
5. Ibid., p. 267.
6. www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06app.htm.
7. Scott Lash, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Brian Wynne (eds.), Risk, Environment and Modernity (London: Sage, 1996), p. 64.
8. Robert L. Park, Voodoo Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 148.
9. William Stewart (ed.), Mobile Phones and Health: A Report from the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP, 2000), p. 3.
Chapter 10. They’re Coming to Get You
EXPECTING VISITORS
1. ‘In the sky! A bird? A plane? A… UFO?’, Chicago Tribune, 1 January 2007.
2. Peter Horsley, Sounds from Another Room (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 1997), p. 172.
3. Ibid., p. 181.
4. Elaine Showalter, Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 196.
5. John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences (London: Viking, 1989), p. 59.
THAT’S WHEN IT HITS YOU
1. ‘Space evaders’, Guardian Unlimited, 29 September 2004.
2. John S. Lewis, Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards on a Populated Earth (San Diego and London: Academic Press, 1999), p. 132.
3. www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_fears_020326-1.html.
4. www.space.com/scienceastronomy/asteroid_risk_041224.html.
5. Lewis, op. cit., p. 146.
6. www.space.com/news/uk_asteroid_000104_org.html.
7. Clark Chapman, ‘The hazard of near-Earth asteroid impacts on Earth’, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 222 (2004), pp. 1–15.
8. C. Sagan and S. J. Ostro, ‘Dangers of asteroid deflection’, Nature 368 (1994), p. 501.
9. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/.
How the English and Welsh Die
Over three-quarters of deaths are caused by the three main killers – heart disease, cancer and lung disease. The more newsworthy ‘external’ causes, prompting much panic, account for few in comparison.
Total deaths in 2005 Deaths per 10,000
512,692
Circulatory system (inc. heart attack, stroke) 183,997 3,589
Neoplasm, tumours, cancers 138,454 2,701
Respiratory system (inc. pneumonia, asthma) 72,517 1,414
Digestive system 25,213 492
External causes 16,411 320
of which Transport accidents of which: 2,740 53
Pedestrian 543 11
Pedal cyclist 126 2
Motorcyclist 486 9
Three-wheel motor vehicle 9 0
Car occupant 1,311 26
Animal rider 13 0
Rail vehicle 1 0
Water transport accident 24 0
Air accident 159 3
Falls 3,006 59
Inanimate mechanical force 98 2
Bitten by rat 1 0
Bitten by dog 2 0
Bitten by other animal 11 0
Accidental threat to breathing 469 9
Electric current 28 1
Smoke, fire and flames 252 5
Hornets, wasps and bees 3 0
Excessive natural cold 74 1
Lightning 2 0
Flood 2 0
Accidental poisoning – alcohol 151 3
Accidental poisoning – non-alcohol 759 15
Intentional self-harm 3,172 62
Assault 323 6
Undetermined intent 1,484 29
War 1 0
Medical/surgical complication 373 7
Nervous system (inc. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease) 15,209 297
Mental and behavioural (inc. dementia) 14,563 284
Other deaths (inc. senility and SIDS) 11,457 223
Genitourinary system 10,231 200
Endocrine, nutritional, metabolic 7,433 145
Infectious diseases 6,141 120
Musculoskeletal system 4,378 85
Perinatal deaths 2,432 47
Skin 1,788 35
Congenital malformations and abnormalities 1,292 25
Blood disease 1,096 21
Eye and ear diseases 44 1
Pregnancy and childbirth 36 1
Source: ONS, Mortality Statistics, DH2, no 32.