Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming- Why Scares Are Costing Us the Earth (Paperback)

~ (Author), Richard North (Author)
Key Phrases: improvement notices, written answers, scare phenomenon, Sunday Telegraph, Saving the Planet, Daily Telegraph (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'A very news-worthy subject, with Booker and North providing some much-needed common sense commentary.' Publishing News"

Product Description

This book tells the inside story of each of the major scares of the past two decades, showing for the first time how they have followed a remarkably consistent pattern.From salmonella in eggs to BSE, from the Millennium Bug to bird 'flu, from DDT to passive smoking, from asbestos to global warming, 'scares' have become one of the most conspicuous and damaging features of our modern world.It analyses the crucial role played in each case by scientists who have misread or manipulated the evidence; by the media and lobbyists who eagerly promote the scare without regard to the facts; and finally by the politicians and aofficials who come up with an absurdly disproportionate response, leaving us all to pay a colossal price, which may run into billions or even hundreds of billions of pounds.The book culminates in a chillingly detailed account of the story behind what it shows has become the greatest scare of them all: the belief that the world faces disaster through man-made global warming. In an epilogue the authors compare our credulity in falling for scares to mass-hysterias of previous ages such as the post-mediaeval 'witch craze', describing our time as a 'new age of superstition'.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 494 pages
• Publisher: Continuum; Reprint edition (April 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826476201
• ISBN-13: 978-0826476203
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #234,226 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #90 in

  Books > Professional & Technical > Medical > Basic Sciences > Epidemiology

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant analysis of scares, March 5, 2008

By	William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth (Hardcover)

Journalist Christopher Booker and former food safety consultant Dr Richard North have written a fascinating book on the rash of scares in the last 20 years. They earlier worked together on a brilliant book on the European Union The great deception.

They study the food scares - salmonella in eggs (1988-9), listeria in cheese, BSE in beef (1996-9) and dioxins in Belgian poultry (1999). Other scares they discuss include the Millennium bug (1999), DDT, the satanic child abuse mania (1987-94), lead, passive smoking, asbestos, SARS, bird flu (2005) (which the World Health Organisation absurdly called `the greatest single health challenge'), organophosphorus, and global warming.

They note that banning DDT has killed two million people every year, because DDT had cut malaria deaths by 95%. The EU backed the ban on DDT.

Organophosphorus, used in sheep dip, was `MAFF-approved', and an HSE leaflet warned of its `cumulative toxicity' leading to `irreversible' damage to the nervous system, akin to ME and Gulf War Syndrome (which also never happened, according to the MoD). The government suppressed the whole story, because it was directly responsible.

A review in the Independent claimed that their chapter on global warming had scarcely any scientific references. It has 117, including important articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the Journal of Geophysical Research, Energy and Environment, the International Journal of Climatology, six from Nature and five from Science. The authors expose as exaggerated the claims of climate doom. They point out that historically rising CO2 levels are associated both with rising and falling temperatures and that the overall ice mass of the Antarctic, which has 89.5% of the world's ice, is increasing, as is Greenland's (10%).

They study the roles of scientists, the media, politicians, officials and non-governmental organisations, especially the `animal rights' groups. All these scares, and others from the witch craze to McCarthyism to the war scares over Iraq and Iran, always give the message - trust the government, pay the huge costs of protection. The real message of the scares for us must be - always look at the evidence not the spin, and seek the truth.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Antidote for Scares, June 7, 2008

By	Paul Warme (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth (Hardcover)

"Scared to Death" does a very good job of describing past scares: Salmonella in eggs, Listeria in cheese, Mad Cow Disease, Dioxins in poultry feed, anti-malarial DDT, SARS and bird flu, The Milennium Bug, Ritualized Child Abuse, Auto Speed Limits, Lead in gasoline, Passive Smoking, organophosphorus in pesticides, and The Great Asbestos Scam. This book also summarizes the misinformation and misconceptions surrounding the Global Warming Scare and explains why the Kyoto Protocol is a futile and economically disastrous policy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars we should be so worried, January 23, 2009

By	James-philip Harries "none of the above" (france) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth (Hardcover)

Looking for a light dissection of the idiocies perpetrated by the army of cranks, headline seekers and gulls that govern us? I was. But this book is not it. Instead, we get a meticulously (not to say remorselessly) detailed history of the various health and environmental scares that have struck the UK (and the USA & EU).

The authors show that these are usually ridiculously overblown and cost a fortune with no discernible benefit. They also describe a five step process where the scare germinates, is spread by the press and NGOs, overwhelms government and is finally forgotten.

But I think the authors have the emphasis slightly wrong. To be "credible" in this credulous age, a threat has to be highly mysterious. Paedophile rings are not enough, they have to be satanic ritualised. Other threats (germs in chickens or cheese, CO2) have to be invisible. And they have to menace everybody. The example of the scare-that-wasn't doesn't conform. The chemical comes in a tub, and it affects an easily defined minority (sheep farmers).

You can read this book and still believe in global warming. (The sceptics cited are the usual ones.) What would be harder is to read this book and still have faith in government agencies and NGOs, which have grown like weeds and need scares to justify their existence. Your faith in scientists will be shaken, given the litany of corruption of the scientific method enumerated.

O tempora! O mores!