If you’ve ever wondered why some countries—and some individuals, myself included—didn’t take this pandemic seriously from the very beginning, the answer may be simple: for decades, the world has been repeatedly warned that the next catastrophe was just around the corner.
More recently, we were constantly told that global warming would dramatically reshape our climate and could even signal “the end.”
It is worth remembering that during the 1970s, some scientists predicted the exact opposite—that the world was heading toward a new ice age rather than global warming.
Even younger generations will remember that about a decade ago, we were warned that the depletion of the ozone layer would expose us to widespread cancer. Before that, the focus was on mobile phones and microwave ovens. And, of course, there was the Y2K panic at the end of 1999, when many believed that computers around the world would stop working overnight.
In short, disasters capture attention. They make headlines and fuel endless discussions. Humanity rarely talks about the thousands of airplanes that land safely every day—we talk about the few that crash.
Unfortunately, when the alarm bell rings too often, people eventually stop listening.
(Perhaps there is an important lesson here for the way we educate our children as well.)
Karim Kadiri