Tongue-in-cheek? Not entirely.
De Nile, that river in Egypt, is part of the human condition. In fact, some of the response to bad news can be characterized as an adjustment reaction. As the American Psychological Association notes, the best way to cope with stress and disaster is to encourage resilience.
Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress -- such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences.
Research has shown that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary. People commonly demonstrate resilience. One example is the response of many Americans to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and individuals' efforts to rebuild their lives.
The best way to be resilient, of course, is to recognize threats and plan for them.
As with global warming, or other natural disasters (pandemic being just one), peak oil is something that many people have heard of but try not to think about, except when gas prices get depressing (or it's 75 degrees in Toronto in January). The folks at Peak Oil Blues are anticipating the adjustment to a post-oil world and planning for an oil-less future. Is that going too far? Or is the rest of the world just suffering from Panglossian Disorder?
I have spoken elsewhere about the label "Doomer," and I’ve come to believe that this frame is outdated. Instead, I would like to suggest that we must stop asking ourselves, given the lateness of the hour, why there are those pessimistic about the future, and begin asking, instead, why there are those still blindly and enthusiastically optimistic about it. Could this be a disorder, in itself? Here’s my proposal:
Panglossian Disorder: "The neurotic tendency toward extreme optimism in the face of likely cultural and planetary collapse."
Here's a reprint in the Energy Bulletin (for easy reading), with some of my favorite subtypes:
Temporal Subtypes:
Scarlet O’Hara-ism- "I’ll just have to think about that tomorrow." A strategy of denial that allows the person to temporally compartmentalize the feared event(s).
Futurism: "Sure, that will happen, but it will occur after all of us are long dead." A belief that something that might happen in the distant future is no concern in the present.
Y2K features : "They said everything would collapse with 2000, and it didn’t." A belief that any prior concern about societal problems that didn’t occur demonstrates the impossibility of any others happening in the future.
And a few more:
Subtypes with Delusional or Magical Thinking:
Meglomatic Features:"This simply won’t happen to me." A belief in one’s specialness, which will save them from the consequences affecting those around them.
...
Doubting Thomas Features : "Peak Oil is a scam by the Oil Companies to raise prices!" Minimizing the possibility of the crisis by the belief that some one or some group has ultimate control over its happening.
...
The Flintstonian : "The stone-age didn’t end because they ran out of stones." A belief that modern innovation is eternal.
Frank Zappa-ism : "As soon as things get really bad, they’ll come up with something." A belief that necessity is the mother of invention.
Magical Thinking : "Don’t worry, we can build a car that can run on air!" Proposes solutions that are clearly outside the realm of physics.
McGiveristic Features - A belief that massive planetary problems can be solved with ordinary/common items found readily at hand. Eg.: "Pig dung will be the next fossil fuel." Or "Coke Cans can be turned into solar panels."
Trouble is, there's a grain of truth in all of this. How you react to potential natural disasters and whether you apply the precautionary principle (action to reduce risk should not await scientific certainty). Canada suggests doing so for infectious diseases:
We must remember SARS because it holds lessons we must learn to protect ourselves against future outbreaks, including a global influenza pandemic predicted by so many scientists. If we do not learn from SARS and we do not make the government fix the problems that remain, we will pay a terrible price in the next pandemic. (bolded mine).
So, thinking about disaster becomes a prudent exercise in rational awareness rather than a disorder of logical thought.
Voters were ready to hand control of the government to Australia's opposition Labor party, headed by former diplomat Kevin Rudd, who has promised to boost relations with China, pull some troops from Iraq, and re-make Australia as a leader in the global effort to stop global warming. The defeat appears so complete that the 68-year-old Mr. Howard, Australia's second-longest-serving prime minister, appeared likely to lose his own parliamentary seat, which he has held for 33 years.
If anything (think global warming), the recent elections in Australia suggest that when it comes to natural disaster, a lot more people "get it" than you think.