What’s Killing Us: A Look at Mankind’s Deadliest Inventions
Politicians are releasing fantastic amounts of hot air jet-setting around the planet in order to debate the alleged threat of global warming. But what about all the other things killing humans?
Starting in 1976, the media began whipping up a tidal wave of hype and hysteria about the Next Big Thing that was coming to kill everybody: the growing hole in the Earth’s protective ceiling, known as the ozone layer, which, if not patched up would let in deadly amounts of ultraviolet rays and ruin everybody’s beach holidays.
The scientific community explained that the main culprit for ozone depletion was chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) compounds, once found in a wide range of products, including refrigerants, propellants and your mother’s favorite hairspray. But it took many years for the scientists to convince the global community that the threats were not the product of bad science fiction.
After years of political finagling, the various concerned parties succeeded in ratifying the Montreal Protocol, an international document designed to phase out the substances that deplete the ozone layer. [Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, called the Montreal Protocol “perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date”].
The architects of the Protocol say that if the agreement is adhered to, the ozone layer may recover by as early as 2050, which should be just enough time for everybody to get wiped out by the Next Big Thing: global warming due to the release of greenhouse gases.
Global warming has become one of the nastiest political battles of recent years. In December, the United Nations sponsored the Copenhagen Summit, which brought together heads of state and government to agree on ways to reduce global levels of carbon dioxide, the “greenhouse gas” many believe is driving up temperatures around the planet. The result of the meeting was summed up in this Associated Press article:
“The UN climate talks were in serious disarray Friday, with delegates blaming both the US and China for the lack of a political agreement that President Barack Obama, China's premier and more than 110 other world leaders are supposed to sign within hours.”
We can expect many more international debates on this issue before some sort of political consensus is achieved.
But what about the other existential threats to human life? After all, global warming is not the only environmental problem, and some scientists are even arguing that the threat is overly exaggerated. This does not prove, of course, that we should write off the scientists as a bunch of worrying Cassandra’s who just want to ruin our lifestyles. But it does suggest that there are many other more immediate things causing a lot of death that is going unnoticed.
So here is a top-10 list of the most destructive inventions of all time, outright weapons, like guns,knives and nuclear weapons, are excluded.
Cigarettes
The World Health organization estimates that tobacco smoking caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th Century. Put another way, by the year 2015, the world will have silently lost more people to tobacco smoking than the number of people killed in the Second World War, which saw over 60 million deaths.
And then there is the problem with “kicking the habit,” which is not so easy. According to the American Heart Association, “nicotine addiction,” [which is no less severe than heroine and cocaine addiction], has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break.”
Meanwhile, cigarette producers are gradually increasing the amount of nicotine in their products. One study found that there was an average 1.6% per year increase in the level of nicotine between the years 1998 and 2005.
As if smoking were not bad enough, there are other connected hazards: L’Express, the French daily, reported that cigarettes are the most frequent cause of fires in private homes, which has prompted the European Union to demand the introduction of a “fire-proof cigarette” by 2011.
Meanwhile, a cultural war of sorts has been smoldering between smokers and non-smokers over the years, which has led to the introduction of smoke-free business establishments and a lot of smokers standing curbside.
Tentative Solution: Anybody for an electric cigarette?
Automobiles
In the center of New York City, near Central Park, sits a most unusual historic marker: a memorial to America’s first pedestrian killed by an automobile. It reads:
“Here at West 74th Street and Central Park West, Henry H. Bliss dismounted from a streetcar and was struck and knocked unconscious by an automobile on the evening of September 13, 1899. When Mr. Bliss, a New York real estate man, died the next morning from his injuries, he became the first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere. This sign was erected to remember Mr. Bliss on the centennial of his untimely death and to promote safety on our streets and highways.”
[Bliss was not, however, the first pedestrian traffic fatality recorded in the world. Mary Ward was run over by a steam-powered car in 1869 in County Down, Ireland, possibly making her the first pedestrian motor vehicle fatality in history].
Today, according to a study by Plunkett Research, there are approximately 250 million vehicles in operation in the United States. Around the globe, there were about 900 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2009. That number will soon reach 1 billion.
With approximately one automobile for every 10 people on the planet, it should be no surprise that road traffic injuries are the leading cause in injury-related deaths around the world.
Here is a report put out by the World Health Organization in 2004 that sheds some light on the ghastly figures:
“Worldwide, the number of people killed in road traffic crashes each year is estimated at almost 1.2 million, while the number injured could be as high as 50 million – the combined population of five of the world’s large cities. The tragedy behind these figures regularly attracts less media attention than other, less frequent, but more unusual types of tragedy.
According to the WHO study, automobile ownership rates – especially with China and India rapidly trading in their billions of bicycles for automobiles – are set to explode.
“Without increased efforts and new initiatives, the total number of road traffic deaths worldwide and injuries is forecast to rise by some 65% between 2000 and 2020… and in low-income and middle-income countries, deaths are expected to increase by as much as 80%. The majority of such deaths are currently among “vulnerable road users” – pedestrians, pedal cyclists and motorcyclists.
In high-income countries, deaths among car occupants continue to be predominant, but the risks per capita that vulnerable road users face are high.
But there is another tragic dimension of automobile use. Today, much of the world is being strangled by asphalt ribbons of roadways and highways [there is even a highway that cuts through the Amazon Rainforest, the so-called “lungs of the planet,” that runs for 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles)], which has profound effects on the environment.
In addition to water, noise and air pollution, the roads that make driving possible are being built in record numbers to alleviate the constant irritation of traffic jams. But the problem regarding traffic jams is never alleviated, while green spaces and animal habitats are continually being gobbled up in this unwinnable race.
Tentative Solution: mini electric cars for everybody?
Television and Violent Videos
Although televisions per se have killed relatively few people, the programs that they broadcast have killed untold millions. How many people – good, bad or otherwise – have Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, Steven Segal and James Bond wasted? And who could forget about the turtles?
Yes, the turtles, who could forget the turtles.
“When my son was small, about five years old, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were introduced to television,” writes Lori Wilk, a motivational speaker and event producer. “I noticed that if he watched them, he started to copy kicks and moves he saw on the program. In school, I noticed more of the behaviors with other children…
“My concern and horror now is that we are seeing the result of twenty years of extreme violence on television, in the movies, and in video games. We are seeing the results of this violence in our schools and we are seeing the tragedies when we turn on the news. Our children, many of whom are now adults, have been desensitized to extreme violence.”
In August 2000, former US President Clinton endorsed a government policy on the entertainment industry for marketing violent entertainment products to children.
The report was ordered by Clinton after the fatal shooting the year before of 13 teenagers by two of their fellow students at Columbine High School in Colorado on April 20, 1999.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report stated products rated suitable for adults are frequently advertised in magazines and television programs aimed at children.
"Pervasive and aggressive marketing of violent movies, music and electronic games to children undermines the credibility of the industries' ratings and labels," the FTC report says. "Such marketing also frustrates parents' attempts to make informed decisions about their children's exposure to violent content."
Clinton, who frequently expressed concern about violence in entertainment, urged entertainment industries to more closely monitor what they are producing.
“We've known now for 30 years through some 300 studies… that regular, persistent exposure of children at young ages to indiscriminate violence tends to make them less sensitive to the real and human impact of violence in their own lives,” the former president said.
And then there are the violent video games, where children and adolescents can “experience the thrill” of killing in the comfort of their own living rooms.
“About 90 percent of US kids ages 8 to 16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so (more if you're a boy),” CNN reported in October last year. “Now a new study suggests virtual violence in these games may make kids more aggressive in real life."
Children in both the US and Japan who reported playing lots of violent video games demonstrated more aggressive behavior months later than their peers who did not, according to the study, which appeared in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Although it is reassuring to know that the problem of violent entertainment for children is getting some professional attention, do we really need experts to tell us that “kids shouldn't play games where hunting down and killing people is the goal,” as the above report confirmed?
The experts also proved that children who were exposed to more video-game violence exhibited more aggressive behavior over time than their peers who had less exposure. This was true even after the researchers took into account how aggressive the children were at the beginning of the study – a reliable predictor of future bad behavior.
The findings are “pretty good evidence” that violent video games do indeed cause aggressive behavior, says Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, as quoted by CNN, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor.
Yet today, the politicians seem to have largely evaded the sensitive issue, while Hollywood and video game violence continues to explode. There seems to be little people can do to stop it.
How many “copycat” murders will be inflicted on innocent Americans (and foreigners) in the years to come as a result of the pervasive influence of Hollywood is anybody’s guess.
But here is a bit of a clue: Between the years 2001 and 2005, 81,634 people where gunned down on the streets of America.
Tentative Solution: Read a book.
Alcohol
If America owns the street corner on violence, then alcoholism is certainly Russia’s domain.
Blame it on the weather, or on an adventurous spirit, but one thing is certain, alcohol is hurting Russia in more than one way.
Russians drink about 18 liters (19 quarts) a year, more than double the 8 liters (8.4 quarts) that is recognized as a non-risk by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the WHO, with each additional liter over the recommended dose, men can subtract 11 months from their average life expectancy, while for women the amount is four months.
“The latest move to catch Russia’s “green serpent” has a three-pronged strategy,” Russian Newsweek reported in December, “a media campaign, restrictions on beer consumption, and strict penalties for selling to minors. Russian officials plan to set up more than 500 health centers by the end of the year.”
The Newsweek article reminded of a past effort to curtail Russia’s favorite bad habit.
“Former leader Mikhail Gorbachev got alcohol sales to decline by 60 percent (although, it should be noted, that drop was partly offset by an off-the-books boom in moonshine and cologne). The official numbers revealed an impressive bottom line. In the second half of the 1980s, Russian officials say, the policies saved more than 1 million lives.”
In September, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev kicked off a new anti-alcohol campaign aimed at cutting the nation’s per capita consumption of alcohol by nearly a quarter by 2012.
Medvedev has made reversing Russia’s dramatic demographic decline one of the objectives of his presidency, and his efforts seem to be paying dividends.
Last year, the country registered its first population increase in 15 years.
Russia's population increased by between 15,000 and 25,000 to more than 141.9 million in 2009, the first annual increase since 1995, announced Russian Health Minister Tatyana Golikova.
Tentative Solution: Switch to Kvass, Russia's famous (non-alcoholic) fermented drink made with rye bread.
Copyright: arcticle: Robert Bridge, RT
Original article from: http://rt.com/Sci_Tech/2010-02-01/whats-killing-us-inventions.html
Forward this news message:
Politicians are releasing fantastic amounts of hot air jet-setting around the planet in order to debate the alleged threat of global warming. But what about all the other things killing humans?
Starting in 1976, the media began whipping up a tidal wave of hype and hysteria about the Next Big Thing that was coming to kill everybody: the growing hole in the Earth’s protective ceiling, known as the ozone layer, which, if not patched up would let in deadly amounts of ultraviolet rays and ruin everybody’s beach holidays.
The scientific community explained that the main culprit for ozone depletion was chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) compounds, once found in a wide range of products, including refrigerants, propellants and your mother’s favorite hairspray. But it took many years for the scientists to convince the global community that the threats were not the product of bad science fiction.
After years of political finagling, the various concerned parties succeeded in ratifying the Montreal Protocol, an international document designed to phase out the substances that deplete the ozone layer. [Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, called the Montreal Protocol “perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date”].
The architects of the Protocol say that if the agreement is adhered to, the ozone layer may recover by as early as 2050, which should be just enough time for everybody to get wiped out by the Next Big Thing: global warming due to the release of greenhouse gases.
Global warming has become one of the nastiest political battles of recent years. In December, the United Nations sponsored the Copenhagen Summit, which brought together heads of state and government to agree on ways to reduce global levels of carbon dioxide, the “greenhouse gas” many believe is driving up temperatures around the planet. The result of the meeting was summed up in this Associated Press article:
“The UN climate talks were in serious disarray Friday, with delegates blaming both the US and China for the lack of a political agreement that President Barack Obama, China's premier and more than 110 other world leaders are supposed to sign within hours.”
We can expect many more international debates on this issue before some sort of political consensus is achieved.
But what about the other existential threats to human life? After all, global warming is not the only environmental problem, and some scientists are even arguing that the threat is overly exaggerated. This does not prove, of course, that we should write off the scientists as a bunch of worrying Cassandra’s who just want to ruin our lifestyles. But it does suggest that there are many other more immediate things causing a lot of death that is going unnoticed.
So here is a top-10 list of the most destructive inventions of all time, outright weapons, like guns,knives and nuclear weapons, are excluded.
Cigarettes
The World Health organization estimates that tobacco smoking caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th Century. Put another way, by the year 2015, the world will have silently lost more people to tobacco smoking than the number of people killed in the Second World War, which saw over 60 million deaths.
And then there is the problem with “kicking the habit,” which is not so easy. According to the American Heart Association, “nicotine addiction,” [which is no less severe than heroine and cocaine addiction], has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break.”
Meanwhile, cigarette producers are gradually increasing the amount of nicotine in their products. One study found that there was an average 1.6% per year increase in the level of nicotine between the years 1998 and 2005.
As if smoking were not bad enough, there are other connected hazards: L’Express, the French daily, reported that cigarettes are the most frequent cause of fires in private homes, which has prompted the European Union to demand the introduction of a “fire-proof cigarette” by 2011.
Meanwhile, a cultural war of sorts has been smoldering between smokers and non-smokers over the years, which has led to the introduction of smoke-free business establishments and a lot of smokers standing curbside.
Tentative Solution: Anybody for an electric cigarette?
Automobiles
In the center of New York City, near Central Park, sits a most unusual historic marker: a memorial to America’s first pedestrian killed by an automobile. It reads:
“Here at West 74th Street and Central Park West, Henry H. Bliss dismounted from a streetcar and was struck and knocked unconscious by an automobile on the evening of September 13, 1899. When Mr. Bliss, a New York real estate man, died the next morning from his injuries, he became the first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere. This sign was erected to remember Mr. Bliss on the centennial of his untimely death and to promote safety on our streets and highways.”
[Bliss was not, however, the first pedestrian traffic fatality recorded in the world. Mary Ward was run over by a steam-powered car in 1869 in County Down, Ireland, possibly making her the first pedestrian motor vehicle fatality in history].
Today, according to a study by Plunkett Research, there are approximately 250 million vehicles in operation in the United States. Around the globe, there were about 900 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2009. That number will soon reach 1 billion.
With approximately one automobile for every 10 people on the planet, it should be no surprise that road traffic injuries are the leading cause in injury-related deaths around the world.
Here is a report put out by the World Health Organization in 2004 that sheds some light on the ghastly figures:
“Worldwide, the number of people killed in road traffic crashes each year is estimated at almost 1.2 million, while the number injured could be as high as 50 million – the combined population of five of the world’s large cities. The tragedy behind these figures regularly attracts less media attention than other, less frequent, but more unusual types of tragedy.
According to the WHO study, automobile ownership rates – especially with China and India rapidly trading in their billions of bicycles for automobiles – are set to explode.
“Without increased efforts and new initiatives, the total number of road traffic deaths worldwide and injuries is forecast to rise by some 65% between 2000 and 2020… and in low-income and middle-income countries, deaths are expected to increase by as much as 80%. The majority of such deaths are currently among “vulnerable road users” – pedestrians, pedal cyclists and motorcyclists.
In high-income countries, deaths among car occupants continue to be predominant, but the risks per capita that vulnerable road users face are high.
But there is another tragic dimension of automobile use. Today, much of the world is being strangled by asphalt ribbons of roadways and highways [there is even a highway that cuts through the Amazon Rainforest, the so-called “lungs of the planet,” that runs for 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles)], which has profound effects on the environment.
In addition to water, noise and air pollution, the roads that make driving possible are being built in record numbers to alleviate the constant irritation of traffic jams. But the problem regarding traffic jams is never alleviated, while green spaces and animal habitats are continually being gobbled up in this unwinnable race.
Tentative Solution: mini electric cars for everybody?
Television and Violent Videos
Although televisions per se have killed relatively few people, the programs that they broadcast have killed untold millions. How many people – good, bad or otherwise – have Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, Steven Segal and James Bond wasted? And who could forget about the turtles?
Yes, the turtles, who could forget the turtles.
“When my son was small, about five years old, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were introduced to television,” writes Lori Wilk, a motivational speaker and event producer. “I noticed that if he watched them, he started to copy kicks and moves he saw on the program. In school, I noticed more of the behaviors with other children…
“My concern and horror now is that we are seeing the result of twenty years of extreme violence on television, in the movies, and in video games. We are seeing the results of this violence in our schools and we are seeing the tragedies when we turn on the news. Our children, many of whom are now adults, have been desensitized to extreme violence.”
In August 2000, former US President Clinton endorsed a government policy on the entertainment industry for marketing violent entertainment products to children.
The report was ordered by Clinton after the fatal shooting the year before of 13 teenagers by two of their fellow students at Columbine High School in Colorado on April 20, 1999.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report stated products rated suitable for adults are frequently advertised in magazines and television programs aimed at children.
"Pervasive and aggressive marketing of violent movies, music and electronic games to children undermines the credibility of the industries' ratings and labels," the FTC report says. "Such marketing also frustrates parents' attempts to make informed decisions about their children's exposure to violent content."
Clinton, who frequently expressed concern about violence in entertainment, urged entertainment industries to more closely monitor what they are producing.
“We've known now for 30 years through some 300 studies… that regular, persistent exposure of children at young ages to indiscriminate violence tends to make them less sensitive to the real and human impact of violence in their own lives,” the former president said.
And then there are the violent video games, where children and adolescents can “experience the thrill” of killing in the comfort of their own living rooms.
“About 90 percent of US kids ages 8 to 16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so (more if you're a boy),” CNN reported in October last year. “Now a new study suggests virtual violence in these games may make kids more aggressive in real life."
Children in both the US and Japan who reported playing lots of violent video games demonstrated more aggressive behavior months later than their peers who did not, according to the study, which appeared in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Although it is reassuring to know that the problem of violent entertainment for children is getting some professional attention, do we really need experts to tell us that “kids shouldn't play games where hunting down and killing people is the goal,” as the above report confirmed?
The experts also proved that children who were exposed to more video-game violence exhibited more aggressive behavior over time than their peers who had less exposure. This was true even after the researchers took into account how aggressive the children were at the beginning of the study – a reliable predictor of future bad behavior.
The findings are “pretty good evidence” that violent video games do indeed cause aggressive behavior, says Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, as quoted by CNN, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor.
Yet today, the politicians seem to have largely evaded the sensitive issue, while Hollywood and video game violence continues to explode. There seems to be little people can do to stop it.
How many “copycat” murders will be inflicted on innocent Americans (and foreigners) in the years to come as a result of the pervasive influence of Hollywood is anybody’s guess.
But here is a bit of a clue: Between the years 2001 and 2005, 81,634 people where gunned down on the streets of America.
Tentative Solution: Read a book.
Alcohol
If America owns the street corner on violence, then alcoholism is certainly Russia’s domain.
Blame it on the weather, or on an adventurous spirit, but one thing is certain, alcohol is hurting Russia in more than one way.
Russians drink about 18 liters (19 quarts) a year, more than double the 8 liters (8.4 quarts) that is recognized as a non-risk by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the WHO, with each additional liter over the recommended dose, men can subtract 11 months from their average life expectancy, while for women the amount is four months.
“The latest move to catch Russia’s “green serpent” has a three-pronged strategy,” Russian Newsweek reported in December, “a media campaign, restrictions on beer consumption, and strict penalties for selling to minors. Russian officials plan to set up more than 500 health centers by the end of the year.”
The Newsweek article reminded of a past effort to curtail Russia’s favorite bad habit.
“Former leader Mikhail Gorbachev got alcohol sales to decline by 60 percent (although, it should be noted, that drop was partly offset by an off-the-books boom in moonshine and cologne). The official numbers revealed an impressive bottom line. In the second half of the 1980s, Russian officials say, the policies saved more than 1 million lives.”
In September, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev kicked off a new anti-alcohol campaign aimed at cutting the nation’s per capita consumption of alcohol by nearly a quarter by 2012.
Medvedev has made reversing Russia’s dramatic demographic decline one of the objectives of his presidency, and his efforts seem to be paying dividends.
Last year, the country registered its first population increase in 15 years.
Russia's population increased by between 15,000 and 25,000 to more than 141.9 million in 2009, the first annual increase since 1995, announced Russian Health Minister Tatyana Golikova.
Tentative Solution: Switch to Kvass, Russia's famous (non-alcoholic) fermented drink made with rye bread.
Copyright: arcticle: Robert Bridge, RT
Original article from: http://rt.com/Sci_Tech/2010-02-01/whats-killing-us-inventions.html
Forward this news message:
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, and for the general purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, research and / or educational purposes only. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use this material for purposes other than provided by law. You must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html