For Immediate Release: September 20, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO – Environmental hysteria leads to poor and self-contradictory policy-making according to Hysteria’s History: Environmental Alarmism in Context, a new report released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI). In Hysteria’s History, author Amy Kaleita, policy fellow in Environmental Studies at PRI, charts the progression of hysteria starting with Rachel Carson’s influential book Silent Spring up to the current global warming controversy.

“A major challenge in developing appropriate responses to legitimate problems is that alarmism catches people’s attention and draws them in,” said Dr. Kaleita. “Alarmism is given more weight than it deserves, as policy makers attempt to appease their constituency and the media.”

Examples of poor and self-contradictory policy choices in California include:

• Taxpayer money spent on a lawsuit against nearly the entire automobile industry in North America to seek damages that have not yet occurred.
• The Low Carbon Fuel Standard recently promulgated by the governor of California to promote the use of ethanol in the state’s fuel supply. Ethanol reduces fuel efficiency, which means drivers will need to burn more fuel to go the same distance.
• San Francisco’s ban on the use of plastic bags in city businesses. In reality, the manufacture of paper bags releases more greenhouse gases than the manufacture of plastic bags.

“Environmental alarmism should be taken for what it is—a natural tendency of some portion of the public to latch onto the worst, and most unlikely, potential outcome,” said Dr. Kaleita. “Alarmism should not be used as the basis for policy. Where a real problem exists, solutions should be based on reality, not hysteria.”

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About PRI
For 28 years, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has championed freedom, opportunity, and individual responsibility through free-market policy solutions. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. http://www.pacificresearch.org//.