Hoaxes have always been around. People have fallen for them en masse for centuries. In the recent past, we had an Ice Age scare in the 70’s, then we proceeded to an overpopulation scare, then there was Y2K and now Global Warming. Remember the Hole In The Ozone Layer? Has that been fixed or did it just go away or was it a natural, reoccurring phenomenon? What is it about hoaxes that overwhelm great numbers of people with panic and sends them running off to spend money and do the bidding of the huckster?

The first element of a hoax is that it evokes emotions such as fear, greed, sympathy, guilt, etc. You are going to die. You can make some money. Someone will die. You are the cause of this travesty.

With the Make-A-Wish Foundation scam, the child is dying from cancer and the Make-A-Wish Foundation will donate 7 cents every time the email is forwarded. The emotions here are sympathy and guilt.

The Global Warming enthusiasts are trying to evoke fear and guilt. The fear is that we could die in a catastrophic weather event. And we could. Tornadoes and hurricanes and lightning have killed many people and there’s not much we can do to prevent them or protect ourselves from them. Guilt is also induced. We drive cars which will be the cause of world-wide suffering. It will be our fault.

Emotions overwhelm rational analysis. With the Make-A-Wish hoax, who wouldn’t feel a twinge of sympathy for a dying child? Guilt might also play a role since if we don’t forward the email the child will do without. The questions of how long does this child have to live and when was this email sent do not occur. This type of email has been circulating for almost two decades. The Make-A-Wish foundation still receives hundreds of inquiries a day and has a website set up just for this hoax. The victim of the hoax thinks that it could be possible to track emails and the child is dying right now and it won’t cost them anything to forward an email, so with just the click of a button they forward the email.

With the Global Warming hoax, the science is beyond most people’s understanding or wherewithal. This results in the victim of the hoax feeling confused and ashamed. He will not strive to understand the science. The victim of the hoax benefits from the wealth produced by an industrial society. This produces guilt. Feeling guilty drives the victim to comply with the alarmists’ demands. And if the victim of the hoax cannot give up his car or cannot afford to replace all his incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs or balks at the extra tax, this will generate more guilt. The victim will not consider if there are other solutions. Let me state this again: emotions overwhelm rational analysis.

The second element is to baffle them with babble. The mind can only hold so many elements in conscious awareness at one time. With Global Warming, there are seven elements which is about the limit of most people. The logical progression is that the cars produce CO2 and this thickens the atmosphere which increases the temperature which causes the land-based glaciers to melt which fills the oceans which rise up and flood the land. Can you repeat that? I needed to practice it. With the lottery ticket scam, there are six elements. The "lottery ticket winner" is illegally in the country so he can't cash the check because he has no social security number so he will gladly split the proceeds with you if you cash the ticket for him.

The third element is immediacy; action must be taken now. With the Car Warranty Expiration scam, your car warranty is expiring now. You will have to pay for the repairs yourself, unless you take advantage of this opportunity now. With the Global Warming hoax, we must act now to prevent future disasters because when the disasters come about it will be too late. “Now” removes the time to think.

How to avoid a hoax? First, if you hear or read a story that stirs your emotions, take the time to think. The gossip with the latest titillating scandal is a good example. Listeners get a vicarious thrill from another’s foibles. If you are frightened or guilty, someone with a plan eliminates the necessity to think of a solution.

Second, if the "facts" are overwhelming you, take the time to go over each one. With the Global Warming hoax, the CO2 is produced by cars (and I may add, breathing). If you recall your grammar school science, trees and plants use CO2 to produce oxygen. Notice how none of the solutions you read about involve planting more trees.

If the CO2 is thickening the atmosphere, wouldn’t that prevent the sun’s rays from warming the earth? Wouldn’t we be causing an Ice Age? And speaking of Ice Ages, hasn’t the earth always been in flux between Ice Ages and Tropical Ages since long before man entered the picture?

What is the earth’s average temperature? You would be hard-pressed to find that published anywhere, but you do hear that it is going up. The temperature is 58 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s gone up a little over one degree in the past 100 years. That means that 100 years ago the temperature was around 56 degrees Fahrenheit. Doesn’t that mean that the glaciers were melting then? How do we know that this 1 degree change is unusual? What should the average temperature have been? Is it supposed to stay the same over the centuries? Was it supposed to go down? Or was it supposed to go up by a smaller amount?

Have you ever wondered why only the past 100 years is specified? Could it be that we’ve only been recording temperature for the past 100 years?

Did you notice that we only have to worry about land-based glaciers melting? Here’s the science. Water expands when frozen. Those who live in the north know that they can’t put water in their car radiator during winter. When the water freezes, it expands and cracks the radiator. So when ice melts, it decreases in volume. The global warming alarmists can’t say that when glaciers melt it increases the volume of the oceans because ice decreases in volume when it melts. So they specifically state that land-based glaciers are increasing the volume of the ocean, because land-based glaciers melt and flow into the oceans.

Now if land-based glaciers are melting and expanding the volume of the ocean, then ocean-based glaciers are melting and decreasing the volume of the oceans. One would think that the two might cancel each other out. Calculating the volume of the ocean-based glaciers that melted and subtracting that from the current volume of the ocean and then adding the volume of the land-based glaciers that melted minus the diminished volume would be an enormous task and subject to error.

Third, the only time to act immediately without thinking is in an emergency. And then you can only hope that you have learned enough for your subconscious to throw up the right solution or that you will be lucky. Everything else requires thought. Take the time to consider the things that you are being told, find out the things that you are not being told and recall the things that you know and fit it all together.

Hoaxes will always be around. One needs to be aware when one’s emotions are being manipulated. One needs to be honest enough to say, “I don’t understand. Let’s go over the details again.” If someone is demanding action now and it is not an emergency, take the time to think.

© 2008 Derica Lorraine
dericalorraine@yahoo.com