New Scares For Old

Via Chris Snowdon:

Smoking continues to be a problem in multi-unit housing, and while stay-at-home orders have helped to reduce transmission of COVID-19, they have also increased exposure to secondhand smoke from neighbors.

My interpretation of this is that, ever since Covid-19 took over as the latest big scare, the zealots running the old scares (like tobacco smoke and global warming) are desperately trying to revitalise their tired old scares by linking them to the new scare.

So Covid-19 is making people stay at home and breathe secondhand smoke from neighbours. The suggestion seems to be that this is what’s really dangerous about it: Covid-19 amplifies the danger of secondhand smoke. In this manner secondhand smoke is restored to its rightful place as the greatest single threat to human life.

I expect to read that Covid-19 is increasing global warming, as people isolate themselves in their cars, and burn more fuel. In that manner global warming will also be restored to its rightful place as the greatest single threat to human life.

All it really shows is that a couple of old scares have now been overtaken by a new scare, and are struggling to stay relevant.

In time, Covid-19 will in its turn be overtaken by yet another new scare. Are there any likely candidates on the horizon?

Right now California seems to be on fire from one end to the other, with smoke reaching the east coast. That should be quite easy to link to secondhand smoke: the California fires could be said to be adding to the pre-existing (and far more dangerous) threat of secondhand smoke from neighbours. It’s even easier to link to global warming,  because the fires will be producing huge amounts of carbon dioxide.

It’s the same with all the rioting and burning and looting currently going on in US cities, which some people think is a prelude to civil war. That could also be linked to the threat of secondhand smoke from neighbours (as their homes light up as well), and to anthropogenic global warming.

Personally I discount all these threats. I don’t think there’s going to be a US civil war. I just think that the more one gets threatened, the more likely that Americans will vote for the one man who’d act decisively to stop it happening: Donald Trump. I think Trump is going to win in a landslide. And with luck he’ll then start arresting the rioters and looters and firebrands en masse, along with their Democrat politician enablers.

And also with luck the threats of secondhand smoke and global warming will have by then become past history, and as much long-forgotten threats as the Ozone Hole and HIV and Fidel Castro (remember them?).