Today the court found MBC PD’s Diary not guilty. The judge ruled against the prosecutor’s office because it is press freedom of speech to criticize the government’s policies. Korean prosecutors had indicted several MBC’s producers and staff earlier, accusing them of intentionally attempting to subvert the government. In 2008, the anti-government demonstration was held for weeks after MBC PD’s Diary associated US imported beef with the mad cow disease. The TV show incited the uprising throughout the nation involving high school students, labour unions, parents, dissidents, and bloggers. In few days the fear and madness among TV viewers and civilians were driven by PD’s Diary and exaggerated and spread rapidly by media, blogs and portals. There were thousands of rumors and expert reports saying US government and President Lee’s Administration conspired to sell cheap US beef contaminated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to Koreans. The whole country was in havoc. It was the real evidence that few people could make the mass frightened and confused in few moments through the tool of mass media, such as TV and the internet. However, their claims turned out to be bogus and hyperbole months later.

There are other global fear-mongers. The hottest issue is now about the climate change. Michael Crichton said that the world around us is in constant change so the mere prediction on the change itself is very difficult and not accurate. He believed that some interest groups and political organizations are trying to make us fearful of the ongoing threat of imminent natural catastophes. That makes us easy to be ruled, like the flock of feared sheep herded by the dogs. 

There has been fear of threats, such as nuclear winter, communist insurgence, the Cold War. But after the breakdown of the Berlin Wall, new kinds of threats appeared like Islam terrorism and climate change. Bush administration invaded Iraq, saying that it was their duty to save the world from Islamic terrorists and arguing that Iraq had the weapons of mass destruction. Their claim also turned out to be bogus and fake. 

Is it really scientifically true that the world is in danger of green house gases produced by human beings? Or is the world changing on its own? The climate change could be caused by several different factors or the factors all combined. They are solar radiance, earth changing its revolving a circular course round the sun, or earth changing its rotation axis. There have been several sudden climate changes on earth. They have been caused by huge volcano eruptions or very large meteorite crashes. There have been warm periods during which dinosaurs flourished and ice ages during which some species went extinct. No one knows for sure about what will happen in the future. Carl Sagan once said in his book Cosmos ’the planet Earth is always in motion so that we are space travellers.’

In his book ’State of Fear’, Crichton warns us of the fear-mongers. He tells us to be skeptical and critical, not to be swayed and distracted by fear. Must-read for environmentally friendly mind.