Alarmism sells newspapers: then and now

"How and Why Earth Will End?" - The Washington Post Sunday, March 23, 1913

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What the hell? Pick your Armageddon. Check out these Gore-like whoppers from the Wapo almost a century ago: Plain Global Plunging: "SCIENTISTS BELIEVE OUR UNIVERSE WILL SOME DAY PLUNGE INTO THE SUN." Global Terminating: "SCIENCE in the course of the ages has evolved a number of different theories as to the final end of our present stable appearing, comfortable old world. That it must terminate no one disputes." Stellar Global Plunging: "There is one theory which claims that we will some day plunge into the sun...The claim is based on recent stellar discoveries..." Global Sinking: "...we are told that the crust of the earth is a falling structure bound to sink beneath the weight of its mountains and continents and peoples into a seething liquid mass at the center." Global Cooling: "A third possibility is the extinction of heat in the sun in which case everything on the face of the earth would become cold and all life extinct." Global Contracting: "Still a fourth is the gradual cooling and contracting on the earth's surface until it becomes a dead, scarred thing like our not distant moon." Global Colliding: "The fifth theory is considered by most scientists as the least likely and yet it is by no means impossible. The collision of our earth with some other rapidly moving body is not at all impossible. In such a case the end will not be slow in arriving after the first start has begun. Extinction will be immediate." In chilly 2008, "global warming" is all the rage at The Washington Post. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Ben-Peter Terpstra, an Australian-European satirist, is a contributor to a number of websites, from On Line Opinion (Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate) to American Thinker. His pieces are also posted on his blog, Pizza Trays and Beer Bottles Ben-Peter can be reached at: Letters@canadafreepress.com