Today, an exhaustive study was posted on on the internet. It thoroughly debunked the claim that horizontal drilling for natural gas, a mile or more beneath the surface, caused dangerous earthquakes.
For the past couple of years, professional alarmists had been spreading the fear that earthquakes were inevitably caused by horizontal drilling. Now, the problem appears to be utterly imaginary. To the alarmists, it’s obvious: something has gone horribly wrong. What has gone horribly wrong? Another dire prediction didn’t happen. Another problem was shown to be imaginary.
Since the “Drilling causes Earthquakes” relationship was found not to exist, we can only assume that something has gone horribly wrong, for about the millionth time. Professional alarmists, already in retreat over the debunking of other Imaginary Problems, are worried. Another problem was found to be imaginary. Automatically, smarter people are ignoring alarmists.
“Smarter people have stopped paying attention to us.”, alarmists complain. “All of our funding comes from making people believe that we’re solving problems which, if left unattended, will destroy them. Now, all the smarter people think that we’re liars, gullible fools, or both. Our funding, our salaries, our benefits, and our pensions are at risk. What has gone horribly wrong? No one takes alarmists seriously, any more.”