I think that society as a whole has generally become numb to these sorts of dire warnings. I grew up in the cold war. I lived on military bases at the time, and when public schools did the hide-under-your-desk drills for nuclear attacks, our parents levelled with us and said "you might as well watch the show....we'll be the first to go so you won't be around to worry about it."

Because books/tv specials/movies like these are bestsellers, and because there are people who latch onto worries like a dog onto a porterhouse, the doomsday scenarios have gotten out of control. Apparently, I need to make my children today worry about the following:

Pollution
Greenhouse gases and global warming
Solar flares knocking out all electronics
EMP from man-made nuclear devices doing the same thing
Nuclear war
Conventional war
Terrorists with pilot licenses
Dirty bombs
Invasions from aliens
Planet X
Species going extinct and ruining the foodchain
Computers gaining sentience and starting a war to kill off their human overlords
H1N1
Lyme disease
Flesh-eating bacteria
Super-colds that don't react to antibiotics
AIDS
Hepatitis from tatoos
Multiple STD's
Unplanned pregnancy
Cults
Internet bullies
RL bullies
Stalkers
Child predators
Blizzard wanting their real name for the forums
Rabid animals
Speeding cars
Drunk drivers
Police on ego trips
Discrimination of all types
Peer pressure
Drugs
Alcohol
Smoking
Advertising
Video game violence
Red dye #5
Childhood vaccines
Trampolines that don't have spring covers
Unattended pools
Poisonous spiders, snakes and plants
Mosquitoes
Gluten
Sodium
Sugar
Sugar substitutes
Caffeine
Not getting enough fiber
Fat
Vitamin D deficiencies
Hearing loss from listening to music too loudly
Sunburn
Skin Cancer
Improperly constructed potato guns
Firearms in the home
Music with hateful or obscene lyrics
Too much sex in the media
Con artists
Salesmen
Real estate agents
Food that wasn't chewed enough
Hot things
Cold things
Thin spots in the ice on a lake
3-wheelers
4-wheelers
motorcycles

I can't type anymore....but there's more! And I guarantee you that in the course of every year, every one of these issues is brought up somewhere in the media as "the silent menace" or "the unseen killer" or "the threat hanging over our world." At some point, you have to shrug, say "oh well" and just get on with your life.