Fear of the impending disaster due climate change on the planet has been a long standing topic of discussion.

Now, a study published by historian Matthias Dörries in WIREs Climate Change researches fear and its cultural significance and its presence in the debates over climate change.

The media has described climatic change has devastating results. They also go on to predict disastrous events. The research analyzed the cultural fear relating climate change and the impending catastrophes linked to it. It further examined the language used by the media to warn of the imminent disaster.

Fear was examined in the research from a historical point of view and understanding the perception of climate change and its effects on the present society with regard to fear and catastrophe. "Recently historians have underlined the necessity to revise the grand Enlightenment narrative of science as antidote to fear," Dörries said.

"We should now look at how popular and scientific discourses frame fear, and study the constructive and destructive functions of these fear discourses in societies."Scientists characterized the 1960s and 1970s with fear discourses concerning the future. "For the very long run, science has indeed some terrifying prospects to offer for the planet Earth, and on a scale of decades, science has identified serious threats, such as anthropogenic climate change," Dörries remarked.

"The current discourse of fear over climate change reflects the attempts to come to grips with the long-term issue of anthropogenic climate change," concluded Dörries. "They are appeals for action, they imply claims to power, they stress that the issue is political and cultural, not merely a matter of science and reason alone."