1. More technology pushes news into people than ever before. 2. Bad news sells and makes you keep watching. 3. Humanity has never been smarter or more advance

1. More technology pushes news into people than ever before. 2. Bad news sells and makes you keep watching. 3. Humanity has never been smarter or more advanced than right now. Therefore we are more likely to be right in our predictions. Even if this isn't true, it still scares people. 4. We're only just starting to track and measure problems. Even ones we can't feasibly fix (climate change), which is scary.