Government alarm test on your mobile thing is TODAY at 3 pm

Caution isn't the same thing as fear but I will say don't let these things concern you too much, fear is how control is snatched by malevolent entities, the worst may never happen and then you'll have worried yourself sick over nothing.

If these kind of things cause you undue distress, and you've survived this long without emergency alarms then you probably don't need them now, here is how to turn them off. 

www.theguardian.com/.../how-to-disable-uk-emergency-alerts-on-your-phone

Sound advice. Life is stressful enough as it is, and I honestly don't see these doomsday scenarios playing out for real. I think it 'only' took one Hiroshima for the big powers of the world to instantly develop an unspoken 'yeah, let's not do that again - we'll keep posturing, sure - we're in that corner, now. But... y'know, definitely not'. Mutually assured destruction is one of those collectively-insane-but-self-preserving dimensions to the human race (see also the eleventh hour attitude to climate change), there to get us in a measured way to a future without all that and utopian in ways we can't even presently imagine. And will never see in our lifetimes. But slowly of necessity, as it paces things just right - a delicate tightrope walk between not blowing ourselves up running before we can walk, but still making tentative, occasionally lightly accelerated progress. 

Just keep calm (or at your usual baseline of existential anxiety) and carry on. I love that image, Bees, of you so engrossed in an article that you barely registered it. Once I had the inconvenience over and done with, I picked up my Doctor Who Magazine and read Russell T. Davies' monthly column - this time detailing his frantic exploits trying to track down some silver body glitter for a female friend who was to go the BAFTAs that night. Now that's a real emergency!

Sound advice. Life is stressful enough as it is, and I honestly don't see these doomsday scenarios playing out for real. I think it 'only' took one Hiroshima for the big powers of the world to instantly develop an unspoken 'yeah, let's not do that again - we'll keep posturing, sure - we're in that corner, now. But... y'know, definitely not'. Mutually assured destruction is one of those collectively-insane-but-self-preserving dimensions to the human race (see also the eleventh hour attitude to climate change), there to get us in a measured way to a future without all that and utopian in ways we can't even presently imagine. And will never see in our lifetimes. But slowly of necessity, as it paces things just right - a delicate tightrope walk between not blowing ourselves up running before we can walk, but still making tentative, occasionally lightly accelerated progress. 

Just keep calm (or at your usual baseline of existential anxiety) and carry on. I love that image, Bees, of you so engrossed in an article that you barely registered it. Once I had the inconvenience over and done with, I picked up my Doctor Who Magazine and read Russell T. Davies' monthly column - this time detailing his frantic exploits trying to track down some silver body glitter for a female friend who was to go the BAFTAs that night. Now that's a real emergency!

I agree with you. I think the media loves to whip up fear of nuclear war in the same way that they enjoyed whipping up fear of new covid variants. Fear sells papers and generates clicks sadly. It also makes people easier to control. 

Whatever else Putin is, he is a patriotic Russian. It is unlikley he would persue an action that would lead to the complete destruction of Russia 

Freedom is in living without fear. Easier said than done but worth striving for