Today, it struck me just how similar the debate around global “climate change” is to the debates people use to have surrounding the health effects of cigarettes. People use to actually debate whether cigarettes cause cancer, heart disease, emphysema. Paid scientists use to publish bias report which were obviously constructed by the tobacco industry to show that their product is not dangerous.
Today, the auto and oil industries are doing the same thing. The overwhelming majority of scientists now agree that climate change is real, except for a few paid mouth pieces, which hope to convince us that the change is natural, or that it is exaggerated.
The same was true for lead in consumer products, like paint, and leaded gas. We have succeed in dramatically reducing the amount of lead in the environment. The same could be said for asbestos.
My point is not that we should be discouraged. We should be hopeful, because just as the argument in favor of cigarettes were eventually rebutted by the more persuasive arguments against cigarettes; the same is true for climate change. I confident that we will win the climate change debate, just a like we won the cigarette debate, or lead, or asbestos.
Be patience, history may be repeating itself, but the learning curve seems to be getting shorter.
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