As
a species, we humans have a history of denying facts even when they are staring
us in the face.
‘Lung
cancer was once a very rare disease, so rare that doctors took special notice
when confronted with a case, thinking it a once-in-a-lifetime oddity.
Mechanisation and mass marketing towards the end of the 19th century
popularised the cigarette habit, however, causing a global lung cancer
epidemic. Cigarettes were recognised as the cause of the epidemic in the 1940s
and 1950s, with the confluence of studies from epidemiology, animal
experiments, cellular pathology and chemical analytics. Cigarette manufacturers
disputed this evidence, as part of an orchestrated conspiracy to salvage
cigarette sales. Propagandising the public proved successful, judging from
secret tobacco industry measurements of the impact of denialist propaganda. As
late as 1960 only one-third of all US doctors believed that the case against
cigarettes had been established. The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the
history of human civilisation. Cigarettes cause about 1 lung cancer death per 3
or 4 million smoked, which explains why the scale of the epidemic is so large
today. Cigarettes cause about 1.5 million deaths from lung cancer per year, a
number that will rise to nearly 2 million per year by the 2020s or 2030s, even
if consumption rates decline in the interim. Part of the ease of cigarette
manufacturing stems from the ubiquity of high-speed cigarette making machines,
which crank out 20,000 cigarettes per min. Cigarette makers make about a penny
in profit for every cigarette sold, which means that the value of a life to a
cigarette maker is about US$10,000.’
The above
is a quote from the abstract for The history of the discovery of the
cigarette-lung cancer link: evidentiary traditions, corporate denial, global
toll, from the History Department, Stanford University.
People
still smoke; it’s a highly addictive habit, and hard to kick.
‘Lung cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in men and
the third most commonly occurring cancer in women.’ Even though lung cancer
rates have been decreasing because of the changes made to packaging and ongoing
information and education about the dangers of smoking, not only to the lungs,
there were still ‘2 milion new cases in 2018.’
‘The oil industry’s knowledge of dangerous climate change
stretches back to the 1960s, with unearthed documents showing that it was
warned of “serious worldwide environmental changes” more than 45 years ago.
‘The Stanford Research Institute presented a report to the
American Petroleum Institute (API) in 1968 that warned the release of carbon
dioxide from burning fossil fuels could carry an array of harmful consequences
for the planet.
‘The emergence of this stark advice follows a series of
revelations that the fossil fuel industry was aware of climate change for
decades, only to publicly deny its scientific basis.
‘ “Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur
by the year 2000 and these could bring about climatic change,” the 1968
Stanford report, found and republished by the Center for International
Environmental Law, states. “If the Earth’s temperature increases significantly,
a number of events might be expected to occur including the melting of the
Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans and an increase
in photosynthesis.’ From The Guardian, April 2016
For the complete article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/13/climate-change-oil-industry-environment-warning-1968
For more from the Center for International Environmental Law:
Our planet still has a huge dependency on carbon-based fuels,
and ‘Carbon dioxide is the main cause of human-induced climate change.’
Certainly ‘Small changes in the sun’s energy that reaches the earth can cause
some climate change. But since the Industrial Revolution, adding greenhouse
gases has been over 50 times more powerful than changes in the Sun's radiance.
The additional greenhouse gases in earth’s atmosphere have had a strong warming
effect on earth’s climate.’
‘Carbon dioxide is the main cause of
human-induced global warming and associated climate change. It is a very
long-lived gas, which means carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere with
ongoing human emissions and remains in the atmosphere for centuries. Global
warming can only be stopped by reducing global emissions of carbon dioxide from
human fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes to zero, but even with
zero emissions, the global temperature will remain essentially constant at its
new warmer level. Emissions of other substances that warm the climate must also
be substantially reduced. This indicates how difficult the challenge is.’
The quotes in the above 2 paragraphs are from the website:
We’ve heard and seen the demonstrations asking governments to
pay attention to the science in regard to climate change. We’ve heard and seen
the people who deny that we need to make radical changes. We’ve had the
experience of denying that cigarette smoking is harmful.
How long will it take to make changes that
will improve our future? What kinds of disasters will we see if we don’t?
