[NatureNS] Climate Change and Tobacco

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Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:30:32 -0400
From: "Richard Stern" <sternrichard@gmail.com>
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This wole discussion has been very interesting. The most objective
contributor has been Bruce Stevens, who has eloquently outlined the
appropriate arguments and debates currently going on regarding global
climate change. The analogy with tobacco is an interesting one, and
has been brought up in a recent CBC Fifth Estate program. They found
out that some of the very same scientists who have argued against the
evidence for climate change, were previously involved in the debate of
the 80s and 90s concerning the relationship between smoking and lung
cancer, on the side of the big tobacco companies. Much of the
information available to the public on climate change, on both sides
(including Al Gore's movie) is presented in a subjective way, with
very superficial supporting evidence - that's not to say the evidence
isn't there, but it's often hard to separate wishful thinking or a
belief system from hard evidence.

The analogy with smoking is a good one. The evidence that there is an
epidemiological (and possibly causative) association between lung
cancer and smoking was first brought up in the 1950s, and all the
evidence up to the late 1990s - 40 years- was epidemiological and
circumstancial. That was why for years people had trouble suing the
tobacco industry. In 1996 came the first probable direct causative
links between carcinogens in tobacco and changes in DNA linkages in
the p53 gene in lung cancer cells in humans, and even now there is
some, but not a whole lot, of direct "smoking gun" evidence for this
association. Nevertheless, the indirect evidence is finally so
overwhelming that the majority of people believe that association.I
think we are in the early stages of that 40 year proof with global
climate change, and agree with the excellent summary that Bruce posted
here.

Richard

On 11/24/06, Paul MacDonald <paulrita2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi All
> An interesting discussion.
> Makes me think of tobacco. Bad stuff tobacco.
> Science has long since proved that and lots of social
> pressures against it. People still smoke and lots of
> young people. And it costs lots of money.
> If folks can not be persuaded to give that up, how can
> we persuade them to give up high carbon consumption?
> Myself when in school I couldn't afford Smoking, beer
> and S**. So smoking had to go!
> A recent report suggests large SUV sales have never
> been better - and not just in North America.
> The bright side is some experts say we are due for a
> large volcanic eruption soon. That will cool things
> down.
> Have a nice fall
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Music Unlimited
> Access over 1 million songs.
> http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
>


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