Anthropogenic global warming is not the first - nor will it be the last - danger that science will discover and warn us about. But it might be the most resisted. Here are a few analogous scientific discoveries that weren't rejected.
1) Lead: In 1979, an MD by the name of Herbert Needleman published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Needleman's study examined the baby teeth of several thousand first and second graders. His work demonstrated that even extremely low doses of lead can harm children's cognitive and behavioral development. At that time lead could be found in house paint, gasoline, water piping and food cans. The conclusion of his work was that there was simply NO safe dose of lead. Lead as a chemical additive in water systems paint and fuel was banned Lead was removed from all known sources - an effort which Flint Michigan shows still underway - and several mitigation measures were adopted.
I bet that the profit margin on lead additives was just about zip. I bet the fancy chemical replacements that wouldn't hurt the kids (as far as anyone knew) were patented by some well-funded chemical companies. You know, Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, BASF. I bet they paid off some scientists and politicians to get rid of the lead and boost their profit margins. Right?
2) DDT: In 1962, marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" was published. Carson had been studying population declines in seabirds which turned out to be due to the breakage of thin-shelled eggs. Eventually it was determined that the birds were'nt able to produce strong enough eggs due to DDT poisoning. The levels in their bodies was surprisingly high and the public was introduced to biological magnification. Sea birds are apex predators. DDT was absorbed by phytoplankton which were eaten by zooplankton which were eaten by diatoms which were eaten by copepods, which were eaten by small fish which were eaten by bigger fish which were eaten by bigger fish which were eaten by sea birds. Since each step was eating numbers of their prey animal, the low dose in the phytoplankton was multipled by the thousands of individuals they were effectively consuming, became an enormous dose in the sea bird. It would take another ten years before DDT was banned, primarily because its status as the number one weapon in the worldwide fight against malaria.
I bet that the profit margin on DDT was just about zip. I bet the fancy chemical replacements that wouldn't hurt the birds (as far as anyone knew) were patented by some well-funded chemical companies. You know, Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, BASF. I bet they paid off some scientists and politicians to get rid of the DDT and boost their profit margins. Right?
3) Smoking: In the year 1761 (yep, 1761), Dr John Hill of London, England contended that smoking tobacco, introduced to Europe by Christopher Columbus caused lung cancer. Tobacco use didn't become really popular in Europe till about 1560 when it was taken up - in the form of snuff - by the queen of France in an attempt to treat her migraines. In this country, the beginning of the demise of the tobacco industry began with the January, 1964 Surgeon's General Report on Smoking and Health. The report was similar to the IPCC's Assessment Reports. It was compiled from over 7,000 different studies on tobacco use and disease. As we all know, it reported that tobacco was very addictive and a major cause of cancer and other ailments. Smoking, once seen virtually everywhere (restaurants, elevators, airplanes) is now seen only in very restricted areas. The tobacco companies were sued by hundreds of organizations and individuals for selling a harmful product and lying about its hazards. Between 1980 and 1994 the tobacco company won all but two of these cases and both those cases were reversed on appeal. In 1996, a jury awarded a Lucky Strike smoker named Grady Carter $750,000 from Brown & Williamson. B&W finally paid Carter in 2001 after exhausting all appeals. The rest is history. Numerous lawsuits now succeeded and the tobacco companies were forced to fund expensive campaigns whose goal was to prevent people from ever starting to smoke and to get existing smokers to stop. The tobacco companies were heavily fined, forced to spend billions on these efforts and banned from advertising in almost all mass media. These measures were eventually quite effective. In 1954, 45% of Americans smoked. By June of 2023 that was down to 12%.
No smoker with two grey cells to rub together could have actually thought that tobacco was harmless. Of course it was going to affect your health but each of us has the right to go to hell in a handbasket of our own making. And science never proves anything. All that nonsense about tobacco and cancer is nothing but theories - never proven. Smokers paying the piper saw those tobacco companies as the ultimate moneybags and plenty of those smokers were lawyers and judges and congressmen. The whole thing was a get rich quick scam. Right?
4) Cholesterol, salt, fat, sugar, exercise: Medicine has advanced faster in the last 100 years than any other branch of science. Medical knowledge about the workings of the human body; cellular chemistry and molecular biology has exploded in that time frame. A number of common food ingredients were found to be extremely harmful in the long run. Cholesterol from meat and meat products clogged our arteries. Salt in and on almost everything we ate was raising our blood pressure. Fat was increasing our weight, out lipid levels and the loads on our circulatory systems. Sedentary lifestyles, becoming more and more common with the mechanization of the work place and the introduction of computers, digital communication and the internet caused the average weight and BMI of Americans to increase dramatically. Simultaneously, our rates of heart disease, hypertension, atherosclerosis, cancer and diabetes all rose. The connections were discovered and the American people have now known for some time the actual cost of our high salt, high fat, high sugar, low exercise lifestyles. There has been some improvement over time particularly with the very young and the very old, but, obviously, not enough across the board. The three leading causes of death in this country are heart disease, cancer and COVID-19
Of course this just more scientific guesswork. Sick people make doctors rich. An endless stream of pills pushed down American throats has created the monstrosity of Big Pharma. And the FDA, the USDA and the NIH are nothing but three more tentacles on the octopus of big government seeking more and more control over the lives of formerly free American citizens. Right?
1) Lead: In 1979, an MD by the name of Herbert Needleman published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Needleman's study examined the baby teeth of several thousand first and second graders. His work demonstrated that even extremely low doses of lead can harm children's cognitive and behavioral development. At that time lead could be found in house paint, gasoline, water piping and food cans. The conclusion of his work was that there was simply NO safe dose of lead. Lead as a chemical additive in water systems paint and fuel was banned Lead was removed from all known sources - an effort which Flint Michigan shows still underway - and several mitigation measures were adopted.
I bet that the profit margin on lead additives was just about zip. I bet the fancy chemical replacements that wouldn't hurt the kids (as far as anyone knew) were patented by some well-funded chemical companies. You know, Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, BASF. I bet they paid off some scientists and politicians to get rid of the lead and boost their profit margins. Right?
2) DDT: In 1962, marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" was published. Carson had been studying population declines in seabirds which turned out to be due to the breakage of thin-shelled eggs. Eventually it was determined that the birds were'nt able to produce strong enough eggs due to DDT poisoning. The levels in their bodies was surprisingly high and the public was introduced to biological magnification. Sea birds are apex predators. DDT was absorbed by phytoplankton which were eaten by zooplankton which were eaten by diatoms which were eaten by copepods, which were eaten by small fish which were eaten by bigger fish which were eaten by bigger fish which were eaten by sea birds. Since each step was eating numbers of their prey animal, the low dose in the phytoplankton was multipled by the thousands of individuals they were effectively consuming, became an enormous dose in the sea bird. It would take another ten years before DDT was banned, primarily because its status as the number one weapon in the worldwide fight against malaria.
I bet that the profit margin on DDT was just about zip. I bet the fancy chemical replacements that wouldn't hurt the birds (as far as anyone knew) were patented by some well-funded chemical companies. You know, Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, BASF. I bet they paid off some scientists and politicians to get rid of the DDT and boost their profit margins. Right?
3) Smoking: In the year 1761 (yep, 1761), Dr John Hill of London, England contended that smoking tobacco, introduced to Europe by Christopher Columbus caused lung cancer. Tobacco use didn't become really popular in Europe till about 1560 when it was taken up - in the form of snuff - by the queen of France in an attempt to treat her migraines. In this country, the beginning of the demise of the tobacco industry began with the January, 1964 Surgeon's General Report on Smoking and Health. The report was similar to the IPCC's Assessment Reports. It was compiled from over 7,000 different studies on tobacco use and disease. As we all know, it reported that tobacco was very addictive and a major cause of cancer and other ailments. Smoking, once seen virtually everywhere (restaurants, elevators, airplanes) is now seen only in very restricted areas. The tobacco companies were sued by hundreds of organizations and individuals for selling a harmful product and lying about its hazards. Between 1980 and 1994 the tobacco company won all but two of these cases and both those cases were reversed on appeal. In 1996, a jury awarded a Lucky Strike smoker named Grady Carter $750,000 from Brown & Williamson. B&W finally paid Carter in 2001 after exhausting all appeals. The rest is history. Numerous lawsuits now succeeded and the tobacco companies were forced to fund expensive campaigns whose goal was to prevent people from ever starting to smoke and to get existing smokers to stop. The tobacco companies were heavily fined, forced to spend billions on these efforts and banned from advertising in almost all mass media. These measures were eventually quite effective. In 1954, 45% of Americans smoked. By June of 2023 that was down to 12%.
No smoker with two grey cells to rub together could have actually thought that tobacco was harmless. Of course it was going to affect your health but each of us has the right to go to hell in a handbasket of our own making. And science never proves anything. All that nonsense about tobacco and cancer is nothing but theories - never proven. Smokers paying the piper saw those tobacco companies as the ultimate moneybags and plenty of those smokers were lawyers and judges and congressmen. The whole thing was a get rich quick scam. Right?
4) Cholesterol, salt, fat, sugar, exercise: Medicine has advanced faster in the last 100 years than any other branch of science. Medical knowledge about the workings of the human body; cellular chemistry and molecular biology has exploded in that time frame. A number of common food ingredients were found to be extremely harmful in the long run. Cholesterol from meat and meat products clogged our arteries. Salt in and on almost everything we ate was raising our blood pressure. Fat was increasing our weight, out lipid levels and the loads on our circulatory systems. Sedentary lifestyles, becoming more and more common with the mechanization of the work place and the introduction of computers, digital communication and the internet caused the average weight and BMI of Americans to increase dramatically. Simultaneously, our rates of heart disease, hypertension, atherosclerosis, cancer and diabetes all rose. The connections were discovered and the American people have now known for some time the actual cost of our high salt, high fat, high sugar, low exercise lifestyles. There has been some improvement over time particularly with the very young and the very old, but, obviously, not enough across the board. The three leading causes of death in this country are heart disease, cancer and COVID-19
Of course this just more scientific guesswork. Sick people make doctors rich. An endless stream of pills pushed down American throats has created the monstrosity of Big Pharma. And the FDA, the USDA and the NIH are nothing but three more tentacles on the octopus of big government seeking more and more control over the lives of formerly free American citizens. Right?
