Oil companies: reminiscent of the tobacco industry of the 1970s

Yes, climate change is happening right now and yes people are dying as a result. More than likely you don’t know those impacted, so have little in the way of personal involvement or even remorse. If you have a friend on the east coast of the US or in Oklahoma, then maybe you are a little more attuned to the increasing severity of hurricanes and tornadoes. But otherwise most who are unaffected simply don’t care. After all, it’s about making money is it not?

Yet, if you lose a friend or relative to the ravages of cancer, I’m willing to bet that your desire to see a cure intensifies and more than likely, you will contribute to cancer research as well. It is a miserable, multifaceted disease where huge strides towards a cure have been made but no magic bullet that will rid the world of this scourge has yet been found.

Unlike climate change, no one argues the science of cancer. Unlike climate change, no one argues or denies the negative impacts attributed to lifestyle choices such as diet or smoking. This despite every attempt by major tobacco manufactures to claim there was no science supporting the “hysterical” accusations that cigarettes posed a significant health risk. And of course decades later we now know that even the tobacco companies’ own research had confirmed their product could and was killing those who purchased and used it. Yet despite that knowledge, these companies continued to lie to the general public. Money was more important than the deadly truth.

Do some still deny that smoking kills? Of course they do as scientific fact is conveniently disbelieved and thought of as being elitist. Until, that is, the science behind the harmful practice takes their life.

The very same arguments I hear on a daily basis that deny the negative impacts of greenhouse gases and the impact they have on our health are exactly like those I heard 50 years ago about smoking. Lobby groups representing tobacco companies were effective at their jobs. Money talked and the intentional delay in recognizing the truth needlessly killed thousands of people. Thousands more who didn’t need to die but did so because profit was more important than the lives of those who used the product.

The issue of greenhouse gases and climate change have, much like the fight against tobacco once did, polarized the opinions of most people, so I don’t expect to have changed the minds of those reading this. But I do wonder, if like the ravages of cancer, minds will start to change when someone you know dies or looses everything in a climate induced event such as a wildfire, flood or storm?

The battle against cancer has been an incremental and sometimes frustrating campaign. Little steps, small discoveries, failed experiments but done with a sense of optimism and hope. So why can’t we do the same regarding our climate and our planet? Why is it so important to call people names and, as I see every day on social media, belittle the small but steady advances being made in the fight against greenhouse gases? Those who do so are playing with the lives of our grandchildren.

by Plain Rhetoric

Oil companies: reminiscent of the tobacco industry of the 1970s

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