While I was penning my little scribble yesterday, a thought crossed my mind.

There are a lot of similarities between the Global Warming scare and the Tobacco scare.

Methods.

For a start, both rely on fabricated science.  By fabricated, I mean science that does not come directly from experimentation but rather on mathematical computer models and on people’s opinions via questionnaires.

The Global Warming “experts” rely on computer simulations which in turn are based on a variety of sources such as tree rings, ice-cores and actual measurements which have only been accurate in the last couple of decades, and even then a lot of the latter are false as the readings tend to be skewed by readings that are taken in cities or other hotspots.

The Tobacco “experts” have even less to go on.  All they can rely on is questionnaires which by their nature tend to be inaccurate – which of us hasn’t given an honest answer but the answer we know they want?  To compound matters, the Anti-Tobacco movement then relies on combining these questionnaires into a report where they have neatly cherry-picked the data, ignoring the papers that don’t support their theories and combining the ones that do.

This method of cherry-picking data is common to both camps.  The Global Warmists conveniently overlook such minor details as the Medieval Warm Period or the fact that both temperatures and CO² levels have vastly exceeded current levels in the past, while the Tobacco mom completely ignore two of the biggest studies in the history of smoking – the WHO Report and the BMJ Report.

Financial rewards

In both cases, any study to be undertaken in either field is guaranteed large funding [provided the outcome is the one expected].  In both cases though, there are billions to be made by the people funding “research”.  In both cases, governments can glean rich rewards as they have the perfect excuse for high taxation.  In both cases, billions can be made in profits by the likes of wind-farm and “eco-friendly” companies on the back of the Global Warming scare and by the Pharmaceutical Industry on the back of the tobacco scare.

Turning myth to fact

Both cases rely heavily on “science by press release”.  This simply involves publishing so called facts to the press, and the more sensational the better, in order to scare people into their way of thinking.  How many times have we heard that coastal cities are soon to be swamped under rising sea levels?  How many times have we been told that the merest whiff of tobacco smoke can cause cancer [particularly in children]? 

The Sheeple tend not to read beyond snappy headlines and the more outrageous the headline the better.  They rarely if ever question those headlines as “if it’s in the paper, it must be true”.

As the master of propaganda, Goebbels said

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Meet the Sheeple.

It did cross my mind that it would only be a matter of time before people started claiming that smoking causes global warming.

It turns out they already have.