Sometimes, in the process of investigating things you discover weird links. Today’s ‘What the?’ moment comes from `Forces International,’ a pro-(cigarette-)smoking site that tells you the `truth’ about smoking (apparently it’s not just non-lethal but also lovely, smells good, improves your sex life, fixes cracks and was something Jesus did). Browsing about their site I hit upon the multimedia portal and discovered that they host, amongst their pro-smoking propaganda, videos and multimedia galore on the `Global Warming Scam.’
Interesting bed fellows. It would be wrong of me to suggest that this irrevocably taints the Climate Inactivists because, quite possibly, they’re embarrassed by the association. It does kind of make sense, though, that the pro-smoking lobby would seek comfort and succour from the Inactivists. Both contend the scientific consensus on matters pertaining to them is wrong and both think the debate has been politicised.
And, of course, both are wrong.
Back to the `researching.’
Update: Look at this list of topics Forces members are concerned about.
Comments
This is entirely unsurprising. Look into S. Fred Singer and Fred Seitz. These two men both produced psuedo-science for the tobacco companies, denying the dangers of smoking, then again for the chemical industry, denying the dangers of CFCs and other ozone-destroying gasses, and now a third time, working for the fossil fuel companies denying the dangers of global warming.
See, if I weren’t principled I’d be wondering how I could buy me some of that action. I bet the renumeration for dodgy science is much better than the renumeration for the real thing.
The Heartland Institute and Milloy’s TASSC are two other groups of folks who are into both global warming denialism and tobacco cancer denialism. While it seems there are some groups (like the astroturfing ICSC) which only do GW denialism, but I’ve yet to come across a group which goes the other way round (i.e. shills for tobacco only). Then again, it’s a big world…
Of course, GW denialist net.trolls have tried to downplay this connection by entreating people to ‘focus on the science’… right before they trot out their scientific conspiracy theories. đŸ™‚
— bi, International Journal of Inactivism
Yes, the whole `Ignore who else they work for…’ argument seems pretty common (and on both sides of the so-called debate), but I think it’s a fair move to say `Look, person x says y, which they claim is just based in the science, but person x says a very similar y-like proposition, also supposedly based in the science, which we know to be dodgy.’ The more such links you can express the more the burden of proof gets shifted on to person x to show that they are, actually, talking about the science rather than their (potentially invested) interests.
But we all know that.
Still, the Conspiracy Theory aspect is interesting; obviously people who dare question such links are conspiring against you. I mean, why else would they go to all the trouble…