Ignorance in action

The last time I posted on the climate change debate was here in November 2014 on the release of the synthesis reports on the IPCC’s 5^th assessment. The post asked whether the debate would now move on, away from the climate change deniers, given the weight of scientific opinion. Well, that was before Mr Trump. In his inane rationale for withdrawing from the (nonbinding) Paris climate agreement, Trump has provided a classic illustration of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s quote that “there is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action”.

The Paris agreement is far from perfect. It does not however contain hard emissions targets but rather gives a framework for voluntary reductions. Admittingly previous voluntary reductions promised by many countries have been missed but even a flawed agreement is better than nothing. Recent declines in the growth in coal use in China and India were positive initial signs.

Maybe Mr Trump’s delusional thinking is that his masterful negotiations skills mean he can negotiate a global agreement with hard emission targets! More likely, he is acting politically to shore up his mid America coal loving support given the danger that some of his core support may just be realising that his healthcare and fiscal policies are not that favourable to those at lower incomes.

I recently came across this statement from January 1954 by the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, a tobacco firm group representatives, in reaction to some of the initial medical research showing that smoking was linked to lung cancer. The group stated that “we believe the products we make are not injurious to health”. My favorite bit is the arguments cited by “distinguished authorities” below countering the emerging scientific evidence:

1. That medical research of recent years indicates many possible causes of lung cancer.
2. That there is no agreement among the authorities regarding what the cause is.
3. That there is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the causes.

4. That statistics purporting to link cigarette smoking with the disease could apply with equal force to any one of many other aspects of modern life. Indeed the validity of the statistics themselves is questioned by numerous scientists.

Don’t these arguments sound familiar?