Author Romm talks about the Denyers and Delayers who have worked systematically to discredit the global warming issue. The approach has basically included several tactics:

- Discredit the messenger. Reputable US Government scientists have lost their jobs for speaking the facts related to global warming!

- Confuse the debate. Point out tangential facts, or minor errors as a way to discredit the science. Climate Science Watch is a website devoted to holding public officials accontable for using Climate science accurately to inform public debate, rather than abusing facts to promote political agendas.

- Change the language used.

The last one really irritates me. This is the effort to shift the language to say "Global Climate Change" rather than Global Warming. Climate Change is less frightening to people and thus it inspires less action. Climate change could be moving from Vermont to Florida. Global warming is clearly Vermont having weather like Florida!

It occurs to me that our country has been through this type of dishonest debate before.

Cigarettes.

The Tobacco industry and their apologists waged a decades long-campaign to convince people that cigarette smoking was a sexy thing without health consequences. Well, we know now that this was a lie, and millions of people have died as a result, but at least most of those people died because of the choices they made. I think the Global Warming issue is more akin to second hand smoke - the cigarette smoke that kills people who never actually smoke a cigarette themselves. This is why many communities are banning cigarette smoking in public places. (Including the State of Illinois effective January 1, 2008!)

 Diseased lung on left, healthy lung on right!

Naturally, since it was his decades of smoking (and the resulting emphysema) that ultimately killed my dad, this is a topic that I have thought about over the years.

The tobacco lobby tried to discredit the scientists who spoke out about the dangers of cigarette smoking, and hired their own "scientists" (basically, folks with scientific credentials who could be bought because they had no scruples, or perhaps were just plain incompetent).

Why are Americans so willing to fall for this junk?