[onlooker]

I do not buy your argument V. Because just as easily I can say if Exxon and others had been truthful perhaps all of Society would have begun a vigorous transition to alternatives. Consequently, we all would be better off collectively at this point than we in fact are. Not only that it does not absolve Exxon from the impression of malfeasance because they were and are benefiting from Oil sales. So, altruistic motivation is quite suspect in this case.

[onlooker]

Tanada, the difference is at least to my knowledge, that the sugar and alcohol companies have not withheld vital information about the pernicious aspect of their products like the Tobacco and Oil companies have.

[Tanada]

Tanada, the difference is at least to my knowledge, that the sugar and alcohol companies have not withheld vital information about the pernicious aspect of their products like the Tobacco and Oil companies have.

Your knowledge is very incomplete.

The tale begins in the Sixties. That decade, nutritionists in university laboratories all over America and Western Europe were scrabbling to work out the reasons for an alarming rise in heart disease levels. By 1970, there were 520 deaths per 100,000 per year in England and Wales caused by coronary heart disease and 700 per 100,000 in America. After a while, a consensus emerged: the culprit was the high level of fat in our diets.

But, amid this new craze, one voice stood out in opposition. John Yudkin, founder of the nutrition department at the University of London's Queen Elizabeth College, had been doing his own experiments and, instead of laying the blame at the door of fat, he claimed there was a much clearer correlation between the rise in heart disease and a rise in the consumption of sugar. Rodents, chickens, rabbits, pigs and students fed sugar and carbohydrates, he said, invariably showed raised blood levels of triglycerides (a technical term for fat), which was then, as now, considered a risk factor for heart disease. Sugar also raised insulin levels, linking it directly to type 2 diabetes.

When he outlined these results in Pure, White and Deadly, in 1972, he questioned whether there was any causal link at all between fat and heart disease. After all, he said, we had been eating substances like butter for centuries, while sugar, had, up until the 1850s, been something of a rare treat for most people. "If only a small fraction of what we know about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive," he wrote, "that material would promptly be banned."

As a result, says Lustig, there was a concerted campaign by the food industry and several scientists to discredit Yudkin's work. The most vocal critic was Ancel Keys.

Keys loathed Yudkin and, even before Pure, White and Deadly appeared, he published an article, describing Yudkin's evidence as "flimsy indeed".

"Yudkin always maintained his equanimity, but Keys was a real a-------, who stooped to name-calling and character assassination," says Lustig, speaking from New York, where he's just recorded yet another television interview.

The British Sugar Bureau put out a press release dismissing Yudkin's claims as "emotional assertions" and the World Sugar Research Organisation described his book as "science fiction". When Yudkin sued, it printed a mealy-mouthed retraction, concluding: "Professor Yudkin recognises that we do not agree with [his] views and accepts that we are entitled to express our disagreement."

Yudkin was "uninvited" to international conferences. Others he organised were cancelled at the last minute, after pressure from sponsors, including, on one occasion, Coca-Cola. When he did contribute, papers he gave attacking sugar were omitted from publications. The British Nutrition Foundation, one of whose sponsors was Tate & Lyle, never invited anyone from Yudkin's internationally acclaimed department to sit on its committees. Even Queen Elizabeth College reneged on a promise to allow the professor to use its research facilities when he retired in 1970 (to write Pure, White and Deadly). Only after a letter from Yudkin's solicitor was he offered a small room in a separate building.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/we ... sugar.html

[onlooker]

Fair enough Tanada but this is not comprehensive information held by the Food/Sugar industry. It is an exogenous source. I speak specifically of what was known inside the industry by scientists working for the industry and studies that contained a plethora of information. The tobacco and Fossil fuel industry did have these studies commissioned and lay on this information without informing anyone. Quite the opposite, they deliberately spewed information contradicting their own studies or had others do it for them. This is simply misleading deception to not call it outright lying.

[vtsnowedin]

I do not buy your argument V. Because just as easily I can say if Exxon and others had been truthful perhaps all of Society would have begun a vigorous transition to alternatives. Consequently, we all would be better off collectively at this point than we in fact are. Not only that it does not absolve Exxon from the impression of malfeasance because they were and are benefiting from Oil sales. So, altruistic motivation is quite suspect in this case.

More then just suspect it is a requirement of corporate law.
If in a boardroom discussion a possible course of action is determined to move a stock price lower the discussion ends and they turn to the next possibility.
Only if there were possible alternatives to transition toward that would keep their stock price up would they consider that option a wise investment.
Most of what people consider alternatives today are still losers without government subsides and were not close to being viable in the times being considered.

[ennui2]

One big difference between the two examples. If the tobacco companies had been truthful and people stopped smoking the economy would have gone on undisturbed. If Exxon and the other companies had sounded the alarm and stopped selling oil products the economy would have skidded to a halt and a major collapse might well have happened then rather then some time in our future. Which would have been the more irresponsible action?

This FUD over impact to the economy is a silly hypothetical. Exxon would not have stopped selling oil products because demand for oil would not have ended, just as it still hasn't ended despite the stark truth of climate change.

To a certain extent this witch-hunt against Exxon is an effort to divert blame away from the public.

Note that today tobacco companies still exist and people STILL smoke despite acceptance of its health issues.

Would there be a more vigorous attempt to get off oil? Maybe, but still far off the mark.

[ralfy]

Also, an excerpt from "The Denial Machine":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WiTVL9iT1w

[vtsnowedin]

Also, an excerpt from "The Denial Machine":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WiTVL9iT1w

You are aware the Bush has been out of office for seven years?

[ozcad]

Scene: the crowd is getting restless about the smoke, but the theatre manager assures everyone that there is no fire.
This is murder if the manager knew about the fire.
It is manslaughter by reckless and negligent endangerment if he did not know about the fire. He should have checked.
On the other hand, if there was in fact no fire, everybody is OK by luck rather than good management. And the manager has learned nothing.

[jedrider]

Evidently, corporations can outright lie, but if they take INVESTOR'S money based upon lies, now they are REALLY in trouble. What comes around, goes around. Capitalism eating it's own tail.

[Lore]

tobacco companies knew for MANY years just how dangerous their product was
they deliberately obfuscated the issue to maintain profits

seems to me this is the same thing oil companies and other corporate entities have done

no witch hunt
just searching for the truth

One big difference between the two examples. If the tobacco companies had been truthful and people stopped smoking the economy would have gone on undisturbed. If Exxon and the other companies had sounded the alarm and stopped selling oil products the economy would have skidded to a halt and a major collapse might well have happened then rather then some time in our future. Which would have been the more irresponsible action?

I'd take a crappy economy over global extinction any day.

[vtsnowedin]

tobacco companies knew for MANY years just how dangerous their product was
they deliberately obfuscated the issue to maintain profits

seems to me this is the same thing oil companies and other corporate entities have done

no witch hunt
just searching for the truth

One big difference between the two examples. If the tobacco companies had been truthful and people stopped smoking the economy would have gone on undisturbed. If Exxon and the other companies had sounded the alarm and stopped selling oil products the economy would have skidded to a halt and a major collapse might well have happened then rather then some time in our future. Which would have been the more irresponsible action?

I'd take a crappy economy over global extinction any day.

Yes of course but a major collapse may well mean death for billions if not the extinction of the human species.

[ralfy]

Also, an excerpt from "The Denial Machine":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WiTVL9iT1w

You are aware the Bush has been out of office for seven years?

My understanding is that the "machine" continues to operate.

[clif]

If Exxon and the other companies had sounded the alarm

Then people back in the late 70's early 80's might have started doing something about AWG. You know like:

Keep working on solar power instead of ripping the panels off the roof of the white house.

Transitioning off coal power much sooner, NOTICE I said transition not go cold turkey.

Work on alternatives for the internal combustion engine, like Tesla is doing now 35 years later.

Had research publicly funded (like NASA et al did in the 40's 50's 60's) to help all the people instead of privatizing everything for a greedy cabal of self interested selfish people who don't give a damn about anybody but themselves and their bank account, we could have had breakthroughs for decades instead of just getting there today. People could still have profitted of some of them.

Nice fallacy you typed about there, too bad it leaves out many very plausible alternatives.

and stopped selling oil products

No need to, just begin the transition from fossil fuels, we'd be 35 years into that effort about now. Oil could continue to be used in smaller and smaller amounts as new technologies come on line. The investment possibilities lost because oil corps no longer dominate the economy, would be replaced by the newer tech corps. Oil wouldn't have dominated botht he economy and political world, but that wouldn't have been such a bad thing eh?

the economy would have skidded to a halt

Statement lacking any facts except those you tried to make up. If instead of going cold turkey the US along with the rest of the planet tried to explore alternatives, instead of doubling down on the fossil fuel stupid, we could have created a new economy not based on fossil fuels, internal combustion based transportation, and the banking interests which profit off those.

and a major collapse might well have happened then rather then some time in our future.

Or been avoided as we transition to both a world wide economy, and society that accepts the limits to growth, both in population, and the cultural aspects we create.

Funny how you create only one possibility, instead of trying to think of other possibilities that might have happened if those who controlled the fossil fuel industry hadn't been so selfish, and gotten their political cronies to help spread the lies.

[dohboi]

clif, nice job of exposing the childish mindset of the typical rightwing climate denialist.

If things don't go exactly as his preconceived, ideological notion of how the world should be, it must be absolute and utter ruin for all. Kind of like a very spoiled child stamping his foot and shouting, "If you won't play only my games, exactly as I want to play them, so that I always win...then I'm taking all my toys and going home!"

Sad, really.

[vtsnowedin]

There are 193 sovereign countries in the world give or take all with their own leadership and many in direct opposition to anything American. Many have scientists as capable as any in the US and governments that spend far less of their GDP on defense so should have more to devote to R&D.
Yet none of these other countries has embarked on the course you propose and none have divorced themselves from dependence on fossil fuels.
Why is that do you suppose? And why dose my agreeing with the position of 192 other countries make me the foolish uninformed one?

[dohboi]

"There are 193 sovereign countries in the world"

Exactly, and nearly all of them got together in the largest international gathering of national leaders in the history of the planet to try to figure out what kind of collective action they could take against this common threat.

Clearly, they see this as a great threat and danger. The fact that they can't yet bring themselves to actually face the changes necessary to address it is not a bit surprising given the challenges and the basic cussedness of human nature.

[Tanada]

"There are 193 sovereign countries in the world"

Exactly, and nearly all of them got together in the largest international gathering of national leaders in the history of the planet to try to figure out what kind of collective action they could take against this common threat.

Clearly, they see this as a great threat and danger. The fact that they can't yet bring themselves to actually face the changes necessary to address it is not a bit surprising given the challenges and the basic cussedness of human nature.

Or clearly they see this as an opportunity for political posturing without actually doing anything subtantive about the situation. Call me a cynic if you wish, but my faith in political leaders actually doing the hard work needed to cause a change is between Slim and None, and Slim left town.

[Lore]

You first have to get all the political leaders to agree and stop greasing their pocketbooks.

[Tanada]

You first have to get all the political leaders to agree and stop greasing their pocketbooks.

Great! Now all you need is a miracle of Biblical Proportions, because that requires taking persons who seek political power and converting them into beings who seek betterment for all.