Freedom of speech is a double edged sword, where people have the right to say whatever they like in a public forum in order to sway public opinion. The web has made this even easier than before, and we must sift through piles of junk to ensure that what we are reading has some truth behind it.
Public education versus mis-infomation. Both are tools to gain support and affect policy. It just depends on which direction you want that policy to go.
You might imagine that I could be talking about Mr Bush and his supporters convincing people about weapons of mass destruction, about the tobacco industry trying to cast doubt on whether smoking causes cancer and later whether second hand smoke is anything to worry about, or the various people who have tried to convince us that the holocaust did not happen. These are all examples of mis-inforation. (In my opinion anyway, since I happen to believe there never were WMD’s in Iraq, that breathing in any smoke is bad for your health, and that 6 million Jews did indeed die at the hands of the Nazi’s.)
In this case, however, I am talking about the latest mis-information campaign in, to coin a phrase, “The War on Global Warming.”
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is an industry funded think-tank in the U.S. which is in the business of trying to affect public policy for the benefit of their members. They are currently running television ads trying to convince us of the virtues of carbon dioxide, and that climate change activists are being alarmist and wanting to affect lifestyes for no good reason.
Their premise is that carbon dioxide is natural, generated by oxygen breathing organisms and necessary to plant life. While this may not be an out and out lie, it does nothing to alter the fact that increasing the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere will change global temperatures, weather patterns, and sea levels, all of which will have a substantial impact on how and where and even whether we can live.
You can watch the ads here. Let me know what you think.
