Political Science Redux by Frank Seltzer
Two years ago, emails were leaked that rocked the global warming crowd. At the time, I wrote in Cigar Magazine how science has become political. This past week another barrage of emails on global warming are out and they further show how politics influences the “science” call it Climategate 2.0. The similarities between the research on global warming and smoking continue to be striking. But first, how about the world’s longest cigar.
Another Record
Jose Castelar Cairo, known in Cuba as Cueto, has done it again. For the fifth time, the 67-year old cigar rolling legend has rolled the world’s longest cigar…this time measuring a whopping (yes anything over 80 meters qualifies as beginning to whop) 81.8 meters or 268.4 feet.
Guiness certified the cigar as the world’s longest. Cueto has held that honor virtually by himself with two exceptions. Wallace and Margarita Reyes in Ybor City, Florida, took the record from him in 2006 and again in 2009 with the latter being a cigar measuring 59.82 meters or just over 196 feet. Cueto took the record back with a 60 meter cigar and then continued to try to top himself. He says his new goal is to roll a 100 meter cigar next.
The science is settled?
It has been known that public policy can influence science. It is very simple, you apply for a grant and if your findings match up with what the grantor wants you get all the money. The example of this was James Engstrom at UCLA. He did a study in 2003 that concluded second hand smoke was not a big deal. Engstrom was immediately attacked by the anti-tobacco forces as being a pawn of “Big Tobacco”. His crime? The study initially funded by American Cancer Society flew in the face of their “science” and so ACS cut his funding. Engstrom was forced to get tobacco money to finish it. That is the same thing that happens in the Global Warming arena which we can see from the leaked emails. Alas there have been no leaks from the anti-tobacco group.
So let’s look at the Global Warming crowd. According to the U.K. Daily Mail, the newly released emails show that scientists used data to hype man-made global warming because governments who paid for their research wanted that strong message. When other scientists asked to see the raw data, they hid it. One email written by Phil Jones, the head global warming scientist in England and a main cog in the UN International Panel on Climate change says
‘Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden.
‘I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.’
In other words, if others cannot get the data they cannot disprove the findings. But the emails go much further. Other emails reported by the Daily Mail show that the government funded University leading the Global Warming crusade spent more than $20,000 for seminars in Britain to “educate” the BBC that the science was settled and those seminars prompted the BBC
In 2007, the BBC issued a formal editorial policy document, stating that ‘the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus’ – the view that the world faces catastrophe because of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
Essentially the BBC stopped any on-air challenges to the “settled science”. In today’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Brett Stephens likens the the global warming advocates to a religion and tobacco control advocate Dr. Mike Siegel has told me the anti-smoing orthodoxy is very similar. Diverge from the accepted norms and you are a heretic.
Help still needed
Finally, steam is picking up for the bill to stop the FDA from regulating cigars. Today’s Daily Caller has an article on industry efforts to stop the regulation. Sponsors are being added to the bill, but time is running out. Chris McCalla of the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association says the bill needs to be passed THIS year so more sponsors are needed. (535 would be nice.)
Back when the S-CHIP taxes were being debated, Manuel Quesada told me he was more worried about the FDA. He said that if the FDA took over cigars, the industry would be gone. With cigarettes since they are short fill you can test one for nicotine content and you are done, but with premium cigars, the tobacco ages and the content would vary as it ages making testing almost impossible and expensive. Further, it would restrict new brands and blends. This is very important! Get involved. You can send letters or emails to your Representatives and Senators from the IPCPR website.
