#JeffWeCan vs a big pile of horseshit

I've seen this horseshit my whole life. When I was young, smoking was everywhere and completely inescapable. I was around it so much, I didn't even notice. (Now, it stinks so bad I can't even imagine that. But it's true. I never used to notice it at all.)

Medical researchers and other scientists talked about the dangers of smoking, but Big Tobacco fought back with every trick in the book - just as Big Oil fights back today against the reality of global warming.

In both cases, many people wanted to believe them - both the people addicted to tobacco/fossil fuels and the people addicted to the industry money they were receiving.

As a kid, I used to wonder how anyone could believe the tobacco industry. Of course they were lying. They were lying because they made money - a shitpot of money - selling tobacco. How could it have been any more obvious?

Well, it's equally obvious today that oil companies and their paid politicians are lying about global warming. But who's going to believe those egghead scientists, huh? What do they know? They're just a bunch of elitists with their fancy education and evidence and peer-reviewed research. Who would believe them over someone being paid to think differently?

Sadly, it's easy to believe what you want to believe, and many people really wanted to believe the tobacco industry. Today, people want to believe the fossil fuel industry, because they want to continue using fossil fuels and they don't want to spend any money fixing the problem.

I find it absolutely incredible that 18% of Americans still smoke. In 50 years, the rate has only dropped from 43% to 18%? I realize that most smokers today are probably just kids, but that still blows my mind. How stupid can people be? And the tobacco industry is still making money hand over fist. How depressing is that?

The worst thing is, Big Oil has learned a lot from Big Tobacco. The fossil fuel industry is a lot smarter about global warming than the tobacco industry ever was about smoking. They haven't messed around. They've just flat-out purchased the Republican Party - and a good number of Democrats, too.

These days, to be a good Republican, you have to disbelieve in science. Wow, why didn't the tobacco industry think of that? But then, they're still making a ton of money selling tobacco, so why bother, huh?

Luckily, we've got John Oliver. With Jon Stewart leaving, and Stephen Colbert already gone, we should be very thankful for that, shouldn't we?