Thinking about quitting?

Imagine you were a smoker back in the 1950s or 1960s (and you certainly weren’t alone, with more that 40% of the US population smoking). In the early 50s, research started to emerge showing the link between smoking and lung cancer, and other causes of death. This research was understandably well publicized, raising the public’s concern. As described by a tobacco executive around that time:

Because of the serious nature of the attack on cigarettes and the vast publicity given them in the daily press and in magazines of the widest circulation, a hysteria of fear appears to be developing throughout the country

So you as an individual certainly faced a decision - do you believe that research, and therefore accept that the future consequences of your actions could be really bad, and if so are you going to change your behavior?

Unfortunately, you had powerful groups with vested interests allied against you, with the goal of stopping you from doing the right thing. Firstly, the tobacco industry, who were well aware of the threat that the science posed, and who mounted an extremely well organized, well funded, and sadly successful campaign architected by the PR firm Hill & Knowlton. This medical paper [1] is an interesting read on the strategy. In summary, rather than merely argue against the science, the tobacco industry established groups that would themselves engage in scientific studies, but with the objective of promoting doubt and uncertainty. From the paper:

Of critical importance, Hill argued, they should declare the positive value of scientific skepticism of science itself. Knowledge, Hill understood, was hard won and uncertain, and there would always be skeptics. What better strategy than to identify, solicit, support, and amplify the views of skeptics of the causal relationship between smoking and disease? … The public must get the message that the issue of the health effects of smoking remains an open question. Doubt, uncertainty, and the truism that there is more to know would become the industry's collective new mantra.

These seemingly independent organizations, funded by the tobacco industry, conducted their own research that was often of a fundamental nature on the complex science of cancer, rather than the simpler smoking-cancer link. This helped both cloud the issue, and amplify the views of the few skeptics of the growing scientific consensus. Indeed they employed such skeptics to exploit their names and titles in deliberately sowing doubt.

Hill & Knowlton had successfully produced uncertainty in the face of a powerful scientific consensus. So long as this uncertainty could be maintained, so long as the industry could claim “not proven,” it would be positioned to fight any attempts to assert regulatory authority over the industry.

This was supplemented by PR campaigns, and of course by lobbying politicians. The politicians, who of course should have been helping citizens make the right decision, were influenced not only by the direct funding from the tobacco lobbies, but in many cases from their own independent self-interest. Why would a representative of a southern state make a politically suicidal stand against one of the industries from which their state drew considerable revenue and employment?

Then as well as the tobacco industry and politicians working against you, you could find plenty of non-scientific support for ignoring the warnings - your uncle Joe who smoked a pack a day and lived to be 94, your friend who also smokes encouraging you to dismiss the fear. And of course there is a natural tendency to ignore the evidence of the dangers, because to accept it also means having to deal with the resulting fear of the damage already done, and what that might entail for your future.

The one thing you really should have done is at least be explicit in your decision. Given the potentially dire consequences to you and your loved ones, the action most difficult to justify would be to not even take the time and effort to research and think about the question.

So what would your conclusion have been at that time? There obviously were different views on this, but they weren’t just personal opinions, as there was definitely a right and a wrong answer. If you doubted the science just enough to prevent you from continuing smoking, you were wrong. What of someone who instead did believe in the dangers, but hoped that they wouldn’t apply, or that a cure would be found in time? Well, more foolish or reckless than wrong, but still seems an unwise position.

To guide your decision, you might think through the various possible outcomes. If you quit, and it turned out you didn’t need to, how bad would that be? Well not that terrible - you went through the difficulty of quitting for nothing, lost the pleasure of a cigarette, but on the other hand you still got other benefits anyway - you’re fitter, you’re saving money, your workmates aren’t pissed at you for filling the office with smoke. You could even start smoking again if you want. But go the other way - don’t quit because of doubts in the science, and it turns out the science was correct? Well, difficult to imagine a worse outcome - an early death from a painful illness, and the time to see the suffering this is bringing on your dependents and loved ones. If you were dying young and leaving kids behind, then I would imagine the regret, guilt and shame of seeing the hurt caused to them would be unbearable. Would such talk of potential outcomes be ‘scaremongering’ or ‘alarmist’? Well, maybe, but it seems necessary to face up to it to make an informed decision.

We could even get scientific and assign probabilities, and costs, though it’s a well known fact of humans that if given a choice of, say, making a bet with a 1/1000,000 chance of loosing $1m, and a 999,999/1000,000 chance of winning $2, almost no one would take the bet even though the expectation is to make about $1. That small chance of the huge loss is too worrying relative to the tiny gain. But that’s if we explicitly make the choice, whereas with a health decision like smoking we sadly all too often just ignore the question.

So how does this compare to climate change, and the decisions we face today? Well again, there is well publicized science presenting a scientific consensus of a warming climate, largely due to human activities, that will be very damaging. Indeed there is way more research supporting this, across government and private institutions, in the US and worldwide, than existed in the 50s and 60s for the smoking-cancer link. And again, you’re not alone in having yet to accept the science, particularly if you are a Republican in the US. Unfortunately there are even stronger vested interest groups organized against you. The fossil fuel industry has followed, and improved upon, the strategy adopted by the tobacco industry, unbelievably even employing the same PR firm! They have established groups to distort or promote contrary research (indeed we covered a paper from one such group here ). They have over the years amplified the view of the ever rarer skeptics. The strategy used by tobacco of exploiting the truism that in any scientific area there is always more to know seems particularly effective, as on numerous occasions I have heard people parrot back arguments like "how can we be sure what's causing the changes of the last 100 years when we don’t know what happened 100,000 years ago", or "how do we know what will happen in 20 years if we don’t know whether it will rain in Seattle tomorrow" (PS: it probably will). As the science arguments are closing against them, like the tobacco industry they employ PR and manufactured grassroots movements, and of course D.C. lobbyists. The industry pours money into candidates’ absurdly expensive campaigns, and are repaid by legislation- a continuation and even recent increase of government subsidies for fossil fuels, and lack of regulation against them, and lack of investment/incentives promoting alternative energies. A sign of their success can be seen by looking at how Republican representatives, tasked with the job of understanding the science, show in their actions no effort to understand anything, but instead to immediately gain political points to argue against action (as covered here) By doing that, they have repaid their debt, and ensured the contributions continue.

The predicted consequences of our current path are dire, which, like smoking, also means that there is a natural inclination to just ignore it. Yet we really should feel obligated to get informed, and make an explicit decision. We owe it to ourselves to at least be able to explain and justify our actions when we look back, as there is no excuse of “we didn’t know” or “we were lied to”.

And again, like smoking, this is not just a matter of opinion, where we can blithely “agree to disagree”. There is a right or wrong - either the Earth is warming, largely due to us, and it’s going to be bad, or it’s not. When we lay out our options, we also see something similar. If we act when we didn’t have to then it’s not really too bad. Yes, we pay a short term cost in transitioning to different technologies, becoming more efficient, and lose jobs in some sectors, yet we still get benefits such as job growth in other sectors, cheap power in the long term, less local pollution, and we can preserve fossil fuels for non-energy uses and be independent of other countries. All in all pretty good, for anyone not in the fossil-fuel industry, or a downstream beneficiary (like many politicians are!). And like smoking, we can always restart if we want to. The oil and coal has been there for millions of years - it’s not going anywhere.

Yet if we let doubts prevent action, and it turns out the science is accurate, then the results will be somewhere between bad and dire, likely including increased and worsening fires, floods, storms, droughts, associated economic hardships, and potential impact on entire ecosystems and food supply. All accompanied by the regret and guilt of seeing those consequences borne by others, very possibly including our loved ones.

In summary, for climate change as with smoking, betting against the scientists seems a very foolish bet, unless you are almost 100% confident that you are right, and therefore they (and all the other smart people that also believe in the dangers) are wrong or deliberately lying.