“By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.”
― Galileo Galilei
“It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.”
― Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method and modern science.
“The science that we are doing is a threat to the world’s most powerful and wealthiest special interests. The most powerful and wealthiest special interest that has ever existed: the fossil fuel industry.
They have used their immense resources to create fake scandals and to fund a global disinformation campaign aimed at vilifying the scientists, discrediting the science, and misleading the public and policymakers. Arguably, it is the most villainous act in the history of human civilisation, because it is about the short-term interests of a small number of plutocrats over the long-term welfare of this planet and the people who live on it.”
― Michael E. Mann
Michael Evan Mann (born 1965) is an American climatologist and geophysicist. He is the director of the Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. Mann has contributed to the scientific understanding of historic climate change based on the temperature record of the past thousand years. He has pioneered techniques to find patterns in past climate change and to isolate climate signals from noisy data.
“The fossil fuel industry, they are using the tobacco company’s tactics,” this I’ve heard over the last many years. The tobacco companies indeed were effective in staving off profit losing regulations and oversight for sometime undoubtedly. The fossil fuel titans have undoubtedly have tried to use similar tactics, but most likely they know better from this “first experiment” from the tobacco companies which missteps to avoid. While there are minds at work on renewable energy technological advancements, there are perhaps an equal number, or more, trying to prolong the reign of fossil fuels. With every day which passes, more carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere in which I breathe to live, and the global thermometer inches upward. This is quite disconcerting to ponder for me, and is indicative of the inherent weakness of some aspects of capitalism. So I have used my writing therapy on this subject, hoping to propel my BB from my ‘Daisy’ toward the armor-plated elephant of the worldwide fossil fuel industry.
So I have included a little information on the “tobacco wars”, after growing up remembering the tobacco ads on my parents black and white television, with the signal coming from another state. And I must admit that over the years I have used tobacco products, as I have also contributed to tons of greenhouse gasses now within the atmosphere capturing increasing amounts of solar energy.
The following from website Students Working Against Tobacco
Targeting Youth
• The tobacco industry is losing more of its customers. Not only are more tobacco user quitting, every day more than 1,200 people in the U.S. die from smoking. With cigarette smoking rates are on the decline in the U.S., the tobacco industry insures its livelihood by creating products and strategies that attract a new generation of tobacco users.
• In 1981, a Phillip Morris research report stated: "It is important to know as much as possible about teenage smoking and attitudes. Today's teenage is tomorrow's potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens."
• In 1998, Bennett LeBow, Chairman of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, said the following while testifying in court: “If you are really and truly not going to sell to children, you are going to be out of business in 30 years.”
• A 1984 R.J. Reynolds internal document stated: “Younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers... If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population which does not give birth will eventually dwindle.”
• Terrence Sullivan, a former sales representative for R.J. Reynolds, publicly said that when he asked an R.J. Reynolds executive which young people they were targeting, junior high kids or even younger, the executive replied: “If they have lips, we want them.”
From New York Times December 2, 1987 , Tobacco Lawyer Said to Shift on Cancer
Professor Daynard, who is the chairman of a non-profit group, the Tobacco Products Liability Project, said the memo showed that Reynolds, a subsidiary of RJR Nabisco, was guilty of fraud in asserting in court and in public that there was no link between smoking and disease when it knew otherwise.
''Manufacturers are forbidden under common law to tell the public their products are safe when in fact they know they are lethal,'' Professor Daynard said at a news conference here this afternoon.
He also said that if tobacco companies knew their product was dangerous, they could face criminal prosecution for reckless endangerment or even homicide. This knowledge would also allow victims of smoking-related diseases, or their survivors, to sue on the ground that the companies could have made cigarettes safer, and that existing models are defectively designed.
Tobacco company stocks, which declined last week amid rumors that an embarassing revelation was coming, moved slightly higher today. Philip Morris gained 1 1/2 to 87 3/8; RJR Nabisco rose 1/2 to 46 3/4; American Brands rose 1/2 to 37 3/4; Loews rose 1/4 to 65 1/2.
“While the executives played around with the notion of safer cigarettes, the lawyers in the company said, 'Listen, if you make a safer cigarette, you'll indict all the rest of our cigarettes'
— Richard Daynard
“Juries all around the country are sending a message that this conduct was not only totally inexcusable but that it was so outrageous, there is no amount of money that would be enough to punish the people who perpetrated it.”
— Richard Daynard
“The industry is clearly on the run, regardless of what happens in the punitive damage phase.”
— Richard Daynard
Professor Daynard is at the forefront of an international movement to establish the legal responsibility of the tobacco industry for tobacco-induced death, disease and disability. He is president of the law school’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, chairs its Tobacco Products Liability Project and helped initiate its new Center for Public Health Litigation. Recently, he has worked with PHAI on issues involving obesity, gambling, opioids, gun control and e-cigarettes. Born in Boston, Massachusetts.
For a short tribute to Richard Daynard go to this video.
A verse, in the form of an acrostic poem. Incidentally this form seems to work well for me to gather my thoughts and put them in writing in a concise way. At times the train of thought wavers for me, but it’s a system which seems to work well for what I attempt to accomplish. The actual literary value may be suspect, but having a poetic license assumed is helpful to not “dullify” my efforts, or at least I hope so.
I have little expertise in business to refer to, but it would seem to me that many corporations are missing opportunities in their efforts to hold on to a way of life which is changing beyond their control. One has to wonder about the leadership in such organizations, or at least I wonder very deeply as an outsider. The business consultant below wrote some interesting ideas in an article I skimmed. Are these companies actually in crises, I would assume they are. If they are unwilling to acknowledge it, however, herein may lie the problem. Regardless, I have made an attempt at approaching this all from their perspective as a business.
Roger L. Martin, Harvard Business Review:
The most exasperating fact about big companies in crisis is that they got there by doing what once made them big. They come by their troubles honestly. This irony may seem manageable to people hoping to turn things around; but I have been in the business of strategy consulting for 13 years, and I am only now beginning to appreciate how mechanically organizations resist newer truth—and how strong the emotions are that underlie these mechanisms.
In short, people in corporate crisis are in no frame of mind to learn new facts of life, which is just what they need to do. The two most common defensive reactions I have seen implicitly glorify the past, and with the past, current—failing—practice.
To compete, companies must burn themselves down every few years and rebuild their strategies, roles, and practices.
In my view, however, organizations defend against change not because they are just like insecure individuals, but because they are made up of individuals (many of whom are, indeed, insecure) who are working at what always has worked.
“It is the business of a philosopher to know the proper time for every business.”
— Arcesilaus.
Arcesilaus ( 316/5–241/0 BC) was a Greek Hellenistic philosopher. He was the founder of Academic Skepticism and what is variously called the Second or Middle or New Academy – the phase of the Platonic Academy in which it embraced philosophical skepticism.
This all is so frustrating to write about. I once heard a former United Nations leader say that the man made climate change problem would never by addressed from the top down. It would seem that he I was right, although certain governments have moved in the right direction, including some Democratically controlled ones in the United States. I suppose like Arcesilaus, I’m an incurable skeptic.
“There is nothing more troublesome than doubtful thoughts.”
— Archimedes.
Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Considered the greatest mathematician of ancient history, and one of the greatest of all time.
“Doubts chase away friends, strengthen enemies, and slander all men.”
— J. Bodenham
John Bodenham (c. 1559–1610), an English anthologist, was the patron of some of the Elizabethan poetry anthologies.
33rd posting, May 31, 2023.