Midlothian - from the Dark Side! - Archive - View topic - Business is Business. - For those wha prefer . . . oor new hoose: http://firefly2.myfreeforum.org/index.html - Free Message Board Hosting by FreePowerBoards.com

There was something on telly this morning about the BBC stopping a programme on climate change, and how some folk approved while others didn't. I don't want to get involved in a discussion of the pros and cons of the effect of man-made emissions but it set me thinking -----

Big business has a bad track record when it comes to impartial judgement. If profits are going to be affected, they're likely to deny any suggestion that they might be causing harm to the planet and its people. And sometimes their actions are tantamount to mass murder!

Let's take the case of lead in petrol. Before 1923 there was virtually no lead in the atmosphere. Then tetraethyl lead began to be produced and lead levels started to increase. Research funded by the lead additive manufacturers appeared to show that this lead was not detrimental to humans because tests on urine and faeces showed no significant increase. The known fact that lead is not excreted but builds up in the bones and blood was ignored.

Production workers developed a staggering gait and incurable mental illness. A company spokesman said that this was probably because they had "worked too hard".
A young researcher who produced clear evidence of the deleterious effects of lead had his funds withdrawn and the American Petroleum Institute cancelled their research contract as did the United States Public Health Service (supposedly a neutral government body). The Ethyl Gasoline Corporation, founded by Du Pont, General Motors and Standard Oil offered to endow a chair to Caltech if this researcher was given the boot.

The discoverer of the use of lead tetraethyl in petrol was used in an advertising gimmick where he poured the chemical over his hands and inhaled from a beaker of the stuff for a minute. This was to show how harmless it was. The truth was that he had been seriously ill because of over-exposure and apart from these public relations occasions, never went near the stuff.

Because of pressure of public opinion, leaded petrol was withdrawn from sale in the United States in 1986. Even so, it is estimated that Americans today have 625 times more lead in their blood than people did a century ago.

I've gone on long enough but I just wanted to make the point that if there is cause for concern about anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, don't expect the giants of the business world to do too much about it voluntarily ----- they'll have to be pushed!
_________________