As I channel-surfed from Green 960 (Air America) to Hot Talk 560 in the car this morning, I stopped on 560 long enough to listen to Rush Limbaugh ranting about the climate change “hoax” he says we’ve all been duped by and the tobacco industry’s lies way back when claiming that there was no proof that smoking caused cancer. I found it strange that Rush was connecting the two together, and wondered if he realized that the folks that lied about smoking back in the day happen to be the same folks that have been lying about global warming.

Back when my mother was smoking three packs a day, doctors and scientists started to connect the dots between smoking and cancer. Tobacco companies hired their own scientists to refute the evidence. Tobacco industry executives even testified before Congress that there was no proven connection between cancer and smoking. We all found out later that they were lying, that they had solid evidence that smoking caused cancer, and people were outraged and lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.

Today, Rush wanted to know why “the left” wasn’t outraged by leaked e-mail messages from some scientists working on climate change that the right has recently pounced on. The emails supposedly destroy the “myth” that there is global warming and the twin “myth” that even if there is global warming, it is caused by humans. (The emails don’t really do that, but they do raise a few questions worthy of pursuit.)

Funny, though, instead of Rush’s rant making me connect the tobacco liars with people I respect like Al Gore, he actually helped remind me about the fact that some of the same folks who helped the tobacco industry lie about smoking’s link to cancer were (and some still are) also deeply involved in trying to convince the public that there is no such thing as global warming, and even if there is, it has nothing to do with human activity.

It took Rush ranting about the two things in the same segment (and I understand he continued on that rant for much of his three hours) to remind me about that link. Thanks Rush. Now, I can remind other people of the connection.

Let’s start with the late Frederick Seitz who was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, an organization that says that “sound, credible science must form the basis for health and environmental decisions that affect millions of people and cost tens of billions of dollars every year.”

Sound, credible science, huh? Let’s look at Mr. Seitz’ track record. Back in 1979, in a discussion of the dangers of secondary inhalation of tobacco smoke, he concluded “there is no good scientific evidence that passive inhalation is truly dangerous under normal circumstances.”

In 1998, Seitz, who in the 1960′s was President of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote a widely circulated petition which said “We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”

I LOVE that part! The one that says that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth. Sound, credible science, don’t you think?

Mr. Seitz is no longer with us, but Steven Milloy (FOX News Commentator and Scientist) seems to be carrying the torch (or is that a bic lighter) for him.

As we head into Copenhagen, let’s remember that the forces that wanted to keep us hooked on cigarettes are out there now trying to keep us hooked on oil and coal. They were liars then, they are liars now, and their lies killed people back then, and are killing people now.

Thanks, Rush, for connecting the dots.