Guilty Until Proven Innocent

I have frequently written about how the environmentalists have set up a system in which all products of industrial civilization are regarded as guilty until proven innocent, i.e., all industrial emissions are regarded as toxic or destructive until proven otherwise, according to an impossible standard of proof.

The article below reveals the same pattern, but as applied to cigarette smoke. You have heard of "second-hand smoke," but have you heard of "third-hand smoke"? According to this article, "Studies have shown that these contaminating particles are measurable in rooms, on clothing and on toys long after a person has finished smoking."

They key word is "measurable." With the extraordinary sensitivity of modern scientific instruments, which can detect substances in concentrations of parts per billion, anything is "measurable." Thus, many contemporary health scares are mere artifacts of our newfound ability to measure, in benignly infinitesimal quantities, substances that would be toxic if they were found in much higher concentrations.

This story finally makes clear to me the reason for the enduring strength of the anti-smoking crusade. It is a kind of laboratory for establishing the key environmentalist method. It is an attempt to condition the public to accept the most outlandish health claims about the smallest quantities of man-made chemicals—a method that can then be applied to the byproducts of industrial civilization.

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