The recent article demonstrating that only 49 percent of people in Emery County believe climate change is real should not be a surprise.

The denial of climate change is very similar to the denial of the link between tobacco and lung cancer that occurred especially in tobacco-growing areas of Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina for decades following the Surgeon General’s report in 1964. Disinformation by industry, industry-supported “scientists” and a lack of leadership from elected officials with regard to climate change follows the same pattern that delayed widespread action to curb the public health dangers of smoking.