I am bemused by the legions of, what I refer to as, “bacon deniers.” Ever since the World Health Organization released a report that labels bacon and other processed meats as carcinogenic, there have been a plethora of people disparaging the veracity of its findings.
What I find somewhat fascinating are the similarities between the bacon deniers and the global warming deniers. The difference is that the critics of climate change tend to be right-wing Republicans, whereas the bacon deniers seem to represent the range of political ideologies. Both categories of denier, though, take issue with the science and the research, despite empirical evidence.
They also both go to absurd extremes in displaying their rejections. An example is the Republican congressman who walked into the House of Representatives in Washington, DC with a snowball and contemptuously said, “here is your global warming.” The other day, a progressive posted a picture of a centenarian woman who claimed to have eaten bacon everyday. Below the caption said, “go suck it World Health Organization.” I suppose both of these examples, for certain people, are sufficient to refute decades-old scientific research.
Ironically, bacon and the over consumption of meat, besides the ill health effects, are inextricably a part of global warming. Al Gore conveniently omitted the role of cattle in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, which only underscores the depth of the meat lobby’s influence and distortion. The evidence (if you choose to believe the science) shows that an estimated 20% of all greenhouse gases are attributable to raising animals for food. Also, a majority of consumable meat comes from corporate facility farms, where animals are fattened by antibiotics and subject to appalling conditions.
Personally, I believe that science and the scientific method can have their limitations. What I don’t believe in is using an ideological lens to critique the science. For example, some people who refer to global warming deniers as Neanderthals are now bacon deniers and yet, both studies have employed the same scientific method.
