As the fight between Global Warming Realists and Alarmists continues, it is worth pointing out how easy it is to have bad or nonexistent science turn into a global call for action.  Once the gauntlet is thrown, it is difficult to reign it in with truth, and the longer the myths propagate the harder it becomes. 

A case in point would be the vendetta to ban plastic grocery bags.  It seems innocuous, right?  I mean everyone knows they kill millions of animals a year don’t they?

In fact, they do not, and there has never been an actual study to show they have.  Despite that, do a Google search for ‘ban plastic bags’ and see what you get.

And then read this:

Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain

Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.

Gordon Brown announced last month that he would force supermarkets to charge for the bags, saying that they were “one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste”. Retailers and some pressure groups, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, threw their support behind him.

But scientists, politicians and marine experts attacked the Government for joining a “bandwagon” based on poor science.

Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said: “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence. This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

So, here is the false representation:

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales.

And the truth:

However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.

They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”

He added: “The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species.For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”

And here is what happened:

The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.

Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags”.

The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the “typo” remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing “plastic bags” with “plastic debris”. But they admitted: “The actual numbers of animals killed annually by plastic bag litter is nearly impossible to determine.”

In a postscript to the correction they admitted that the original Canadian study had referred to fishing tackle, not plastic debris, as the threat to the marine environment.

Regardless, the erroneous claim has become the keystone of a widening campaign to demonise plastic bags.

Thus, Lenin is proved again to be visionary when he said “A lie told often enough becomes truth”.

I would imagine if you tracked far enough back, someone was commissioned to find studies that showed bags were bad, not that they commissioned to find out if they were or not.  This is the infamous preformed conclusion, where they start with their conclusion, and backfill the evidence to support it.

Of course even the people here do not see the irony in this:

Charlie Mayfield, chairman of retailer John Lewis, said that tackling packaging waste and reducing carbon emissions were far more important goals.

And yet he ignores how much junk science there is in the entire Carbon Emissions debacle.

Regardless, it does show in some cases the truth starts to win out.  But it is important to qualify that by remembering that despite the truth, plastic bags are banned in many places, effectively for no reason whatsoever.

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