At some point public interest turned against cigarettes too despite moneyed interests being in favor of poisoning millions of people forever to keep the money flowing and it became desirable to be seen to sacrifice something while actually leaving society dealing with most of the costs of obtaining that profit.

Climate change has become so overwhelmingly obvious that most people can't be persuaded that its not real so the moneyed interests are focusing on proclaiming that they are on the right side of history while trying to blunt any effective change that would hurt their pockets.

That is why for example that its super important for you to recycle that coke bottle but not important for companies to stop poisoning the planet or paying for it to be poisoned elsewhere.

Climate change is a real issue and the overwhelming fact is we have a huge hand in the multitude of maladies that plague our planet and if we don't do something beyond trivial tokens like recycling a coke bottle we are all fucked. Few with substantial wealth to be gained in the short term are considering the long term effects and they are funding both sides to keep those costs from hitting close to home.

The difference to return to the first analogy is Democrats are trying to keep cigarette taxes low while Republicans are proudly proclaiming that manly men smoke and their grandad lived to 95 smoking on whiskey and bacon and 2 packs a day!

Democrat inaction may rob us opportunities to preserve our health, wealth, prosperity, and lives but Republican lies stand to rob us of even the awareness of an actual problem that is a necessary precondition for any sort of action.

Pretending these things are the same would be a mistake.