Recently Dan has put up several posts about global warming over at North Coast Cafe.
It was rather interesting to see the comments he drew on this one. Quite a few people don’t believe in global warming I take it. That’s certainly all right. I’d like to hear their reasoning and their evidence though, instead of name-calling and conspiracy theories.
Now he has a new post pointing to a speech recently given by the novelist Michael Crichton likening environmentalism to a religion. It brings up some interesting points that I would like to think on a little.
Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
What do you think? Is environmentalism based on science or on belief? Is global warming real?
Comments (6)
I think a better term is “Global Climate Change” which is what most scientists use these days. Here in California, we’ve been experiencing colder winters, so when folks hear “global warming” they say “Yeah, right”.
There have been too many record-breaking climactic events these last ten years to be ignored. Especially in the last two years. Two years ago the Antarctic Ross Ice Shelf began to break up. That is catastrophic for the earth. This year the enormous sardine and mackerel populations suddenly nosedived. The permafrost in Siberia has started, for the first time, to melt. This winter may prove to be the first without a skiing season in Europe… some groups have predicted that skiing may no longer be possible in Europe in the coming years. Record snows on the East Coast. Super typhoons in Southeast Asia. Anyone who continues to think nothing is happening is just deluding themself.
There certainly are environmentalists who hold their beliefs in that mental niche where others hold their religion. And there are those who became environmentalists as a result of scientific inquiry. and there are some who just like wild animals. Whenever someone like Crichton glosses “environmentalism” as a monolithic entity, you’d better watch carefully: someone is reductioing ad absurdum in order to make a political point they can’t otherwise support.
But there is an irreducible germ of truth to Crichton’s allegation. To become an environmentalist is to make an ethical decision that other species have value, that taking the long view is wiser than concentrating on the next quarter’s gross earnings, that there are some landscapes we ought to leave alone. That ethical POV might be hard to enter on a balance sheet. (Which is the fault of the balance sheet, not the POV.)
As for global climate change, no serious scientist denies it’s already happening. The legitimate disagreement concerns how big a problem it will be, with answers ranging from “kinda big” to “huge and horrible.”
Maybe a dose of environmentalism ought to be part of people’s religion. In Christianity, as an extension of the Golden Rule: Do not pollute the neighbor’s creek, as you would not like the upstream farmer to pollute yours.
I know that for me, when I slow down to the rhythm of nature, when I shut off the noise, when I walk silently through the woods, when I see the deer, and the turtles, and the hawks, and the moon and stars, listen to the wind, breathe and smell the decaying soil and leaves, I find myself in a reverent space, and a happiness emerges that feels as if I am in touch with a higher power. I do not subscribe to any religion, but as I go further in meditation, find the most happiness when I am in the present moment on my land or in the woods away from cars, technology, phones, etc. Can’t seem to avoid the noise of planes way up there, though. Once in France, in the Pyrenees, I experienced absolute silence.
You could make the same relegious anology about just about any group. The free-market extremists for example. There was an inital state of grace: the goverment was small, regulations non-existant, and you could do whatever you wanted. Then an entering into a state of (supposedly false) knowledge with Silent Spring, The Population Bomb and Limits to Growth. Satan (the government) expanded and took away the people’s right ot do whatever they wanted. Then a whole series of messiahs (Ayn Rand, Julian Simon, etc.) trying to lead people back to the paradise of unbridaled capitalism.