The Religion of Global Warming

Buzz recently turned me on to the journal of John C. Wright, a retired attorney, journalist and author with a very logical take on global warming.

[A] person can be a conservationist (which I am) without being an environmentalist (which I am not).

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If any environmentalist out there became convinced that the only way to save the Earth was to cut down trees in order to increase the albedo of the planet and reflect more heat out into space, I would listen with grave attention to his argument. That argument, at least, would have indicia of honesty: it would be a statement against interest. Likewise, I would listen with attention if the environmentalist suggested igniting a few atom bombs in forest to produce smoke clouds: surely the nuclear winter would stop the global warming trend?

As it is, the only solutions ever suggested by any environmentalist are those aimed at industry. Whether the problem is global warming or global cooling, two opposite problems, the solution is the same: mug the free market.

Years of lies have raised the threshold of my skepticism above what it would be on other topics. Proof beyond reasonable doubt will be required to convince me. When a boy scout or a hunter tells me he wants to preserve wild areas for hunting or recreation, I do not suffer the same level of skepticism: these groups do not have histories of being carried away by fashionable hysteria.

Does that answer the question? The reason why (speaking for myself) I do not count myself an
environmentalist, even though I am a conservationist, is that environmentalism has all the hallmarks of a religious movement, not a scientific study. I do not worship at your altars.

The time is here where environmentalists must be challenged at every turn, particularly when it comes to global warming, for their assertions are based more and more in some sort of faith rather than scientific study. While I don't believe there's anything necessarily wrong with faith, environmentalists have taken us very far down a path that is causing considerable amounts of money to be spent on something they assure us is based in science but doesn't stand up to the tests other scientific assertions would. If any religion were to so unconditionally demamd the money, resources and blind faith from our government and citizens that do global warming believers, with the same lack of concrete evidence, there would be rioting in the streets and challenges in every court in the land. Instead, we hand them our wallets and future in a single gesture.

UPDATE: Cardinal George Pell of Australia sees the blind faith as being a tad dangerous as well.

Christians don't go against reason, although we sometimes go beyond it in
faith to embrace the probabilities.

What we were seeing from the doomsayers was an induced dose of mild
hysteria -- semi-religious if you like, but dangerously close to
superstition.

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