Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Origins of Environmental Religions

Origins of Environmental Religions

Written By: Jay Lehr, Ph.D.
Published In: Heartland Perspectives
Publication Date: July 12, 2007
Publisher: The Heartland Institute



http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/article.cfm?artId=21633

This strikes me as a cheap and rather lame comparison.

I'd agree that in terms of "what is wrong with our culture," the comparison has some truth, on the surface; but....

However, I'd like to offer up a more valid comparison between religion and environmentalism.

E. O. Wilson's latest work, "The Creation" is a short 170 page, 5x8" book (Wilson: founder of Sociobiology).

I like how for religious people the title is a verb, and for secular folks the title is a noun. From whichever viewpoint, they are dealing with what is important to our sustainability.

~SA

Yes. I'd hesitate to say, as the article does, "Green religion competes with old-style religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam".

It's possible to be "green" and also follow any of those religions. I'll freely admit that many people are just as fervent, and blindly so, in their support of "green" objectives as are any religious fundies in support of religious objectives. But if you're going to call green-ness a religion then almost anything qualifies as such.

This stems from a profound misunderstanding of global warming, due to the average intelligence of most involved (see: Al Gore, various celebrities). Global warming is a natural process that occurs because of change in atmospheric composition (the atmospheric composition changes constantly, but, I'm talking about large-scale percentage changes). The nature of energy is to change, and thinking that the atmosphere or anything for that matter will stay the same forever is incredibly dense. If we want to restore the previous conditions, simply not producing as much CO2 is not going to work. That's not how chemical interactions work. It's a system, and to get the outcome that you want, you have to change the contents of the system. Reducing the amount of one chemical will not change the effect. You would have to release different gases into the atmosphere in a controlled way. It would happen again anyways. It's the natural process. If you have predominant O2 users, CO2 is going to increase. Also, calling it a religion is an offense to the word, and does not satisfy the definition anyways. It has no text which it holds as inspired. It has nothing that it worships. It has no rites (rites are much different than actions; rites are symbolic actions which you put faith in). It makes no predictions as to long-term human inhabitation, and it has little to nothing to say about the past that isn't given to science. It cannot claim that facts are what it worships, because it's being selective in its facts... And while some of you (I wanted to, but eh) might say, "Hey, that's a religion", there's still a difference. Religions select their facts based on what they want to be true based on their sacred texts; the green movement selects their facts based on what they think they understand about the concept of global warming. This makes them a group of people following a philosophy, not a religion, and they should be treated as such. They are proponents of a system, not worshipers. The system is based on protecting the environment, and thus, environmentalism, making them, environmentalists.

There's no idea so good someone can't screw it up (as with environmentalist radicals...).