By Peter C. Glover ——Bio and Archives--August 9, 2010
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“Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western world is environmentalism. 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. 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 all of us. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe. Increasingly it seems facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief.”Bizzare, is it not, in an age when we live longer, healthier, less polluted lives than former generations, “we the people” have become wracked with angst, perpetually ill at ease, obsessed with personal welfare and health and one way or another doomed ever to be in fear of the weather gods? Even though alleged ‘climate experts’ cannot tell us with confidence what the weather will be next week, they can confidently predict what it will be like in 50 years time – based on computer guesswork. Even so, for those still blindly fighting on against an imaginary ‘enemy’, we should at least show some empathy, as for any suckered into cult-like beliefs. Amongst the pseudo-religious anti-CO2 liturgy, I note, as an English churchman myself, the singular omission of a suitable iconic creedal ‘teaching’ prayer; a prayer that can be said as a daily office to appease the weather gods (and thus avoid another Katrina). Thomas Cranmer I may not be, but perhaps I can be allowed to make a humble offering for use on the floor of the US Senate and House (probably where it belongs) – and beyond – when debating the carbon war next resumes. So, if we might all kneel (we don’t want to upset Mother Gaia, do we?) and say with solemn reverence:
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Peter C. Glover is an English writer & freelance journalist specializing in political, media and energy analysis (and is currently European Associate Editor for the US magazine Energy Tribune. He has been published extensively and is also the author of a number of books including The Politics of Faith: Essays on the Morality of Key Current Affairs which set out the moral case for the invasion of Iraq and a Judeo-Christian defence of the death penalty.