Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Yesterday I debated the Conservative-led Coalition's disastrous climate policy with junior environment minister Lord Marland. The audience was divided roughly 50/50 between people like me who believed that Britain's energy and environment policy should be based on facts and empirical observations rather than junk science; and those who believed from the bottom of their hearts that as much taxpayers' money as possible should be sacrificed on the altar of Mother Gaia. This is where the climate debate is these days: rationalism v superstition. If so much money weren't depending on it it would be almost funny.
One thing struck me about the questions I had to field afterwards from the True Believers. Every one of them prefaced his or her question with the words: "I don't know much about science/sea levels/geology/economics..." Almost as if their ignorance of the subject they felt so very, very strongly about was a virtue.
I asked one of my questioners who was concerned about rising sea levels: "Do you actually KNOW how much sea levels are rising by on average, per year?" Of course he didn't. So I told him: no more than 1.8 mm per year – as has been the case for several hundred years.
This fact didn't faze him one bit. Facts never do with these people. Environmentalism has long since abandoned all links with evidence or reality. It's about religious faith, pure and simple.
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Mar '11
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Paul A. Rahe
Is it Chesterton who said, "If you do not believe in God, you will believe in anything." · 55 minutes ago
Professor, I once read an article that concluded that the actual phrase was in a review of one of Chesterton's Father Brown books. The words Father Brown actually said were every bit as good: "It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.”
EDIT: Still can't find it. I'm pretty sure it was somewhere on the American Chesterton Society website, but the link I had is dead.
Edited on March 15, 2012 at 1:36amDec '11
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Potential Ricochet thread? - Building a taxonomy of Leftist denominations.
Global Warmist is certainly one sect.
Feb '12
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Flapjack- The Church of the Rising Sea Levels. What a Burdon to bear that would be. Especially down New Orleans way.
Apr '11
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
There is not much debate here, and that bothers me. I feel like I need to try to burst or challenge this bubble of self congratulation about the metaphysical nature of the environmentalist movement. Alas though I can't really think of away to defend them. They are pretty much a religion, their actions motivated by faith in the revealed truth of people like Al Gore.
If they were to be intellectually honest and claim their Gaian religion as such, would their arguments not have more validity? If one accepts that man's spiritual well being is dictated by the levels of CO2 in the air, their demand to reduce our emissions would be equivalent to demand from Christian leaders that people refrain from sinning.
Every time we drive our cars, throw out plastic or aluminium we drive ourselves further from our ideal state of Eco Grace, and closer to our own made perdition. Government actions that sanction or encourage such sinning are leading man astray, and are thus immoral. The history of religious convictions shaping the laws and practices of nations are long and universal, and many Christians think such influences to be legitimate.
Dec '10
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
James,
We need to get our definitions straight. I define Religious Faith as open honest A Priori Transcendental Thought. No pretense is made of Empirical Proofs as none are necessary.
The Environmentalism of which you speak is a set of purely Empirical Claims. Of course, no Empirical Evidence is presented to back up the Theory. Thus Empirical Claims less Empirical Evidence is just False Theory.
The obsessive belief of the environmentalists is usually termed a Dogmatic Ideology. However, if you are speaking about their deep psychology then you can make the case for transference. Since, the average environmental fanatic, if not a full blown atheist, is at least is an agnostic, they lack spiritual outlets. Their dogmatic obsession fills the void that Religious Faith would have filled.
Remember, Religious Faith makes no Empirical Claims. That's why they call it Faith.
Regards,
Jim
Jan '11
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Today's paper contained a scare story about the terrible, awful, no good, very bad impact of the seas rising by 1 foot a century. I would much rather adapt to a 1.8mm/year rise in sea level than to another Little Ice Age.
(And yes, I realize 1.8mm works out to something more like 7 inches, not 12. I assume the story was written by male reporters who are used to claiming that a little bitty four inch thing is actually eight inches.)
Dec '10
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Hey!
[whisper]
What have you heard!?!
[/whisper]
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
I did try to get it filmed. Tragically, Lord Marland's office said they wanted the whole thing off the record. Can't think why.
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Here's a good essay, btw, on environmentalism and religion. http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
Aug '10
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
And it's not just facts about the environment that the Left willingly ignores. Economic facts and historical facts are also of little importance to those who would rule us all with their feelings.
Apr '11
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
I see a correlation between those who believe in original sin and the extreme environmentalists who believe the world would be better off without humans. Both believe that we were fine as long as we were little more than ignorant animals, but having sought out knowledge and lifting ourselves above the level of cave man, we are now damned. One group says we can be saved if we follow Jesus, the other requires allegiance to Saint Algore.
Dec '11
Re: Gaia Worship: Like the Enlightenment Never Happened
Paul A. Rahe: James, it will always be as if the Enlightenment has not happened. Romanticism (which is to say, Christianity without a god) is the doppelgaenger of the Enlightenment. You cannot embrace the latter without begetting the former.
With global warming, you are not up against science. You are up against a secular religion. · 21 hours ago
It is a religion so corrupt it only took them 20 years to invent simony.