A New Religion?

Rush Limbaugh has characterized the adherents of the Climate Change Panic as members of a new religion. Is he correct? If one thinks of the current craziness in terms of a primordial time then yes it might be an accurate description of events. It has long been held that religions emerged as a way of explaining the terrifying and wonderful events that occurred in the lives of pre-historic and then historical known cultures. Floods, storms, forest fires, plains fires, droughts, were all ascribed to various gods even to the extent of naming the particular fire-god et al.

Later of course a single god emerged from the crowd as sophistication and political expediency demanded a match between religion and secular life. Only Judaism and Islam have only one god, Christianity has three (albeit inhabiting one god body) which makes it a throwback to paganism; a corruption of Judaism as it was absorbed by the Romans. What makes the current religion or cult of climate change any different?

Thanks to the amount and immediacy of news coverage events seem more important now than they ever were. Contributing to the panic is the relative shortness of human lives;especially relative to geologic time. Most people living today seem to think that floods, droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc have only begun to occur since their own birth. Just today news viewers are being treated to the horror of Greensberg, Kansas which was destroyed by a tornado on Friday. Yet during the coverage it was barely reported that it has been nearly 60 years since a similar event occurred. The populists of climate change will claim that the force of the tornado was caused by Global Warming.

The self-appointed high priests of Climate Change preach a do as I say, not as I do theology. As in any religion the ultimate goal is control of the members. The Al Gore's, Laura David, and Sheryl Crow's of this movement consume large amounts of energy through the use of private jets, large vehicles, gigantic houses that suck up electricity while admonishing the rest of the world to conserve.

This religion even has its own set of indulgences: the carbon offset credit. All energy consumption sins are forgiven by the purchase of a carbon offset; which in itself is nothing more than a modern version of the Emperor's New Clothes. Carbon offsets were originally developed as a loophole for energy producers to avoid penalties for not reaching the anti-pollution targets. In the beginning power company A could purchase government tax credits from power company B. This helped A when it didn't want to spend capital upgrading its plant. Power company B got credit for doing so and allowed to sell credits to earn income.


Now the situation is taking on the trappings of mysticism and morality plays. Like pieces of the true cross or saints bones movies, books, and songs are being published and distributed to hype the idea that climate change is real and that mankind is to blame. Nothing could be more ridiculous given the size of even Earth's small universe. The Climate Change Pope, Al Gore, is being anointed in the form of a Nobel Prize nomination. When it comes to Global Warming there is a pressing need for more atheists.