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From http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sh ... cular-left

Environmentalism: Religion for the Godless
By Matthew Sheffield | August 24, 2007 - 08:41 ET

In a time when modern science and scholarship have begun to cast doubts on traditional faith, many on the left, right, and center are increasingly abandoning traditional religion. While most such people on the center-right are content simply not to believe, many on the left continue to cling to the salvationist ethos. In the past, that impulse was satiated with communistic reveries. If religion was the opiate of the masses, socialism was the heroin of the secular leftist.

That no longer seems, at least outwardly, to be the case. With a worldwide record of abject failure, socialism lost its claim to the miraculous. Despite this, the left's desire for cosmic justice remained unfilled; it was only a matter of time before something stepped into the teleological breach.

That something is radical environmentalism. In a fantastic essay at his site Number Watch, John Brignell shows how extreme environmentalism has become a secular religion. The comparisons are striking and ought to give pause to any agnostic or atheist wary of the influence of religion on society. Even if you don't share Bridgnell's view of religion, this is an essay worth reading. Here's a small excerpt:



It is in the nature of religion to be authoritarian and proscriptive. Essential to this is the concept of sin – a transgression in thought or deed of theological principles.

Original sin in the older religions derived from one of the founts of life on earth – sex. The new religion goes even further back to the very basis of all life – carbon. Perhaps the fundamental human fear is fear of life itself. The amazing propensity of carbon to form compounds of unlimited complexity made the existence of life possible, while its dioxide is the primary foodstuff, the very start of the food chain. Every item of nutriment you consume started out as atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is therefore the ideal candidate for original sin, since no one can escape dependence on it. This manna that gave us life is now regularly branded in media headlines as “pollution” and “toxic”: surely one of the most perverse dysphemisms in the history of language.

The corrective to sin in religion is absolution, and the power of most religions comes from their claim to have the monopoly on absolution. So it is with the new godless religion. Furthermore, it is in the nature of religion to create false markets. In the time of Chaucer the Pardoner sold papal indulgences, which freed the prosperous from the consequences of sin. Likewise, the new pardoners sell carbon offsets. As in so much of both ancient and modern society these activities divert effort from wealth creation and so act as a drag on the economy. They also grant to the rich a comfort that is not available to the poor – a sure road to success. [...]


Religions vary in their treatment of unbelievers, from disregard to slaughter. The new religion relies at present on verbal assault and character assassination, though there are those who would go further. They call the infidels “deniers” – a cheap and quite despicable verbal reference to the Holocaust. There is a sustained campaign to deny the deniers any sort of public platform for their views.

Apostates are universally even more reviled than infidels. They have turned their backs on the true faith, whichever that might happen to be. Partial apostates, or heretics, are even more loathed and through the ages have been subjected to the most appalling punishments and deaths. In the case of the “sceptical environmentalist”, Bjorn Lomborg, he is of the faith. In fact he is a serial believer; accepting, for example, that eating celery causes two percent of all cancers and, of course, that global warming is man made, but he rejects the sacrificing of humanity to the belief. This is unacceptable! What are a few million deaths from dirty water, mosquito bites and other hazards so long as people can be made to conform? So far he has only been assaulted with insults and custard pies. Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, broke with the movement over its growing anti-human, anti-scientific tendencies and drift into extremism. The last straw for him was the campaign against chlorine, not only an essential component of human life but also the basis of one of the most dramatically life-saving hygienic interventions. He has, consequently, been subjected to a prolonged campaign of vilification, described as an eco-Judas, turncoat and traitor. Every minor commentator or blogger who manifests disbelief can expect to be the target of abuse from self-appointed protectors of the creed.



Read the rest.


—Matthew Sheffield is Executive Editor of NewsBusters.

   

Nail hit dead center.

   

More BS.

I'm sure for a few it has become a religious type of existence. On the whole though, this article is just another weak attempt to dismiss one's part in an issue they'd rather ignore.

   

Interesting. You acknowledge it and dismiss it in the same paragraph.

Obviously, he wasn't saying that all environmentalists are so disposed to act as if they were possessed of a religious fervor as he cites environmentalists who left their movements when the movements became extreme and moved away from their original purpose.

I've oft cited the one-time President of the Sierra Club who left his post when he complained that the organization had been hijacked from being an environmental group to being a political group.

If anything, I respect the dissenters of these groups for standing on their principles to insist that their groups stay on message.

Greenpeace did some good work in stopping French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific and some of their people paid with their lives for their activism when the French Surete sunk the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand. Greenpeace also quite literally saved the whales.

But now they want to ban chlorine which makes water safe to drink for billions of people?

That's not just lunacy, that's proposed homicide on an unspeakable scale.

   

I did so because his distinction is meaningless. He tries to dismiss all and indeed the whole "Left". That kind of dismissal serves only one purpose.

   

I certainly agree that some people elevate environmentalism to a religion. They're just as preachy, sanctimonious and annoying as some religious fundamentalists.

   

BS story.

Environmentalism is the responsibility of ensuring our decendants continue having a clean and healthy planet in which to live.

   

No, stewardship is how past and current generations have ensured that future generations will have things that need to be preserved.

Environmentalism in its modern day form is about preserving the environment at the expense of future generations.

   

I think its more likely that its been hijacked by people who don't truly believe in its principles.

In the last debate about nuclear power, GFPB posted about how big oil/gas conglomerates whos profits were threatened by nuke power often funded greenpeace to protes against them.

It rang true.

There is nothing inherently wrong with environmentalism. Even hunters/fisherman recognize the reality/wisdom of conservation.

Its only when dishonest people use it as a false cover or as a political chip that it suffers.

I don't want to live next to an oil refinery and I doubt anybody does.

   

It does.



But there's a bit of a gulf between conservationism and environmentalism.

Conservationists want things preserved so that people can use them and enjoy them on into the future. Environmentalists all too often propose that people no longer be allowed to enjoy or use things. They did so some years back here in California when they proposed that Yosemite National Park be closed to all but professional biologists and naturalists and that common people should be banned from the park while still expected to pay taxes to support it, naturally. They also had the same proposal for the entire Lake Tahoe basin and that got shot down even faster than the Yosemite proposal.



Yet we want to use petroleum products so therefore the refineries have to be put somewhere, don't they?

   

Preserving the environment at the expense of future generations?



Um, no. Preserving the environment is to the benefit of future generations. Unless you think that leaving them polluted water and air, and little or no natural resources like lumber and fish, is somehow good for them.

   

Another thought on environmentalism vs conservationism:

A self-proclaimed environmentalist, Congressman Jay Inslee (D Washington State) tried to pass a law that would effectively ban the hunting of Canadian polar bears by American hunters who annually pay about US$1 million for the privilege.

The Wildlife Management Board of Nunavut applies these hunting fees to polar bear conservation and to economic development in Nunavut.

Since the inception of the current hunting protocols in 1994 the polar bear population has increased.

Consequently, polar bears have become a renewable natural resource in Nunavut.

Environmentalists prefer that no one be allowed to hunt polar bears regardless of the negative impact this would clearly have on the polar bear population!

Why American environmentalists feel a need to impose their views on Canada escapes me, as well.

And their same views on polar bears have already been applied to Tule Elk and mountain lions in California.

It used to be that hunters paid quite a bit of money to hunt these critters and the enviroweenies didn't like that.

So the hunting was banned.

Now the Tule Elk are endangered because in the absence of wildlife management they've suffered from disease and starvation as the herds overpopulated their feeding ranges and then the population collapsed.

And we're also finding starving mountain lions wandering into urban areas looking for food as the mountain lion population surged and is also facing a similar collapse.

When the enviroweenies demanded that $80,000 per year game wardens be employed to control both populations the CA Dept. of Fish & Game told them that because the hunting fees were no longer coming in the money for the game wardens dried up and the majority had been laid off!

So in years past hunters paid for the privilege to hunt these critters and the F&G used them to manage populations and it used the huniting license fees to fund its operations.

That is the difference between environmentalists and conservationists.

   

What do you call it when these morons propose banning chlorine and are effectively banning safe, clean drinking water for 90% of the people on the planet?

What do you call it when morons try to prevent poor African, Asian, and Central American people from spraying pesticides in swamps to prevent malaria?

You don't think people will die if either of these murderous proposals is enacted?

   

Economically it isn't.

   

So money is more important that health. Profit more important than preventing human and animal suffering.

Very interesting way of looking at it.

   

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