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December 16. 2010
Well then, I would say that pretty much confirms it.
For quite some time, I’ve harbored the suspicion that both the popular science and the political activity that create and sustain the belief in Global Warmingism are informed by a retrogressively pagan mindset.
It’s not just that the quasi-religious, pseudo-scientific “Gaia hypothesis” — the belief, taking its name from the pagan Greek goddess of the Earth, that the sum of the parts of the Earth’s ecosystems together make up a living thing — is popular in certain environmentalist circles.
No, the basis for my suspicion is, in large part, the irrational and superstitious way Global Warmingism proponents and adherents react to any kind of extreme weather as evidence that modern economic and scientific activity is making global temperatures unnaturally rise.
If it’s a drought, or a long spell of hot and dry weather, they think we must be doing something to nudge up the Earth’s thermostat. If it’s a nasty hurricane or a notably destructive line of tornados, it’s our fault for driving SUVs. If riverside communities get flooded, that’s also the result of global warming. And if we get an unusually harsh and lengthy winter, yes, that, too, is proof that the Earth is getting warmer.
The Global Warmingists have covered all their bases. No matter what the weather is like, it always turns out to be exactly the kind of weather we should expect if human activity were causing global temperatures to rise.
The natural sciences have terms for that kind of hypothesis. “Unfalsifiable” is one of them. “Unscientific” is another. An idea may be true, but if it is incapable of being “falsified” or proven wrong, then whatever else that idea is, it certainly isn’t science.
Another thing that feeds my suspicion that a pagan mindset informs Global Warmingism are the steady and consistent calls for sacrifice — even human sacrifice — to ward off the threatened catastrophes.
I’m not opposed to moderation and frugality, and we certainly should put aside our avaricious and materialistic ways. Sacrifice, too, is virtuous and meritorious, as long as it is voluntary and sincere.
But the Global Warmingists seem more intent on making others sacrifice than in making big, painful changes in their own lives (yes, Al Gore, I’m talking to you).
More to the point, I can’t help but suspect that these calls for sacrifice are, like the Gaia hypothesis, quasi-religious in nature, and at times plainly religious.
Like the pagans of old thought they could appease the angry gods or win their favor through sacrificing the things most dear to them — their livestock, and if that didn’t work, human beings, even their own children — so it appears that Global Warmingism demands that we sacrifice. And it’s not really sacrifice because it’s moral or sensible or good for us, but sacrifice to appease the offended ecosphere.
It’s the old, old thought process of: “Bad things are happening and we don’t know why. How can we stop these things? How do we control what we don’t understand? We must be to blame. We must do something, anything, to make amends.”
It doesn’t matter that our efforts don’t have any demonstrable connection to the problem, or that they don’t do a thing to improve our situation but instead cause even more harm. All that matters is that we do something, and the bigger and more painful it is the better.
And so it was that the United Nations, having figured out that it’s bad for propaganda to engage in handwringing over global warming during a Scandinavian behemoth of a blizzard (like they did last time), gathered this winter month in balmy Cancun, Mexico — and once again failed to reach a binding international agreement on which of us should sacrifice and how much.
They failed despite opening their meeting with (I kid you not) religious rites invoking the supernatural assistance of an ancient Mayan jaguar goddess.
Yes, I would say that pretty much confirms it.
