Environmentalists: the world's newest religious fantatics

The recent scandal involving academic email exchanges among researchers working to present a report to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations highlights what happens when science becomes religious. Various reports confirm that the emails, though obtained by hacking, present a picture of researchers wanting to leave out information that did not fit the global warming agenda. Such is what happens when science is used to advance a cause. If the researcher believes in the cause, or has the faith, so speak, it becomes personally difficult for that researcher to report facts that might detract from the faith.

The irony of the current environmental movement is that many of those who are part of it are quick to deride people of religious faith for their views, while not seeing that the environmental movement is a religion on its own. Just as religious fundamentalists might turn a deaf ear to any other interpretation of Holy Scriptures than their own, the environmental religion quickly derides anyone who offers any facts contrary to their fundamental belief that man’s economic advancements are going to cause a dramatic climate change.

As with any other narrow religious fanatics, fanatic environmentalists are whipped into a frenzy that defies logic and common sense. Take for example, the environmentalist group Asheville Rising Tide. On Monday, four members of that group were arrested in Greenville for protesting atop a generator that Duke Energy is moving to a new plant in North Carolina. According to The State, the group’s spokesperson, Attila Nemecz stated that “We are tired of waiting. We’re going to take serious enough action to stop construction of this global warming pollution causing death machine.”

Those are dramatic words, not unlike the words found in any narrow based religion. It is a tired old story. A group of fanatics believe, so arrogantly, that their view of the world is so correct, that the rules and norms of society do not apply to them. True believers are pushed to an emotional state in which breaking the law seems like a duty, an obligation to the faith, if you will. Mother Earth, like Allah, God, whatever, will reward them.

That said, there are times in history when civil disobedience has led to the greater good. Men like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind. Those two men, for example were men who transcended their societies and reached the heart of humanity. They did so because they uplifted the progress of humanity, not condemn it. Far too often, fanatics invoke their names and even try their tactics in hopes of being against something. Chances are fanatics would turn on a Ghandi or a King if either man were alive today and questioned their tactics and goals.
That fanaticism is what is now happening in the environmental movement. It is what drives people to ignore facts and try to hide them. It was what drives people to break the law for apparently no real reason. It is what drives them to think that the rules the rest of us live do not apply to them. It is also what makes so many of them such hypocrites. Is there anything more amusing then seeing environmental protesters drive up in an SUV or read a website protesting a power company that is administered by a computer that draws power from that power company’s grid?

Indeed, the common factor in traditional religious fanatics and the new environmental religion fanatics is their obsession over the failure of humanity. They seem to relish the idea that the rest of the world are fools and will destroy society. They seem to live for that day to happen. There is a loathing of their fellow human beings that they claim to want to protect. They embrace the smugness that comes with the self delusional idea that they are better than the rest of us. That smugness brings a sense of worth and security that no facts to the contrary can easily be allowed to interfere with.