If Environmentalism is a Religion, Climate Change is Original Sin

Written by Francis Arouet on September 4, 2019. Posted in Current News

Numerous individuals have observed that environmentalism as practiced by certain activists is a religion see Rubin, C. T. (1998).  The green crusade: Rethinking the roots of environmentalism. Rowman & Littlefield.

Specifically, environmentalists do not view the world through a complex empirically based lens but instead view issues in simple emotionally motivated terms.

Much like traditional religion divides the world into good and evil environmentalists engage in similar practice. One of the defining concepts of fundamentalism is the tendency to view the world in a rigid and black-and-white way.

For instance, one of the more accurate survey questions to gauge an individual’s level of fundamentalism is: “do you believe your holy book is the literal word of God were merely a representation by men of God’s will?”

When we look at environmentalists we can ask a similar question:

“Do you believe climate change and/or whatever other environmental throughout is a serious threat that requires immediate action at the expense of other considerations, or do you believe that these issues must be considered in a greater much more complex context?”

Invariably you’ll see the environmentalists respond to the prior rather than later.

Much like many Western religions have a concept of original sin or evil environmentalists believe these issues are fundamentally evil that there is no negotiation or nuance to the situation and, that the issues must be attacked with zeal and extreme unilateral action.

You see this in numerous areas of environmentalism such as recycling, land-use, pollutants and toxins, organic food, and innumerable other topics. In these instances, these items are more specific acts or icons but stepping back and looking at the larger picture we find that climate change really is the original sin of the environmentalist.

The concept is broad and nebulous, unilaterally evil, has innumerable other specific things attached to it, and most importantly enables the activists with an almost deity like power and authority to go after whoever or whatever they like in the name of stopping such evil.

Also, it is immutable much like cults that believe that flying saucers and space aliens will land some day and believe this is a central tenet of their religion the belief in climate change is immutable regardless of what the facts say.

When one set of facts is disproven the group seamlessly adopts another set of beliefs to continue to rationalize the belief in the ideology. Much like perceived sins and transgression were the basis for the Inquisition or various witch-hunts climate change represents a convenient excuse for these individuals to do whatever they want.

This gets out one of the other core dimensions of environmentalism as a religion which is the social and political power individuals who are involved in the movement derive from their theology/ideology.

As with all fundamentalist or absolutist rule the environmental movement seeks total control over individual behavior and cannot deal with any type of compromise matter how small. You see this with the frequent and bizarre fixations of various environmental groups.

For instance, movements to ban small bottles of soap and shampoo from hotel:

California Moving Toward Ban On Little Shampoo, Conditioner Bottles From Hotels; or to label everything is cancer-causing, or to ban plastic bags  or not have pets for their carbon emissions.

On a higher level these groups often advocate things that are fundamentally opposed to basic human rights such as the right to have a family.  or to live as one sees fit.

When taken as a whole, this mentality reflects perfectly what we see in totalitarian societies such as North Korea or in communities run by absolutist religious rulers such as those in the ISIS caliphate.

The final dimension of environmentalism as a fundamentalist religion is hypocrisy. Invariably any rigid belief system that has a level of irrational orthodoxy will have inherent unresolvable conflicts.

Environmentalism is no exception to this.

To see this, you need look no further than in the priestly class of movie stars, political leaders and academics who promote this ideology. These individuals are wealthy and socially powerful they yield large amounts of influence. However, unlike the poverty-vowed clergy of various religions they live in material wealth and often lavish lifestyles.

On a level down on the social ladder, the upper middle-class believer/ enabler you see a similar albeit smaller level of hypocrisy. The stereotypical San Francisco, New York City, Portland, or Seattle yuppie who believes in these things often has a six-figure income, multiple cars and a nice house (don’t worry they buy carbon offsets and do their best to keep the “average people” from having these things).

They see no problem with dumping $500 for a trip to whole foods to buy their organic goodies while homelessness rises, in their cities in the middle class pack up and leave. 

In their minds these contradictions are fine  because they “believe in the movement” and support the concept of climate action at least in the abstract is applied to “other people.”

Although there are innumerable more discussions of psychology and sociology in instances of this comparison it should be obvious what the environmental movement is and what climate change is.

For anyone in the interested in having a rational discussion about environmental issues and coming up with real feasible solutions that respect human autonomy and promote the overall welfare of the planet and society it is necessary for us to have an understanding of what exactly we are dealing with.

All too often people assume that the environmental movement is rational in that it can be negotiated with on a rational level. However, I would propose that that is the wrong view we must approach dealing with these individuals in the same way that we would deal with the religious zealot on a street corner.

Although these individuals should be treated with respect. Invariably, we must view them as being people who do not have a rational belief system and for whom logical thought is something that they avoid. In our own practices we must strive to be rational and convince others that the way of rationality is not the way of this ideology.

Francis Arouet is a retired practitioner and social critic who lives in Up State New York.

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