While I’ve been avoiding posting on this topic for quite some time, when a UK court makes a ruling like this, and the UK Telegraph makes a headline like the one below, it becomes hard to ignore. We live in interesting times.
From the UK Telegraph:
Climate change belief given same legal status as religion
An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs.
excerpts:
…
In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations”.
The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.
…
John Bowers QC, representing Grainger, had argued that adherence to climate change theory was “a scientific view rather than a philosophical one”, because “philosophy deals with matters that are not capable of scientific proof.”
That argument has now been dismissed by Mr Justice Burton, who last year ruled that the environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore was political and partisan.
The decision allows the tribunal to go ahead, but more importantly sets a precedent for how environmental beliefs are regarded in English law.
Read the complete article here:
Climate change belief given same legal status as religion
Note: keep the comments clean, moderators will snip off color comments with abandon. -A
re people and books
They’ll burn the best
and keep the rest
and punish themselves so.
Do the modellers take into account the effects of prayers?
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL0793503820070907
[snip ~ change your tone or post elsewhere ~ charles the moderator]
“An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs.”
The judge has said something that we all know, intuitively, to be true, and that is that environmentalism is a religious faith for most people who hold that world view.
However, if this man was fired unfairly, I find it hard to believe that some new type of religious faith has to be used in the judgment. That is whole cloth legislation from the bench. Whatever the particulars of the case are, I suspect existing law and precedent would have addressed any injustice he suffered.
Well, no wonder since Gore was a divinity major, that this has turned into a religion.
However, I know for a fact it is a false religion, with a false prophet interested only in Profits! I know because it’s contrary to the holy writ of my faith, as spoken by the Great Bob Dobson, and passed down by me in my sect of the Church of the Subgenius, Philosophers Stoned and Rosicrucians for Change. Praise Bob!
It appears this whole AGW agenda jumped the shark a long time ago but refused to accept it’s 15 min are up and just die with a quiet dignity.
Three quotes from Arthur C. Clarke:
A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to create him.
Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
[Arthur C. Clarke]
It’s not possible to be an environmentalist AND an atheist anymore?! Oh Hell!
He went to Washington, the media, movies, schools, conference halls. And now Al Gore is going in to religions with his ‘moral’ message, even using the Bible :
…he has been adapting his fact-based message – now put out by hundreds of volunteers – to appeal to those who believe there is a moral or religious duty to protect the planet. “I’ve done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references….
from 11/2/09 internet article
http://worldbbnews.com/2009/11/gores-spiritual-argument-on-climate/
Brian Johnson uk (10:37:30) :
Just off to sharpen Occam’s Razor
Mind you don’t cut yourself.
And don’t let the door bang your arse on the way out.
I’m with Lucy Skywalker on this one; I am not sure the ruling is such a bad one. However — big however — I don’t have time to research and I have more important work to do at present, so I can’t be more sure about this perspective. It seems true that “AGW” is a philosophical/religious view, screwy as it may be in its radical cloth. It is not science, or at least cannot be proven empirically or with valid computer models.
At the same time, it seems that employers should not be able to dismiss employees for philosophical/religious differences unless those differences interfere in the workplace and the problems with the employee’s efforts are documented.
The only actual quote attributed to Justice Burton that I saw is: “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations”.
I think this judge understood just what he was viewing in algore’s Inconvenient Truth; no science there.
…then, is disbelief in CC/AGW protected as a philosophy?
“Righto! Yes, Sir, you heard correctly. I will go on that business trip to the ‘States but it violates my religious beliefs to travel by aeroplane or any device using petrol. I wish to travel by boat, a sailboat actually… and eat gruel and get scurvy.
Once in New York, I wish to stay in a cave or a teepee of some sort and catch wild game and live off the land. Perhaps I shall plant beets to sustain myself.
I will give you my report when I return. In late 2012 I suppose…”
“While I’ve been avoiding posting on this topic for quite some time”
Excellent choice, continue this way. Religion shouldn’t be compared with science. This blog is of high quality because of its decency and strict adherence to objective science only.
This lawsuit is about making a quick buck not protecting “religion”.
OT but relevant:
With October closing at 4.6 for sunspots;
We now see 19 months straight with the monthly sunspot number below 5.
Ap is still at very low values…
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/Ap.gif
Solar Wind Velocity continues to weaken…
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/swind1.gif
Unadjusted solar flux has dipped back to lower 70s for the first few days of November. It seems as though the sun could continue to surprise us.
What I find humorous is that the “Sustainability Officer” is the one employee who actually had no real work to do, so he could be asked to fetch the Blackberry.
IMO, this absolutely fantastic news. The reality is, that AGW peddling is effectively defined as a belief system.
The Guardian website is currently running a blog by Leo Hickman agonising about their new found status as a religion.
Combine this with Al Gore’s new book emphasising the ‘spiritual dimension’ and it all looks as if rational thinking is finally discarded.
Gore was on News Night (UK BBC) Last night. He said: Just as in the middle ages, great cathederals were built intergenerationally, I want a green cathederal started by this generation and followed by successive generations’.
Apart from the cod-religiosity of this statement, I suppose the irony of his statement is completely lost on him:
We were able to build the great cathederals of Europe because of major crop surpluses.
We got the crop surpluses because of the medieval warm period!
They are in a pickle, and no mistake.
rgds
It would be interesting to see if Al Gore’s Global Warming would be tantamount to religion in the USA. If so his movie would not be allowed to be shown in public schools under separation of church and state.
(p.s. not that I’m a proponent of separation of church and state the way it is applied now. The way Thomas Jefferson intended it is fine)
116 responses in 4 hours. Somebody touched a nerve.
This must put the rabid warmistas in a quandary surely?
John Bowers QC, representing Grainger, had argued that adherence to climate change theory was “a scientific view rather than a philosophical one”, because “philosophy deals with matters that are not capable of scientific proof.”
That argument has now been dismissed by Mr Justice Burton, who last year ruled that the environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore was political and partisan.
This part is actually good news for England. It sets more legal precedence that Al Gore’s Global Warming is not science.
AGW Alarmists, Green Politicians and the Environmental Lobby are aligning themselves with those who believe in the Supernatural.
I actually find this comforting!
Soon the new church will launch its first inquisition — which nobody expects.
I sense hypocrisy and censorship here moderator, have you read the other comments posted thus far? Ad hom attacks on Gore and vitriol too. Or do you only censor stuff which does not fit the WUWT principles?
Inhofe frequently touts a bible when talking/”debating” about climate change and he is a renowned “skeptic” (that is a generous term), so extreme elements on both sides of the debate claim to have religion on their side. Nothing new there.
Anyhow, a bizarre ruling, in Britain I might add, but that does not stop people here from make huge generalizations and irrational deductions.
I’ll ask all those folks who are so excited about this ruling– what has religion (of any kind) to do with the radiative forcing of GHGs? Anyone?
Reply: Better tone, and those that post here regularly including many AGW proponents know that we don’t censor opposing points of view, just poorly worded vitriol directed against people who post here no matter what their point of view. That exclusion does not extend to people in the news. ~ charles the moderator
Environmentalists already have too much power.They shouldn’t be given more.
In my home town there was a large mink farm. Environmentalists went in at night and opened all of the cages letting the mink loose into the wilds. People encouraged the farmer to sue. But he declined saying, in essence, they have a lot of money and good lawyers and he didn’t have a chance.
Funny thing is those environmentalists didn’t stop to think that the mink weren’t accustomed to living in the wild—not very animal friendly of them. The mink probably became weak from starvation and became an expensive dinner for bobcats.
Just to note there is a difference between the Christian church and the church of AGW, AGW’s doesn’t neccesarily believe in a higher power outside of this Earth that sent his son to Earth to offer eternal life to everyone. Many warmists are not Christians, many Christians believe the current warming is natural. Jesus never told people to hurt or burn other people, but offer them love and the gospel instead.
I personally believe Christianity is the true faith, but the AGW religion may be approaching the realm of Scientology and the new Jedi religion also seen in the UK.
Like any religion, people will move away from this one once they realize the abuses and the lies they promote. Also, like any religion, the goals are always unattainable.