Mocking Lent, Good Friday, and Easter observed by millions, the eco website “Grist” this week showed the link between all things green and religion, by making a “virtual confession booth” for those who have sinned against Gaia.
Apparently, there’s been lots of green sinning going on during the last week of Lent, leading up to Easter. Why, I’m sinning just using electricity for my PC to write this.
First NBC-Universal Networks and NBC News aligned themselves with Gaia by turning “bug” logos green this week on all of their channels, in deference to the green goddess Gaia. Even the famous color peacock logo got the treatment. Of course they’ve been doing that for a few years so that isn’t much news.
What is news however, is that one anchor was moved (perhaps by Grist) to actually confess “green sins” live on the air. Watch the video below and see what happened when I entered my own sins against Gaia.
I’d like confess my sins. I drive a Chevy Tahoe…I often turn the water on in the shower, then I walk downstairs…I throw those bottles away without recycling…Those are my eco-sins. I’m confessing them to you because tomorrow is Earth Day
Given that I’ve been feeling less than holy myself this week, I decided to confess what many consider to be my biggest sin, writing about climate change and its associated failures. This is what I got after entering my “sin”:
Hmm, I’ve been called a lot of things, but never a “voracious parasite”. Funny thing is, we already have reusable grocery bags, animal friendly shampoo, and some weird twisty bulbs in our household. I even went the extra mile and put in LED fixtures.
I decided maybe my sin of running WUWT was just too complex for the sinning model they programmed into their database. After all, most of the images, charts, and graphs we post transcend religion and venture into the nether world of fact.
So I decided to ask myself: what is my most basic sin? If I were to equate to myself and Gaia of what was described as “original sin” of Adam and Eve, captured by Michelangelo below, what would it be?
In terms of Gaia and its inquisitors enforcers protectors, what would constitute “original sin”? It was a tough question. I pondered it awhile. I made some tea using some fossil fuel powered electricity and contemplated my sins of consumption perpetrated globally by the Lipton company and Pacific Gas and Electric. Then it hit me, like a bolt out of the green!
I had it, the basic most pure truth when it comes to sin against Gaia. I entered it into the GSS (the “Grist Sin System”) and here is what it told me:
Quite a screed for the original sin of “I exist”, at least self flagellation wasn’t needed.
If you wish to have a look at the GSS, you can try it yourself here. Many of the sins entered seem to be mocking Gaia though. Here’s a few that I noted:
04.24.2011 – I love horsepower more than I love the environment.
04.24.2011 – I wasted 30 seconds of my time looking at this website. Useless, but indicative of your entire stand on this issue.
04.24.2011 – I justify eating watermelon all year long by telling myself it’s always in season somewhere in the world.
04.24.2011 – I secretly like to hear reports that global warming isn’t real because it increases my sense of reality.
04.24.2011 – I know global warming is fake, but refuse to tell anyone because it upsets them so. Try it yourself. See what happens.
04.24.2011 – At the beach, I pee in the ocean like its my job.
04.24.2011 – I don’t buy organic because that shit’s expensive.
I urge readers to confess, and to also post confessions here at WUWT.
In related news, my local newspaper, the Chico Enterprise Record, seems to be “fed up” with all things green that are encapsulated as commandments mandates from the summit. They published this editorial during Earth week, a few excerpts of which I’ve posted below:
Our view: People will do what’s good for the Earth without the heavy hand of government regulation.
…
We’re doing what’s good for the Earth, because it’s also good for us. When good Earth-friendly products are available, Americans will embrace them.
But that’s not enough, apparently. In less than three years, you won’t have any alternative to the CFL, except for LED lights and whatever new-fangled thing comes down the pike by then. Because by January 2014, a federal ban on the incandescents will be complete. The ban started phasing in on Jan. 1 in California, which always likes to be first, followed by other states next January.
That’s the other thing that has changed since the first Earth Day. No one can deny we as a nation are more aware and more responsible. The simple fact that everyone recycles, which was a downright bizarre practice in 1970, may be the best indication of how far we’ve come.
But we’ve also seen the growth of a faction intoxicated by environmentalism. And when they reach the halls of power, they push their causes with arrogance, justifying it as the defense of Mother Earth. They know more than us, and don’t give us any credit.
So we end up with laws that tell us what to do —even as in the case of the CFLs, gas-efficient vehicles and recycling mandates —when it really isn’t necessary. We’re smart enough to do what’s good for us.
Perhaps we need a website for Greens to confess sins against humanity.
Oh, and when you click on the Grist “Still feeling Guilty?” link, you discover there’s a “Deep Throat follow the money moment” and you are urged to buy indulgences:
Was it ever about anything else?
h/t to climatequotes.com for posting in Tips and Notes
Jeff Alberts says:
April 24, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Millions believe in CAGW and we mock that all the time. Why should any other religion be sacrosanct?
Well, the answer, I suppose, is that any and all atheists are free to behave in any way they wish. By which I mean that in their view there is nothing which obliges anybody to behave in any particular way. They may have personal preferences as to how they themselves wish to behave but there is nothing which says that anybody has a duty to behave in a particular way. So that means that an atheist may decide that he is totally free to mock anything he wants to mock. He cannot decide that he has a duty to mock or not to mock. It is just a matter of personal preference.
@Alba “By which I mean that in their view there is nothing which obliges anybody to behave in any particular way”
But this is EXACTLY what the Green Religion is all about, forcing people to act in the way they wish them to (either by force or by calls to guilt). This is the tenet of ALL extreme religions (and has been throughout history), they are right and everybody must do as they say.
Dear Anthony:
As a favour to him and everyone, is there anypossible chance you might drop a quick line to Lubos over at THE REFERENCE FRAME?
As a techno peasant, I have tried and thrice failed to make it through the comment process in order to comment on Lubos Motl’s article on this same subject of GRIST’s soft version of alarmism and fund solicitation.
Apparently he actually thinks GRIST is an eco prank site.
This is what I wrote to him, but I have been unable to post it:
As a fellow eco-sceptic I felt it only fair to alert those who thought GRIST was or is a joke.
GRIST is NOT an eco prankster site at all, it never has been. GRIST is a cloying, revolting, eco-panhandler site, a greenie website which has always been deadly earnest.
GRIST is as appocaholic as the best of them, with a preachy approach which is nothing if not nauseating.
GRIST makes sure its gravy train supports the concept of climate change as a grave threat to all who breathe.
GRIST may well thinks it is being cute and eco-clever by making more gentle fun of what it believes in earnest, to be eco sins, and has taken a slightly different approach than 10:10:10. But make no mistake here, it is every bit as misanthropic, in a passive aggressive way. This GRIST site has one agenda only. It is soliciting funds from this pious link. Check out Anthony Watts to verify further.
http://climatequotes.com/2011/04/24/a-tour-of-grists-earth-confessions-website/
Wait?!?!
What?!?!
I seem to recall how well paying indulgences to wash away sins went over for the Catholic Church…
Does Grist somehow think the results will be different this time around?
Maybe they are simply lampooning themselves. I find it really hard for people to be that stupid.
I’m raising three coal-sucking, meat-eating, right-thinking children. They eat a lot. Six gallons of milk a week. Drive one of them to school and back every day. The other two are ferried about by two different carbon reliant buses. I go to the grocery store three or four times a week. Then there’s ballet, Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, rugby (matches are an hour away), and swim team. And I just drove to see the relatives, 1020 miles each way.
God Bless America.
Is it just me, or does St Umbra have a pretty nice set [snip] under that roomy robe? Does noticing this mean I should make a confession?
Ever wonder what Adam and Eve actually did? Do a search: The First Scandal. Then click twice.
I could do the green thing and wait for the huge recycling truck to rumble by my ranch, pick up the recycle stuff, which then drives all the way to the rural recycling bins, which are then picked up by a bigger truck to send to some metro-central huge recycling center hundreds of miles away for further processing.
Instead, sin of sins, I burn the crap out of it in my burn barrel not 10 yards from my back porch. The ash gets dumped either in the dumpster or spread nearby. My dumpster gets dumped maybe once every three months, or maybe every 6 months. My neighbors are so good at this that they don’t even bother with a dumpster. In fact, I’m the only reason why the truck comes by at all. So that means if I really get into this sinning thing, the huge garbage truck would have no reason to rumble down to our neck of the woods at all.
Uhhhh…tell me again how recycling is greener than using a burn barrel??????
My confession. “By not driving as much as I should I’m starving mother nature of beneficial carbon dioxide. I promise to do better from now on.”
There sure are lots of skeptics confessing over there.
@Rodski “Is it just me, or does St Umbra have a pretty nice set [snip] under that roomy robe?”
Being a greenie, I’d say probably no bra, or nickers. Hey, I can imagine, can’t I, surely that is not a sin ::-)
Well, earlier today the link was unresponsive and now there seems to be a “bad gateway” error so
I’m guessing our ability to confess our eco-sins has followed the Map of Climate Refugees
down the memory hole.
I was a little cheesed off on Good Friday to see Google had one of those custom logos for earth day. HELLO; it is Good Friday! Celebrating a communist holiday on Good Friday will get you sent to real hell, not just the funny Gaia hell.
007 says:
April 24, 2011 at 6:54 pm (Edit)
Yes it’s the “water thing” that I find so amusing right now.
I can see that some enterprising folk have discovered a new niche for guilt and funding but really the question should be . . .
Where has the water gone then?
Far too many ignorant people let others do their thinking for them. Just for perspective , 7 billion people make up a quarter of a cubic kilometer of water while the oceans are 1.3 BILLION cubic kilometers in volume.
Water, the hydrological cycle , is well understood yet some people think we are “using up” the water.
Give me strength.
I love how they always speak about a “fragile ecosystem”. The same ecosystem on the same planet survived asteroid impacts with a power that mankind can’t even remotely replicate. Life always survived, except when nature itself decided to off 80% of all life.
I’ve not sinned against Gaia, cause Gaia is my bi… you know what.
I’m over here in Iraqi Kurdistan. Flew first class. I’m looking for Oil. It means that I’m in the employ of Big Oil. (well, actually “Little Oil”), so I am biased, and biased, and, well, biased. Maybe Biassssssssssssssssssssed, spoken like Gollum, hissing. The mudloggers instruments give me a continual reading of CO2. My own personal Mauna Loa. I try to trasin people to use garbage cans. Recycling, though, is perhaps a long way off. And then, I’ll do it all again, in 56 days.
I think you have this about right. To exist is apparently a sin to the Malthus based eco-marxists that intend to grind humanity into the dust and then sacrifice them on the alter of the weather gods (much as south american indians did thousands of years ago).
I am unsure though that your disdain should be extended to all religions. There are some religions that actually respect and value individuals, no matter where they come from and no matter what their status. That surely is a good thing in the face of the determined effort of the green movement to expunge all individuality and to turn humanity into mere drones that feed the collective.
I’m chuckling at BenfromMO’s bumper sticker “Strip mining prevents forest fires.”, as the forest ministry of the B.C. government started promoting fire-break swaths near towns, after another bad fire season.
“Gosh”, I said, “I thought that used to be called “clear-cut logging”.