The religious mindset embraces the belief that there is more to life than the material world of the senses. There are truths that transcend the here and now. Things that give a non-contingent meaning to human existence. This is obvious with the monotheistic religions, and a little less obvious with Buddhism and polytheistic beliefs. Still, the appeal of this sort of belief in transcendent truths is pretty obvious. That means that not all that many people who reject established religions will move over to some sort of David Hume or Bertrand Russell-type sceptical view that what you see is what you get – we are here because of the fortuitous collisions of trillions of atoms, lots of time and even more luck. As Hume famously said, “the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster”.
That means that myriad people who hold secular views in today’s world are going to invest other things with a sort of enervated, but still transcendent, worth and meaning. It will become a sort of religion for them. And ‘climate change’ is the obvious exhibit number one. All sorts of people talk about this issue through a patently religious-type lens. They invest it with a sort of transcendent value. Mere cost-benefit type analyses are too tawdry and aren’t allowed because this is something beyond the material world of trade-offs and economic thinking. It becomes an explanation for everything, and so cannot be falsified (and really is not a scientific claim at all). Nor does it matter if actions taken in furtherance of this quasi-religious goal will accomplish anything at all, or not. As with the religious martyr, if China and India build a new coal-fired power plant every week (and they are) and the Trump administration pulls out of the Paris Net Zero accord (and it will) – meaning anything an Australia or Britain or Canada might do, including going back to the Stone Age tomorrow, will make virtually zero difference to future temperatures – none of that matters. Moral righteousness irrespective of consequences is what counts and what gives a sort of untainted meaning to life. ‘We will be a moral beacon, whether others copy us or not. We act in the service of a transcendent truth, etcetera, etcetera.’
Readers will think I’m over-egging this and exaggerating the type of thinking that drives many of the climate change cultists. But I don’t think I am. Talk to them of former Obama science advisor Steve Koonin’s book Unsettled, which pokes all sorts of holes in the supposed ‘settled science’ around global warming, and Bjorn Lomborg who argues our money could be infinitely better spent in preparing for a degree or two higher temperatures, and they will dismiss this all out of hand. Point out that extreme weather events have been declining, not accelerating (and the data are clear on this) and they will ignore you, and each time there is a fire or hurricane or flood, for them it will be a sign of the Climate Change God’s displeasure with human actions. No pedestrian human actions or failures will divert them from uttering the all-inclusive explanation that ‘it’s climate change what dunnit’.
Take the massive fires in Los Angeles. All the usual suspects have jumped on the ‘climate change is the culprit’ express. You’ll have heard this from Gavin Newsom, myriad Democrat politicos, Hollywood starlets, the preponderance of the legacy media (seemingly unaware, even after the recent U.S. election, that the vast majority of voters don’t give a flying firetruck what they think or are selling), the Teals in Australia, Bob Carr, the list goes on into the horizon. Now, a non-religious outlook that focused on the empirical facts would point to the lack of water management (no water retention, no dam building, and in fact dams removed so that this past year’s record rainfalls all ended up in the ocean) despite voters passing Proposition 1 to spend $7.5 billion to make it happen. It would suggest that the failure to do proper forest management and burn offs (in deference to the environmental lobby) mattered a lot too. As did the fact many water hydrants were empty of water. As did the $18 million cut in LA fire department’s budget last year, to fund DEI crap. As did DEI hiring practices and promotions in the that same fire department. As did all the homelessness that correlates with more arson. Ditto the illegal immigration gangs – start a fire and then loot when the owners have to leave. And did you know that there was no viable insurance industry for this in LA because the socialist Dems were dictating premiums that the insurance industry knew – given everything else Team Newsom was doing – were insanely too low. So many couldn’t get insurance.
Victor Davis Hanson sums it up quite pithily. These fires were “a total systems collapse”. Not spending on water storage. Suffering from an extensive DEI – so, by definition, no concern with merit in hiring and running the fire department – hierarchy. No forest management. ‘Newsom was fiddling’ while LA burned. It was like a ‘DEI Green New Deal hydrogen bomb’. And this despite huge rainfalls 11 months ago. And warnings from the insurance industry that went unheeded and forced many of these companies to leave. Nope, instead LA cut the fire department budget by almost $18 million last year.
But hey, if you’re a Teal or Bob Carr or one of many, many Democrat politicians this all happened because of ‘climate change’. Sure, I realise that not all exponents of this explanation are true believers. Renewables rent-seekers are grifters. And Gavin Newsom is watching his political future burn up before his eyes and needs to blame something other than Democrat policies. But we all know there are plenty of true believers in this cult. Heck, half the Coalition partyroom probably falls into that category (barf, barf). No amount of empirical explanation will dent the desire for these believers to embrace the gods of climate alarmism. And their need to lay moral blame on all who refuse to genuflect at the altar of this new pseudo-religion.
More has been done to protect and advance free speech since Donald Trump won the election than was seen in all the tenures of all the establishment Anglosphere governments over the last two decades – that is just undeniable. Likewise, the Don’s pending administration will do more to fight back against this climate change religious worldview than any established Anglosphere conservative government has or will do. Because when the costs get too high, businesses flee and everyone else is laughing at you for wearing a hair shirt to get to heaven, the spell can be broken. Los Angeles voters are getting what they voted for – good and hard.
James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University. This article first appeared in Spectator Australia.
It makes no difference NOW – regardless of what China or the US does.
Trump’s nominee for the Department of Education, Penny Schwinn, has a long row to hoe.
The DOE should be deep-sixed.
Both of them.
Climate change is now metaphysics, not physics. Like Marxism, it is a way of looking at the world that convinces people that various forms of action are desirable to address the ‘problems’ the world view creates.
Ultimately it stands or falls on the consequences of those actions in those who believe it.
“Ultimately it stands or falls on the consequences of those actions [by] those who believe it.”
Yes. Ultimately may include a debilitating revulsion, among the many true believers of the climapocalypse who are led like sheep to commit acts with attendant consequences, as witnessed: (a) the deepening immiseration of the world’s poor; (b) the indifference and hypocrisy of the profiteering hoarders who pose as their prophets; and (c) the brutality of the raiders for whom they provide cover — as wolves in sheep’s clothing — and who would gladly burn it all down. ‘A revulsion … against the ideas which brought us to our present state’* will allow them to break the bonds that hold them and so to return to a saner faith. — *Source: M. Polanyi, in ‘The Tacit Dimension‘, Ch. 3 ‘A Society of Explorers‘, p. 60.
“Readers will think I’m over-egging this and exaggerating the type of thinking that drives many of the climate change cultists. But I don’t think I am.”
Agreed. This is very evident in discourse on social media. The claim of “believing in science” is just a dodge. They have insufficient self-awareness even to detect that it was through the so-called “science” channel of persuasion that they have been radicalized.
If science is dependent on beliefs, then it is no longer science.
I am amazed that supposedly secular people fall for the same lies as the ancients we disdain for thinking “the gods are angry with us because <insert bad weather phenomena here>! We must sacrifice <insert something useful here> to appease the gods!”
You’d be surprised, or maybe not, at how much stone-aged thinking still predominates modern people. It’s what makes elections a crap shoot.
We’re still basically the same people so it shouldn’t really be a surprise
Those who don’t know history (and so many don’t these days) are doomed to repeat it.
… learn the lessons of history …
I don’t think we must spend ANY money preparing for a degree or two higher temperature, it is not worth worrying about, it is way exaggerated.
There is plenty of evidence that a slight rise in temperature, a degree or two or even three, has benefits over all. The best evidence that the costs are far over emphasized to make social cost of carbon look like a cost and not a benefit, is that people who assign net costs to climate change over the next couple of centuries manage to do so by choosing a discount rate (interest rate or rate of return, if you will) unreasonably low.
A discount rate of zero implies that you are every bit as happy to get your proceeds from an investment one hundred years or farther out than you would be getting them tomorrow. Would any reasonable person claim this?
Correct on all accounts. A corollary to your point on discount rates – if the accepted view of radiative heat transfer through the lower troposphere was incorrect, i.e., there are no negative externalities from the use of fossil fuels, that would imply a negative discount rate.
Hey Frank. Where in NoVA are you? I grew up in Manassas.
Alexandria for ~30 years. Now retired up north, but toying with the idea of moving back down to a quieter (less congested) area of VA.
I wonder what these people would think if we were to depart the ice age and transition to a non-ice age weather pattern. Palm trees on the Arctic coast would probably blow their minds!
The real problem is our education system is fallen. People don’t even know we are in an ice age and that most of history was 10 to 20K warmer than the current period.
Very true.
A study by astronomerts a few years ago showed that the optimum planetary temperature for life is five degrees C warmer than Earth. History shows that ancient covilisations thrived during the warm periods, and many died during the cold periods. If it had not been for the modern warming we would still be in the depths of the Little Ice Age – that really would be a catastroophe. And on and on….
The one BIG problem with the modern warming is that it gives the climate cultists oxygen.
Apart from that it has been of enormous benefit to the planet and humanity.
Chris
Who has greater faith the lesser educated Advocates of Net Zero,
Or
The lesser educated Skeptics of Climate Change?
Provide evidence that Skeptics of Climate Change™ are “less educated”.
I would probably be one of those. Took some classes at a Community College, but no degree.
not necessary- it’s more about common sense
I have way more respect for licensed electricians and plumbers than I do for most of the highly educated people I know.
Well, I pride myself in the fact that I can capitalize and punctuate. Unlike a supposedly highly educated Mosher.
Yeah, I’m a PhD scientist and faith doesn’t enter into my arriving at a particular conclusion or not. I will say that my faith in government is probably at an all time low.
I agree.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1880742300596437238
Unbelievable but reality may be hard for some to digest. Same area, same problems, same kind of government, different actors. Recognize the voice; the younger generation probably not?
does this work
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1880742300596437238
Each group as individuals are not equally educated. As the responses indicate.
It would help if you described your Methods, and followed that with some kind of Results and Discussion before presenting your Conclusion.
I’m probably not the only one who has little to no idea what you’re talking about.
Many people here have science and engineering degrees and higher.
I suspect you haven’t.
Who does more harm is a better question. The failure of the leftist leadership of LA provides an example.
Apparently, you lack even a basic understanding of the meaning of the word, skeptic.
Isn’t scepticism supposed to be the inalienable, bed-rock requirement for all scientific endeavors?
In that, no matter who says something, or how many others agree, the WHAT was said is subject to never-ending challenge, based upon testing theory against reality outcomes?
And until the real-world outcomes of theories can be observed & demonstrated, they remain just theories, not immutable laws upon which to progress with actions.
Exactly. Skepticism is the antithesis of faith or belief.
Unfortunately the word has developed a connotation of “disaccredited belief” in the basis of the topic under consideration.
Unfortunately most of this climate crisis nonsense is pure conjecture, has not even been raised to hypothesis let alone theory.
Unfortunately, language conflagration has come to accept that any idea is a theory.
Faith in what? Also, what would you say are the defining abilities of the educated versus the “lesser”-educated?
The educated are far better at being condescending!
I am not a skeptic of climate change, the way you intend.
I am a skeptic that CO2 is the control knob.
I am a skeptic that we face a catastrophe that requires immediate, civilization destroying, draconian policies that do not benefit the human race.
Madness of crowds returns again and again. The search for meaning and answers will not end when the climate change religion dies away. New cults and sects will rise.
Christianity and Islam have failed to keep people believing. Hinduism and Buddhism seem to remain viable. Scientists’ meaning often rests on trying to figure out where, when, and how. Some scientists (usually aging ones) come to rely on an ultimate reality similar to that described by Michael Dowd.
I think crowds require a religion. It might be possible to start a benign religion that does not fail to hold people as theism has failed.
Good observations.
It seems to be in the psyche of many people that they need to “go along to get along”, while all the time harboring deep disbelief in the tenets of the group they participate in.
How many “scientists” in the various disciplines encompassed in “climate science” are acceding to “group pressure” to tag every paper they submit with the “climate change is what done it” claim in order to maintain standing in their field of employment.
and in their funding requests
“It seems to be in the psyche of many people that they need to “go along to get along”,”
I think human beings naturally seek the consensus.
It goes back to the tribal days, where the adults have formed a consensus as to how one should behave in order to survive in their environment, and their children are given this wisdom, to keep them safe.
Contrarians probably didn’t live that long in primitive societies. You went along to get along back then, although you probably thought that the Elders knew what they were talking about and so you accepted their advise on how to conduct your life. Your needs have been taken care of by the Consensus.
I think modern people like to be in that situation, too. If they don’t have knowledge of something then they have to rely on the opinions of those they think have the required knowledge, the Modern-Day Elders. But, if they depend on liars, then dishonest consensus harms rather than helps, as with the climate change meme.
You are describing the thesis presented as herd mentality.
Islam seems to have too many people believing.
They have too many people believing murder of innocents is acceptable behavior.
There are many adherents to both Islam and Christianity. Is either religion successful in hanging onto every individual who is exposed to that religion? Obviously no. Does that mean that either religion is failing? Also no.
Is either religion following what its founder preached? Probably not.
“The search for meaning and answers will not end”
That’s right. Everyone is searching for the meaning in/of life. And that’s a good thing. But everyone needs to question what they see and think, because it is easy to fool oneself into seeing things that are not really there, in our desire to understand our situation, and very easy to get on the wrong track, and that applies to all aspects of life, not just the subject of climate change.
Good Luck to all of us.
Excellent essay. Fanatics, rent-seekers, manipulative politicos, and grifters on the one hand and on the other, the easily led and manipulated. And the high priests of this mess? Well, they consult their coupled models of the atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere just as the priests of old consulted the stone idol to tell us whether we’d repented sufficiently or, more likely, of further sacrifices needed.
The High Priests consult the bank balances of where their grants are deposited. Their Delphi is Bank of America.
Humans have an innate need to believe is something greater than themselves.
Because they do not have all the answers.
They have yet to embrace 42.
Priests, prophets, and politicians are all a menace.
People are so easily fooled.
Apparently about 50% of scientists claim to believe in God. So I suppose that means at least 50% of scientists are wrong.
Since many of the most profound scientific discoveries were made by religious individuals, I think the distinction lies in the ability to separate faith from science and not blur the two as is the case with the climate devout. As Dr. Allan opines, it is that inability that drives the self-deception of the climate cult. Science and religion are cousins of curiosity, serving the same purpose in their own ways but their distinct differences in function require that they never be used interchangeably.
“Since many of the most profound scientific discoveries were made by religious individuals,”
because they were generally the only ones with both the education & time for observation !!
Are you claiming that all of the early scientists were all officers of the church? If so, you are badly mistaken.
Nobles also had education and time. They also had the money to become patrons of those who had more expertise.
Excellent point!
“….cousins of curiosity….”
I like that🙂👍
“Science and religion are cousins of curiosity,”
I like that. 🙂
Either you have proof that God does not exist, or you are deluding yourself as to your impartiality.
I can’t prove that the Easter Bunny doesn’t exist but that doesn’t mean I’m deluded. 🙂
The University of Virginia has been studying reincarnation for several decades and the last time I saw anything about this, it was said that UV had identified about 1,500 cases where they thought they were documenting things children told them (It’s mainly children) about the children’s past life. The theory is that the children are much closer to their former life when they are children and therefore their memories are more vivid of that former life.
And then there’s Shanti Devy and her life experience.
I’ve seen stories lately about how the CIA is claiming that a person’s soul continues to exist after the body dies.
What all this tells me is we don’t know everything there is to know about this universe we live in. Automatically ruling things out is not a good idea. And automatically ruling things in is also not a good idea. And it’s good to be skeptical. There’s a lot to be skeptical about. 🙂
The UV has also done a lot of research on NDEs. The CIA has also been working on “remote viewing”.
God most certainly does exist. (could be plural, to any ancient Greeks, Romans, Norse etc etc)
Human construct ? …. or actual entity ? …… that is the big question.
A lot of the ancient philosophers believed there was an Almighty God that controlled the universe.
This line of thought is not new.
Modern religions all worship One Almighty God. Some religions include lesser Gods in the mix, but they still have only one Most High God.
And some religions claim to have adherents who have become One with Almighty God and are still in human form. I haven’t met any of these people, but would sure like to. I would have some questions for them. 🙂
The Catholic Church only has one god?
Excellent article!
If you follow Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, that the political is the distinction between friend and enemy, the moral is the distinction between good and evil and the economic is the distinction between useful and harmful, you can see that climate change checks all the boxes. It’s a war, a religion, and a business.
Very good James, I agree with everything you said.
Two Comments: First. The imminent destruction of the world due to human actions is literary theme of religious genre called apocalypses. The first and best known is The Revelation of St. John of Patmos. The root of the word apocalypse is the Greek word apokálupsis which means revelation or disclosure. What is revealed is the imminent destruction of the world caused by divine punishment for human misbehavior.
It’s not science it is religion.
Second Comment: “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.”
This quotation is often incorrectly attributed to British author G.K. Chesterton. It actually comes from page 211 of Émile Cammaerts’ book “The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton” (1937) in which he quotes Chesterton as having Father Brown say, in “The Oracle of the Dog” (1923): “It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.” Cammaerts then interposes his own analysis between further quotes from Father Brown: “‘It’s drowning all your old rationalism and scepticism, it’s coming in like a sea; and the name of it is superstition.’ The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything: ‘And a dog is an omen and a cat is a mystery.'” Note that the remark about believing in anything is outside the quotation marks — it is Cammaerts. Nigel Rees is credited with identifying this as the source of the misattribution, in a 1997 issue of First Things
Green Alarmism does not derive from science. It comes from a religion, the faux pagan worship of Gaia, the earth goddess. She is angry and must be propitiated by the sacrifice of human babies. The white liberals who are votaries of this religion have chosen brown and black babies to be the victims of the rituals of “population control”, “zero population growth” and “reproductive choice”.
Why has this bizarre cult arisen among what are supposed to be our most intelligent and skeptical class?
First we must observe the collapse of Christian belief in this class.
They are all Marxists now, not industrial grade Stalinists, but cultural Marxists theorized by Adorno, and Gramisci, and the French lumpen-philosopes such as Foucault and Derrida. But, even those variants of Marxism demands atheism.
Also atheism, especially, the nasty anti-intellectual atheism of Dawkins et. al., allows them to indulge their favorite passion — Contempt for the unwashed masses of Americans — the obese bitter clingers who inhabit fly-over country and cling to their guns and religion.
Having chosen atheism does not mean that they believe nothing. As Umberto Eco wrote:
“G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: “When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn’t believe in nothing. He believes in anything.” Whoever said it – he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.
“The “death of God”, or at least the dying of the Christian God, has been accompanied by the birth of a plethora of new idols. They have multiplied like bacteria on the corpse of the Christian Church …”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3621313/God-isnt-big-enough-for-some-people.html
The failure of prophecies of the Apocalypse does not invalidate the religion of Gaia anymore than the the failure of the Apocalypse to occur in the 1st Century C.E. (1 Thessalonians) invalidated Christianity. Such failures often cause the faithful to double down, not to give up.
Second Comment: “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.”
Or possibly as they reduce the number of gods they believe in, they have to be careful they don’t start believing in agenda driven celebrities….
Per Guardian alone, «Britain’s climate is becoming very hot, very cold, very wet and very dry. All at the same time».
Other than this… you gave birth to this mouse via building a whole mountain. But at least your mouse is not stillborn.
The long-term climate hasn’t changed one bit. The Earth is still in a 2+ million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation and it will be in this ice age until all natural ice on Earth melts.
To those twits dressed in red in the top picture, as in some strange wacky religion.
Climate change IS their life.
Their only purpose.
Sad, Isn’t it. !
The fact that Climate Change Crisis is a new apocalyptic pseudo-religion does not in any way reflect on the many deeply held spiritual/religious beliefs — indeed, in many cases, personal certainty — that there is far more to life than stubbing one’s toe on rocks.
It is the epitome of hubris for scientists to chant “all religion is imagined nonsense” out of one side of their mouths, while even our best physicists and astrophysicists are admitting that we understand ONLY about 5% of the stuff in the universe — the rest being labeled but not identified as “dark matter/dark energy” — the actual pragmatic meaning of which is “stuff we really don’t understand.”.