Some chicken littles say we are responsible, and it is bad. It has become the cornerstone of neo-paganism, the religion of the relgionless. Global warming has all the earmarks of a religion, such a belief in a deity, as well as a devil. It preaches sin, both original and actual, along with sinners and salvation, and for those who can afford it, indulgences. It offers salvation to her proselytes and condemnation to her heretics.

The “god” of global warming is Mother Earth. Extreme environmentalists hold the planet earth in reverence, and worship her as a creator. To them, the earth is more than a planet that contains living beings, but it herself a living entity, and a supernal one, at that. What rubbish. Earth is merely mud, stone, and water, with air for the life on it to breathe. The earth is not alive. It does not have moods or personalities, and it is definitely not omniscient, omnipotent, or omnibenevolent. Ancient pagans made idols of wood and stone. Now they have left their carving tools at home, and have venerated the whole thing. It is just as foolish now as it was then. Earth is not divine, and it is blasphemy against the true God of Heaven to say so. 

The devil to the ecophiles is capitalism. Global warming is nothing more than a euphemism for redistribution of wealth. It has no more to do with the planet than Leninism had to do with workers. It is simply the powerful manipulating the week-minded to keep control over them. To speak of “development” is a sin because it is of the devil, the free market. Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, said that global warming has turned into a religion that has replaced the ideology of communism and threatens simple human liberties. Mr. Klaus said the rush to diminish greenhouse gases would hurt poorer nations that can't afford modern technology. He compares radical environmentalists to Marxists, and says the Kyoto Protocol requires enormous costs without any determinable measure of advantage.

So if advances in industry are of the devil, then what is the original sin of this pseudo-faith? It is carbon, or to be more specific, carbon dioxide. All life depends on carbon, and everything alive produces or consumes carbon dioxide. What a perfect villain! So anything that produces CO2 is evil. Gaea be thanked, there is a way out. The indulgences sold to cover our sins are the carbon offsets now available to the wealthiest of sinners. At the 1992 Democratic Convention, Al Gore said, "The central organizing principle of governments everywhere must be the environment." Gore's Tennessee mansion consumes 20 times the energy of the average home. Hypocrisy? Allegedly, no, because the new Pardoners sell carbon offsets, of which Gore purchases to his absolution. Historically, indulgences have diverted efforts from the creation of wealth. Isn’t this the goal of every anti-capitalist? 

And so, the world’s sinners are all people. Humanity is the problem to hardcore environmentalists. The goal of environmentalism is not clean air and water. It is the demolition of civilization. The world and all nonhuman life has its own value, and is not here merely to be consumed by man. Environmentalism is fundamentally anti-human. Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, writes, "The ending of the human epoch on Earth would most likely be greeted with a hearty 'Good riddance!'" In a glowing review of Bill McKibben's The End of Nature, biologist David M. Graber writes (Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1989): "Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet … . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along." The demise of one pine tree or snow owl is an abomination, but the death of billions of people is celebrated.

All religions have their good guys and their bad guys. The good guys to the global warming faithful are her converts. Science is not about making proselytes. It is about gathering evidence and testing theories, not preaching an ideology. Ecology requires devotion rather than intellectual rigor. The global warmers like to use the name of science, but they do not like its methods. Science does not seek or need converts. It teaches those that are willing to learn, but it does not impose itself on those who are indifferent. 

The bad guys are the skeptics, true heretics for the climate change faithful. The term “skeptic” has historically been a badge of honor worn by scientists as indicating their commitment to the idea that nothing is beyond question. Now, in climate science, to be labeled a skeptic is to be dismissed as a hack. Being a skeptic concerning global warming today is akin to being a heretic in the Middle Ages – you may not burn at the stake, but your good name will be scorched. Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book entitled "The Skeptical Environmentalist," disputing the hysteria surrounding global warming. Lomborg is a Greenpeace anti-war protester, not and element of some right-wing cabal. Lomborg was brought up on charges of "scientific misconduct" by Denmark's "Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation." Drink the hemlock, Bjorn! Scientists and scholars are refusing to share a platform with him. At Oxford the author of a study on climate change throws a custard pie in his face. There's even a site called www.anti-Lomborg.com. Another heretic is Dr. Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. He was featured in the documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle." For this, Ball has received hate mail and death threats.

Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said, "Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system." Similarly, Richard Lindzen, professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, said, "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labeled as industry stooges." The Weather Channel's Dr. Heidi Cullen believes that the American Meteorological Society should strip their seal of approval from any TV weatherman expressing skepticism about global warming. Worst of all is Dave Roberts. On September 19, 2006, he wrote on his online publication, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these b******s – some sort of climate Nuremberg." Really? War crimes for scientific heterodoxy?