Climaticism
Translated by me, written by a german journalist
Two thousand years after the birth of Christ, 1400 years after Mohammed, new religion pervades hearts and minds of the western world. This religion is climaticism. It was created using wikipedia, without any involvement of Moses or Saint Peter, cause here everyone is an expert on sacred scripts and everyone is enlightened.
Are we really dealing with a new Religion? I was intrigued by a remark I heard someone make: “changes in climate resulting from human activities are not doubted anymore”. As more people deny it, this thesis seems to be more and more confirmed. To negate climatic changes is an open blasphemy these days.
First suppositions about new religion being created slowly turned into facts when from California, from Napa Valley to the north from San Francisco, there came a news that Gaia Hotel replaced it’s copies of bibles, which guests could find for many years on their night stands, with a world bestseller by Al Gore “An Inconvenient truth”.
Both Saint Peter and Mohammed started from nothing. Today, what started in California spreads through America and then through the world. Let us look at psychological and structural similarities between the belief in God and in climate. What is the functioning of religion in society based on?
The believe in climate.
First the belief needs it’s prophets who, like Isaac, will send on earth rain of fire and sulfur, who will stigmatize sin and preach penance and conversion. “Woe to the sinful people, a nation full of guilt” preached prophet Isaac. His words may be compared to those by Al Gore: “We, Americans, have sinned … we have to do penance for our sins, by offering the comforts of our life.”
Next step in creating a new religion is creating and apocalyptic vision of the future – a Christian Apocalypse of St. John is an example, with it’s “fire falling from the sky”. But the vision of the end of the world does not have to come down to the final struggle between light and darkness, between Gog and Magog. Religion influences people by touching their deeper fears, appealing to their primal feelings. In Moses’ times religion was gaining new believers by inducing mortal fear, sending a flood, a drought or fires. Elements of the modern apocalypse in Climaticism are no different from the biblical: level of oceans is raising, areas that will not be flooded will be afflicted by drought, the rest of the earth will be destroyed by hurricanes.
The third necessary element of religion is hope and redemption. Biblical rain of fire and sulfur fell from the sky and destroyed the forces of Satan. “The lake of fire” consumed only those who “did not find their place in the book of life”, so thanks to redemption, one can enjoy the grace of God. Obedience to God, in Judaism, is the obedience to God’s law. In Catholicism to avoid hell one can confess one’s sins, do penance and promise to do better. And how does it look in climaticism?
Here redeemed will be those who give away their worldly goods, which also is an important element in religions. Prophet Isaac thunders: “You’ve destroyed the vineyard, in your house you hide many things you have stolen from the poor”. Modern version of this is the exploitation of the third world countries. Prophet warns: “Learn humility, every man needs to learn to “bow his head” or else “Lord will take away your riches”.
To believers in climaticism unlimited consumption which, by global warming, leads the world to extinction, is the sin. Leave behind your modern toys: cars, travels to the far places, air conditioning, eat no meet. Stop assigning Godly attributes to economical progress, humble yourself before mother Earth, buy a token of absolution with CO2 certificate.
Daily Whether report or signs on the sky
Every religion has it’s signs on the sky. The earthly cataclysm has been written about by St. John: “The sun turned black, the moon was the color of the blood”. Today signs on the sky come from the weather report which has just as much of a poetic freedom as there was in Prophet Isaac’s or St. John’s worlds.
Climatic catastrophe is too much and, at the same time, too little snow, too much rain, too much sun, to frequent floods and, at the same time, too little water. All this creates the climate, all is a warning and an admonition.
Prophet is right to be angry, but in his anger one can notice a bit of a jugglery cause what will happen if the polar bears will not go extinct? It’s about human fear and the depth of belief. Those primal instincts are the point of reference and divide the world into believers and heretics, members of society and outcasts. Conscience triumphs over knowledge, feelings over science.
Let’s quote Carl Popper, who himself quotes Aristotle and David Human: “All theories are hypothesis, all can be overthrown. The scientific game from definition is endless. One who decided to stop doubting the scientific mechanism is out.” To Popper’s words it can be added that anyone who believes blindly in his own conviction starts an outdated game which, since renaissance and the age of enlightenment, is played only in the house of God, where belief and certainty are one.
Global warming – progressive or cyclical, caused by human actions or not – has doubtless huge influence over the humanity in twenty first century. But this issue extends beyond faith. Faith is an unconquerable fortress while science is sure of nothing and bases it’s existence on doubts.
