NZCLIMATE & ENVIRO TRUTH NO 161
DECEMBER 24, 2007
THE NEW STATE AND WORLD RELIGION : ENVIRONMENTALISM
THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION
The human instinct to worship one or more nebulous beings in nebulous localities goes back to the five million years of our early evolution when we were faced with hostile surroundings and the necessities of daily survival. Societies were disciplined and dictatorial, much as monkeys, deer, lions and meerkats are today; and even some sub-groups of contemporary human society such as armies or criminal gangs. Obedience to a leader and rejection of those who did not conform was essential. Those who survived were the best followers of orders.
In order to ensure obedience to the leader, rituals were developed to make him appear special. He was approved and advised by supernatural beings, and the people had to be made to believe a whole theology to support the legitimacy of the leader. Priests and a church which sanctified the leadership were supplied. Anyone who disagreed was rejected, and their genes did not survive. The survivors evolved an instinct for worship and acceptance of authority which many still possess.
In this way, over the millions of years we acquired an instinct to believe, to accept irrational and supernatural explanations for those parts of our life we cannot control, and support and worship for leadership
The world today is still controlled to a great degree by religious beliefs, which assist the maintenance of leadership. Such systems tend to be resistant to innovation, to changes in technology and new forms of social organisation, and history has many examples of the downfall of entire civilizations because of religious and social dogma, conquered, replaced or overcome by those who have better technology and less rigid conformity.
The most prosperous and most civilized nations of this world have become this way because they have been able to overcome the stultifying influence of religions and the backwardness that they encourage. Although no country is free from religious influence, in one way or another many of us have minimised this influence, so that we can develop new technologies and new ideas which can promote economic and social progress despite religious interference.
Many of the most prosperous states in the world no longer have the burden of an official state-sponsored religion which can force citizens to behave in the way determined by the priests.
Humanist and sceptical groups in many countries have established the right of freedom of worship, or of non-worship. New Zealand is one country where a large proportion of the population declare themselves to possess no religion, where Members of Parliament and those giving evidence in Court are not forced to swear allegiance to any God.
At least, this was so until the growth of the Environmental Movement in the second half of last century. This movement has now reached the dimensions of a State and World Religion, both in New Zealand and in the world at large
It is difficult to draw a distinction between a religion, a cult and an irrational belief. All have their origins in the human instinct to worship. They are just a matter of degree. Nazi Germany fell foul of the belief that Germans were a superior race. In Stalinist Russia any measure could be justified on behalf of a mythical “working class”. These beliefs were every bit as strong, and as disastrous for their victims and their believers and as any belief based on a supernatural God.
Environmentalism does have a God, a Heaven and a Devil. So it comes close to qualify as a religion. It demands constant and increasing sacrifices and represents an increasing threat to freedom of thought, of science and of future human progress..
Early humans were surrounded with a hostile world, into which incursions were only made for essential purposes. Industrial developments in the eighteenth century led to a situation where the outside world was no longer dangerous, as humans had guns, provisions and transport. The Romantic Movement reversed the dangers of the outside world to argue that the world without humans was actually superior and artistically sublime. The concept of “Nature” which was superior to human habitation, became widely accepted. Even the most primitive humans came to be regarded as superior (noble savages) from those like Rousseau, who hated humans and human society.
Darwin’s backing of evolution and his explanation of its mechanism caused a widespread disillusionment with orthodox religion, based on a belief in supernatural beings. If humans evolve just like any other animal, surely we have no special privileges such as a supernatural God, life after death, a recipient for prayers, which are not available to our fellow creatures.
Darwin himself had great difficulties with this problem, as his wife was an enthusiastic Christian. It was only in his autobiography that he eventually admitted that he was an “agnostic”, a euphemism for “unbeliever”. His family censored this confession away in the published autobiography and it was not replaced until the edition of 1958. His co-discoverer of the theory of evolution, Alfred Russell Wallace, and many other contemporaries took up Spiritualism.
Biologists today still try to insist that humans are “special” and therefore capable of the irrational influences of religion. These views promoted by Julian Huxley Ernst Mayrs and others are still part of official biology instruction.
Recent developments in human prosperity have revised demands for a modernized religious belief, in response to the instinct which most of us still possess. Environmentalism has now grown to provide for this instinct on a scale that it begins to threaten the future welfare of the human race. It is now the official state religion of New Zealand and many other countries, and is promoted by the United Nations.
THE ENVIRONMENTALIST CREED
Environmentalism has established a new God: The Environment. As with other Gods, the Environment is all demanding. It controls the earth, or, as they will say “The Planet”. It takes the place of conventional Gods in having dominion over all human life, and the right to demand continual sacrifices. Devotees, now regularly comment on all aspects of human life and demand obedience to the requirements of the God on practically every radio and TV news programme.
The Environment also has similar characteristics to the Christian Heaven. It has no clearly defined location. Although it seems not to actually exist it can still be used as a reason for sacrifice.
The Environmentalist Devil is the Human Race. Humans are seen as responsible for everything on earth, but this responsibility is invariably harmful, and human influence must be prevented and reversed. The ultimate objective seems to be to remove all humans from the earth in order to restore it to an ideal golden age.
Ernst Haeckel coined the term “Ecology” to describe the complex relationship between all the organisms on the earth. Environmentalism uses the term to describe only those relationships that do not involve humans, or rather to pretend that this can be so. Instead of the complex evolving ecological pattern that really exists, environmentalists believe that the world is divided up into “ecosystems” which are uniform, stable, “balanced” and threatened by humans.
Instead of the complex relationship that exists between humans ad other organisms, evolutionists divide them into “pests” and “endangered species”. Despite the fairly obvious fact that very few organisms ever become extinct, and that the numbers that do are fairly constant, environmentalists are forever designating almost any organism as “endangered” and thus likely to become extinct, and thus the recipient of special, expensive, treatment. “Pests” can comprise not only organisms such as rats or malaria bacillus, which directly threaten humans, but they now include any successful organism which therefore threatens the territory of one which can be characterised as “endangered”.
“Biodiversity” is claimed to have moral authority and to be universally desirable. Organisms that successfully eliminate rivals, such as deciduous trees are thought to be immoral. Usually only organisms visible to humans are regarded as participating in biodiversity. Those requiring a microscope to be visible are let alone.
Instead of human development and economic and social progress, environmentalists wish to limit or prevent progress using a concept called “sustainability”. Sustainability is, essentially, any policy that meets the religious requirements of environmentalism. “Resources” must be “conserved”. Energy must be consistently economized. Almost any form of economic or social progress must be limited or prevented.
A whole range of laws has arisen to prevent progress, and zealots are prepared to break existing laws and risk even their own lives to limit or destroy human development. These may include campaigns to prevent animal experiments, whaling, genetic engineering, nuclear power, the mining of coal or minerals, contraception, or abortion.
One result of this continual pressure is the current increases in the price of all forms of energy, the result of campaigns to prevent the building of power stations or refineries, of prospecting, or the use of the most economical forms of energy.
REASONS FOR HUMAN VILLAINY
There is a tireless search to justify the belief that humans are damaging the earth. Easy or even difficult targets are sought out and magnified out of all proportion. Past slaughter of buffalo or moas were dastardly crimes. Whales must be “saved”. Pollution, radiation, poor diet have to be magnified. Pesticides are harmful and farming must be “organic”. Genetic engineering must be stopped.
In the 1970s, efforts were made to claim that “resources” would soon be depleted. Population was about to “explode”. Refrigerants were destroying the “Ozone Layer”. A new “Ice Age” was about to take over. Although these scares were unfounded, by 1976 the Environmental religion had replaced the conventional religions in almost all developed countries. They had established local cathedrals (Ministries of the Environment) headed by the local bishop (called The Minister) which imposed local dogma and had by then controlled many countries and was officially approved by United Nations
Then they took up their most successful scam; global warming.
Humans have experienced climate fluctuations of one sort or another since evolution began. Some, such as the Ice Ages have a long period. Others have shorter periods. The idea arose that it might be possible to blame these on humans.
It was Arrhenius in 1895 who first started the scare that the earth could be harmfully warmed by increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The idea was not successful, as there was a drop in global temperature for the following fifteen years, followed by an increase, but in a world plagued by a world war and economic crisis.
The global warming scare was revived in 1938 by G S Callendar. Once more, he was unlucky, as the temperature fell between 1940 and 1976.
By then the environmental religion was well under way and the global warming myth was revived for the third time as soon as the temperature rose again. The idea that the earth is warming because of emission of greenhouse gases had now assumed such epidemic proportions that it was possible to set up a large scientific exercise, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which had the task of supplying pseudo scientific evidence to support the environmentalist cause.
This body has timed its Reports to support a succession of stages in which the nations of the World are being compelled to carry out environmental sacrifices on a colossal scale based on the environmentalist myth that increases in carbon dioxide are damaging the climate. This is now involving compulsion in the choice of energy sources to “renewables” or those which minimise carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is now regarded as a “pollutant”; yet it is the very basis of our entire existence. We could not exist if it were not for the accidental synthesis of a chemical called chlorophyll in a primeval living cell. This made it possible to convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to living tissue, and to provide the means of existence for almost all organisms alive today. We are a living world built upon atmospheric carbon dioxide, yet we are being persuade that this life-giving gas is harmful and dangerous, and must be controlled. Ultimately, perhaps, we must discontinue exhaling it.
Since all available measurement techniques have found that there has been little change in global temperature for the past eight years, the term “global warming” is less popular and has been largely replaced by “climate change” which can be used to condemn humans for every flood, hurricane, drought, or change of any kind.
It is perhaps fortunate that the upwards section of the climate cycle which is most likely responsible for the moderate warming of the earth since 1976 is about to end, almost certainly to be followed by the expected cooling period. The environmentalist religion has so taken hold, and involves so many vested interests that there will be determined efforts to conceal the facts of any such cooling.
When future cooling has become clearer the environmentalists will doubtless go back to their campaign of the 1970s, the coming ice age.
The Environmental Religion, like all religions, has stifled disagreement with its dogma. It has imposed what amounts to a censorship on many forms of public expression. It controls the views of every one of our Members of Parliament. It prevents open debate and open publication of criticism of its beliefs and policies.
Our Government carries out campaigns for acceptance of environmental policies that permit no dissent, alternative view, or discussion. A prominent radio journalist recently announced that he would no longer permit criticism of environmental policies on the climate. Although there appear occasional “letters to the editor”, newspapers obtain their views from the Opus Dei of the environment, Greenpeace.
The Internet is, so far, a forum for free speech, so the fight to free us from the latest religious impositions must be mainly carried out there.
24.12.2007
Vincent Gray
75 Silverstream Road
Crofton Downs
Wellington 6035
New Zealand
Phone/fax (0064) 4 973 5939
"The desire to save humanity is
always a false front for the urge to rule it"
H L Mencken