Climate change has become a religious movement, based on dogmatic belief rather than scientific facts.
by Michael Blair, August 8, 2022
Climate alarmism has captured the minds of political leaders across the globe. But why is this alarmism accepted so easily by scientists, the media and the public in the face of so little actual scientific evidence?
Millions of people share a common belief. This belief is backed by intellectuals who claim to have deep understanding of the issues facing mankind. The intellectuals have published erudite papers reviewed and adopted by their peers. Their papers are collected and published in comprehensive outpourings of their writings.
They are concerned that humanity may suffer if the issues they see are not dealt with. They have prescriptive remedies and are intolerant of any dissent from their closely held beliefs. Many of them occupy positions of great status and power in society.
They are willing to punish those who contradict them and believe they are doing God’s work. They are indifferent to who gets hurt and are inspired by the highest motives. They have used their power mercilessly to save mankind from the catastrophes they foresee if their beliefs are ignored.
Although this scenario exactly fits climate-change alarmism, I am actually referring to the intellectuals of the Medieval Catholic Church.
The Bible (in its many versions) is the outpouring of their writings, accepted by millions as Gospel, the word of God. These intellectuals vilified, tortured and even executed people who disagreed with them (the alarmist Inquisition isn’t quite as violent; it just ”executes” careers) . They urged kings and armies to invade countries that denied their beliefs because the church authorities sincerely believed that if these “deniers” didn’t recant, they would be denied entry into Heaven.
I don’t mean to pick on the Catholic Church; some forms of radical Islam are equally totalitarian and dangerous. History is rife with “movements” based on religious zeal. However, millions of believers is not proof of anything other than mankind’s propensity to become deluded.
Climate change is no different. It has become a religious movement, based on dogmatic belief rather than scientific facts. For example, the theory that CO2 is the chief cause of climate change is not just absurd but also inconsistent with even a grade-school application of the laws of physics. (In an earlier article I set out the arithmetic showing that a doubling of CO2 levels could not materially affect atmospheric temperatures.)
I often hear that “the majority of scientists support the theory” that CO2 causes climate change. Not only is that nonsense but also it is irrelevant. Only one scientist needs to be correct to disabuse society of any theory. If a theory predicts an outcome and the outcome fails to materialize, the theory is wrong. Full stop.
This movement began with the Club of Rome in the 1960’s—a group of elites that thought the world’s population was growing out of control and that capitalism was harmful. They conceived of using climate alarmism to rally support for a post-national global socialist government.
The membership of that group has changed over time, but the rhetoric has only grown more strident. At the annual meeting in Davos of the World Economic Forum these elites discuss the “Great Reset” and bless their good fortune that the COVID pandemic gives them another global crisis they can claim could only be solved by a global response.
At least some of the members of the climate elite have had the grace to admit that the motivation for global-warming alarm has nothing to do with climate. Christine Stewart, a former Canadian minister of environment, was quoted as follows:
No matter if the science of global warming is all phony … climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.
Timothy Wirth, while president of the UN Foundation, echoed a similar sentiment:
We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.
Ottmar Endenhofer, co-chair of Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was equally forthcoming:
We (UN-IPCC) redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy …. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing do do with environmental policy any more….” [Nov. 13, 2010 interview]
This climate movement is as or more dangerous than radical Islam today or Catholicism in the Middle Ages. Luckily, the promoters of the climate religion are largely leaders of democratic countries and we can throw them out. Has anyone seen the leaders of China or Russia promoting the climate scare? Or are the tyrants using fossil fuels hand over fist while Western democracies self-immolate on the altar of “climate”?
In the meantime, our elected leaders doing “God’s work” have created a global energy shortage that will impair the lives of millions of ordinary citizens, drive continuing inflation and impoverish many. We need to toss them out.
This article has been edited and condensed. For the original, see https://michaela34.substack.com/p/is-climate-change-a-conspiracy