Environmental Religion Archive

The article on Original Sin has moved. See Original Sin

Environmentalism as Religion

What does Al Gore say about the science behind global warming? "As it happens, the idea of social justice is inextricably linked in the Scriptures with ecology." It's in reality about socialism and religion, not science. See Exposing the (Eco-Socialist) Watermelon Cult.

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Michael Crichton

Who Else Will Be Responsible For Earth?

Letters To The Editor July 1, 2009 Bristol Herald Courier

My righteous indignation reared its head when I read a recent letter from Lewis Loflin concerning the "followers of the watermelon cult." Mr Loflin claims that "The earth is not holy, divine, sacred, etc." as he rails against the "pantheistic New Age nonsense" advanced by those of us who can clearly see and acknowledge global warming.

Perhaps we are reading from different Bibles, but mine states that "the earth is the Lord's...the sea is his and he made it, and his hands prepared the dry land." That clearly makes it holy, divine and sacred to me. If we don't assume responsibility for stewardship of the Earth, who will?

Joy A. Smith-Briggs Bristol, Tenn.

Exposing the (Eco-Socialist) Watermelon Cult
Environmentalism is Religious in Nature Thanks Joy for proving my point that for most people environmentalism is a religion. That is actually Psalms 24:1-2 and it says, "The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters." (NIV) In no manner does it say the world is God nor is it holy. If she was really a Christian (which I'm not either by the way) she would find the following:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and (his) divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened...They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator...Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them" (Romans 1:18-32)

In other words Joy worshipping rocks, trees, and dirt is idolatry. Injecting that religious view into politics and using it as public policy to promote your stupid religion still violates separation of religion and state. I don't need deluded mystics such as you using government coercion to meddle in my affairs or telling me where the hell to set my thermostat. That you for sharing you rant.

The Global Warming Petition Project

More Record Cold in 2009

Europe, in Grip of Low Temperatures, Faces Flaring Tempers and Disrupted Travel

New York Times January 11, 2010: Weeks of wintry weather have left Britons bickering over dwindling salt supplies, Germans worrying over the economic costs of a ferocious start to winter, and residents in the usually warmer corners like Spain and the south of France struggling with rare accumulations of snow...Patience was running particularly thin in Britain, where Met Office, the national weather service, declared last month the coldest December in 14 years, and January brought more of the same. The shortage of salt or "grit" for slippery roads and walkways turned into a political issue...Volker Treier, chief economist at the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, told the newspaper Bild on Monday that unless weather patterns changed drastically, the frigid start to the year would cost nearly $3 billion...

Could we be in for 30 years of global COOLING?

Dailey Mail 11th January 2010: "Some experts believe these cycles - and not human pollution - can explain all the major changes in world temperatures in the 20th century. If true, the research challenges the science behind climate change theories, and calls into question the political measures to halt global warming. According to some scientists, the warming of the Earth since 1900 is due to natural oceanic cycles, and not man-made greenhouse gases. It occurred because the world was in a 'warm mode', and would have happened regardless of mankind's rising carbon dioxide production..."

The research has been carried out by eminent climate scientists, including Professor Mojib Latif. He is a leading member of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He and his colleagues predicted the cooling trend in a 2008 paper, and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva in September...Professor Latif said: 'A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th century was due to these cycles - as much as 50 per cent. (There has been no warming since 2000.)

So where did the other 50% come from? Science Dailey March 21, 2003: "Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits, during times of quiet sunspot activity, has increased by nearly .05 percent per decade, according to a NASA funded study...This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change," said Richard Willson, a researcher affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Earth Institute, New York...

Scientists Excited by Arctic Ocean Ridge Finds This illustrates again just how little we really know about the earth when a series of new volcanoes formed under the Arctic. That is why we must question these things.

20th century not warmest, researchers find Extracts from a University of Delaware study showing climate change as normal and modern claims are mild compared to earlier historical trends. Ever wonder how Greenland got it's name? In fact this very process of geological and climate change is what drives biological evolution, an ongoing natural process.

January 5, 2010: Extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation yields a warm Arctic

The National Snow and Ice Data Center: "Arctic sea ice extent at end of December 2009 remained below normal, primarily in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic. Average air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were much higher than normal for the month, reflecting unusual atmospheric conditions. Finally, we provide a review of 2009 Arctic sea ice conditions."

They attribute this to a natural cycle, not CO2. Quote: "Arctic sea ice extent averaged over December 2009 was 12.48 million square kilometers (4.82 million square miles). This was 920,000 square kilometers (350,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for December, but 210,000 square kilometers (81,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in December 2006. Ice extent was less than normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Barents Sea, part of the East Greenland Sea, and in Davis Strait."

In other words we have 81,000 square miles more ice than in 2006. The 30 year cooling cycle began late 2008.

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Environmentalism: the new religion:

26/08/2008 Ian Plimer is Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. To quote,

Despite our comfortable materialistic lives, there are many who ask: Is that all? They want a meaning for life and yearn for a spiritual life. Some follow the traditional religions, others embrace paranormal beliefs and many follow a variety of spiritual paths.

A new religion has been invented: Environmentalism. The rise of environmentalism parallels in time and place the decline of Christianity and socialism. This environmental religion is terrified of doubt, scepticism and uncertainty yet claims to be underpinned by science...Like many fundamentalist religions, it attracts believers by announcing apocalyptic calamities unless we change our ways. Its credo is repeated endlessly and a new language has been invented. Logic, contrary data or questioning are not permitted. Heretics are inquisitorially destroyed...

This new age religion tries to demystify the world, a world that its adherents neither experience nor try to understand. The apocalyptic doomsdayers promote their new religion with seven second television grabs...Non-scientific journalists and public celebrities write polemics that encourage public alarm. The environmental religion produces widespread fear and a longing for simple all encompassing narratives. It offers an alternative account of a natural world with which adherents have little contact. Environmentalism embraces a myth of the Fall: the loss of harmony between man and nature caused by our materialistic society. It searches for the lost Eden, which probably never existed...

Religion, nature and environmentalism from Encyclopedia of the Earth:

Animism: As a generic category, Animism is by far the most ancient, geographically widespread, and diverse of all religions. Usually it focuses on spiritual beings and/or forces that reside in trees, forests, animals, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, springs, mountains, rocks, and so on. Accordingly, in Animism modernist dualisms such as natural/supernatural and matter/spirit are irrelevant. In other words, for Animists all that exists is alive and sacred. Animism is most inclusive in extending personhood, kinship, community, morality, and spirituality far beyond human society. The ideal of Animism is to respectfully engage in a morality of kinship and reciprocity with others, especially extraordinary beings in nature encountered in daily life, rituals, and/or visions. While Animism is the religion of many of the some 300 million indigenous people in the world it is not limited to such societies...in North America, Europe, and elsewhere, there has been a resurgence of Animism in the form of Neopaganism with an estimated one million followers. Furthermore, reflections of Animism appear in the writings of pioneering environmentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson as well as more recently in those of organizations like Earth First! and Earth Liberation Front...

Since the 1980s, one of the most interesting and promising developments has been the growing dialogue among religions as well as between religions and sciences regarding the environment, this despite centuries of recurrent mutual antagonisms. Although there are many problems and issues that these parties do not seem to be able to discuss together let alone to achieve any agreement about, environmental crises have become a catalyst for dialog and concerted action among these diverse groups...

Much more needs to be done by various scientists, academics, and professionals in objectively and systematically examining in depth the specific relationships between religions and nature in both theory and practice. Nevertheless, from the foregoing discussion it should be obvious that substantial accomplishments have been accumulating in research, education, and action concerning the relationship between religions and nature...During recent decades an environmental movement that explicitly encompasses religious and spiritual as well as intellectual and political components has been growing exponentially in the United States as well. Sometimes it is called spiritual ecology...

Bron R. Taylor...is Editor-in Chief of the benchmark reference work Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature published in 2005 in two volumes with around a thousand entries contributed by 518 authors. Also he is the primary scholar behind the development of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture and its inaugural conference in 2006 as well as its Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture launched in 2007. Furthermore, Taylor was instrumental in the creation of the Religion and Nature track within the Department of Religion at the University of Florida in 2003...

In her 2003 book Tucker expresses the optimistic opinion that world religions are entering a second axial age which she calls their ecological phase. Her view is sustained by the above developments and by the fact that increasingly pragmatic organizations like the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), World Bank, WWF, and Worldwatch Institute have recognized the positive environmental potential of religions as well. For instance, the Interfaith Partnership for the Environment was founded as a UNEP project in 1986. It has become a worldwide network of different religious organizations working to promote collaboration between their representatives and environmentalists. Also Tucker's view is affirmed by the fact that since the 1980s various international, multidisciplinary, and interfaith conferences have called for moral responsibility and action on behalf of the environment, such as those of the Parliament of World Religions, Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders, and the UN Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders...

For instance, in the last chapter of his textbook on spiritual ecology David Kinsley identifies these ten basic principles:

Many religions consider all of reality, or some of its components, to be an organic whole or a living being.
There is an emphasis on cultivating rapport with the local environment through developing intimate knowledge about it and practicing reverence for its beauty, mystery, and power through ritual celebrations of recognition and appreciation.
The human and nonhuman realms are directly interrelated, often in the sense of some kind of kinship, and in certain cases, even to the extent of animals being viewed as another form of humans or persons.
The appropriate relationship between humans and nature should be reciprocal; that is, humans do not merely recognize interdependence, but also promote mutually beneficial interactions with nature.
Ultimately the dichotomy between humans and their environment is nonexistent; humans are embedded in nature as an integral part of the larger whole or cosmos.
This non-dualistic view reflects the ultimate elemental unity of all existence; nature and spirit are inseparable, there is only one reality, and this continuity can be sensed and experienced.
This underlying unity is moral as well as physical; humans and nonhumans participate in a shared moral system wherein environmental issues are first and foremost ethical concerns; and nature has intrinsic as well as extrinsic values.
Humans should act with restraint in nature by avoiding the anthropocentric arrogance of excessive, wasteful, and destructive use of the land and other resources, and in other ways they should exercise proper behavior toward plants, animals, and other aspects of nature as sacred.
Harmony or balance between humans and the rest of nature must be maintained and promoted, and, if it is upset, then it should be restored.
Frequently the motivation, commitment, and intensity of ecological concerns are essentially religious or spiritual.

Ref. URL http://www.eoearth.org/article/Religion,_nature_and_environmentalism

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