A couple of years ago I observed to a friend that the environmental movements was rapidly taking on all the aspects of a religion. More recently some other people have begun to observe the same thing and I have even seen the mass media picking up on this, Let's see:
They have a name for their God - James Lovelock's "Gaia" it seems. Yes many Environmentalists do not even know the name but the major players like Al Gore, the U.N. and Ted Turner most assuredly do.
When people question the premise this is no longer attributed to a scientific disagreement or simply being wrong like a scientist should on a scientific matter, it is attributed to capitalism or some such external 'bad' force that somehow corrupts people's morals.
Most religions of course move into political spheres as soon as they are powerful too. In Canada when Chrétien ignored Kyoto for years there was hardly a word said. Harper even though in real terms is doing more to bow to the demands than Chrétien is being crucified by the same people.
When a mathematician questions the math he is scolded for being "out of his field", yet the Canadian high priest David Suzuki has no credential in the field either (he is a geneticist and a journalist) but his supporters will go into a rage when the same observation is made on him.
Environmentalism also tends to have their worst fights with the competition in other religions, typically Christianity since that religion tends to predominate in the most economically successful countries and of course environmentalism is only strong in rich countries. It is not clear how well Elizabeth May's study for the clergy will survive this aspect.
At one point the Catholic church sold indulgences, which were basically a way to pay money to avoid some amount of purgatory, i.e. avoid paying for your sins the way the poor people would have to. This was of course a cynical move by the church to enrich themselves, and for the richer people to feel good even when they were 'sinning'. Environmentalism has "carbon credits" which amount to the same thing.
The high priest Al Gore has gone from a fairly poor person by the standards of power politics to being one of the richest since he owns a good chunk of the company exploiting "carbon credits". Al Gore is among the worse offenders for creating the greenhouse gases he claims to hate so much, but since he pays himself money for carbon credits somehow this does not matter. This is much like the leaders of traditional churches, who practice the opposite of what they preach and even worse since they wrap themselves in 'religion' they can get away from serious scrutiny on their actions.
David Suzuki is now saying the Conservatives should go to jail in Ottawa, interesting he makes no similar comment on the liberal parties... It is not eactly clear what all he said, but it appears that to simply not agree with his opinions is to become a crime. Can an Inquisition like the Catholic Church's starting in 1233 be far off now? Already in academia conformity is being enforced, next the general population.
At least one hotel has replaced Gideon's bible with Al Gore's book:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afIESX3LdgnQ
Religions all start from people's wish to understand the world around themselves, to make life a little better. Great and noble ideas. They all corrupt with time and turn into conservative organizations where support for their orthodoxy and their own personal profit becomes job one. In this respect I guess environmentalism has moved faster than most, in only 50 years they have done what took other religions centuries to do.
