Climate-change heretics and Al Gore's inquisition
By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 18, 2015
In today’s America, no one—not even one of those nasty old Christian fundamentalists—would propose punishment for people who do not accept the truths of the Bible. Yet Al Gore—who was very nearly elected President of the United States just a few years ago— has now suggested penalties for those who deny the theory of climate change. While preaching tolerance to others, the makers of fashionable opinion are as intolerant as the fiercest imams when it comes to heresy against their own favored religious dogmas.
Yes, I am saying that, at least for most people, belief in climate change is the equivalent of a religion. Not one person in one hundred has the scientific credentials necessary to form an intelligent opinion on the subject. A few scientists make a plausible argument in favor of the proposition that human activity is changing the world’s climate, and a few other scientists disagree with them. For the rest of us, the hypothesis of manmade climate change is one that we accept on faith, or on the authority of others, if we accept it at all.
So belief in climate change is a faith, like Christianity. But here’s the key difference: Nobody is getting federal government grants to spread the truths of the Christian faith, nor is anyone being punished for denying them.
Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.
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Posted by: TheJournalist64 -
Mar. 21, 2015 5:49 AM ET USA
I made a point some years ago in Chemical and Engineering News: first we must prove that the earth is warming, and there is some evidence for that. Then we must prove that a warming earth is bad, and the "little ice age" suggests that it isn't, or at least the opposite is. Then we must show that human activity caused a warming earth, and finally that the proposed solution will fix the problem. That's a long chain easy to break.
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Posted by: Thomas429 -
Mar. 20, 2015 10:46 PM ET USA
The proponents of man caused climate change also have another problem. There are a large number of people who have been through pronouncements of a coming ice age caused by man's iniquity and an earth afire due again to man's activity, and now "climate change". This inability to agree to what we are doing is a major weakness in their arguments.
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Posted by: Thomas429 -
Mar. 20, 2015 10:39 PM ET USA
However people are getting punished for professing, publicizing, and acting on their Christian beliefs. But, we should not let that stop us. BTW, it does not require a complete understanding of the mechanics of climate to see that anthropogenic climate change is bunk. A very cursory overview of historical times reveals a few climatic shifts. The fossil record is even more replete with evidence massive climatic shifts. These facts argue that it is probably happening again.
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Posted by: shrink -
Mar. 18, 2015 7:22 PM ET USA
MIT climate scientist Prof. Richard Lindzen "No matter what you believe about climate [change disaster scenarios], [none of the proposed EPA CO2 regulations] will have any impact on climate. The regulations do make energy more expensive, less available, less useful, they do hurt the poor, and they raise prices. It’s hard to see what the upside is excerpt for the people who get the subsidies. The whole thing is fairly absurd. There is so much money changing hands." Ah, yes. Govt. control and $$.
