“In Global Warming We Trust?” With the Copenhagen conference on global warming approaching, I have looked for an historical context in which to couch the debate. It is difficult to find anything in recent memory and the almost religious fervor by the left to discredit global warming dissenters leaves little choice but to look at former clashes between faith and science. Few clashes were bigger than that of Galileo and the papacy.
In the 1600’s, Galileo’s studies increasingly brought his theories into conflict with the dogma of the Catholic Church. Galileo was eventually forced to confess to the Inquisition in 1633 that he had indeed advocated the Copernican theory that the sun, and not the Earth, was the center of the solar system.
Today we are faced with a similar clash of faith and science, one that has all the trappings of common sense: manmade carbon emissions cause global warming. The theory is based in observation as was the ancient theory that the sun revolved around the Earth. The theory has been entered into the dogma of the left, just as the church adopted an Earth- centric view of the universe.
The similarities do not stop there. As scientists in Galileo’s time came to understand the relationship of the planets to the solar system, there were those inside the Church who analyzed and confirmed the fallacy of Church dogma. Dogma however, once adopted, is difficult to change. The infallibility of the Roman Church was at stake. In Galileo’s time the science and the scientist were suppressed, and their documents were banned. Today’s priests of climate change are at a loss when asked to produce the original data on which they have based their beliefs. Somehow the data is gone but the “word” lives on.
Now, however, much more is at stake than rhetorical infallibility. We risk using junk science to change the economic structure and social fabric of the world. The ability to feed and shelter the world’s population relies on the current economic system. Progressives desire to abolish that economy in the name of global climate injustice, thus stalling the advance of technology and allowing the earth to reclaim a large percentage of the “out of control” population. A burgeoning middle class with economic, political, and intellectual freedom is a liability to these believers. Like the church of old, nothing is more dangerous to progressive dogma than free thought and a dissenting opinion.
A sense of environmentalism is a good thing; there are few on either side of the debate who disagree with the necessity of conservation of our global resources. Yet, global warming is not about the reduction of greenhouse gases; if that were so, its proponents would not burn carbon so freely. Al Gore, Barack Obama, George Soros, and countless Hollywood liberals are like the 16th -17th century Catholic bishops, advocating for morals and fathering a string of illegitimate progeny, preaching humility and spending lavishly. Barack Obama’s carbon footprint is more out of control than his spending; if trends continue, he stands to surpass the previous administration’s output of first term carbon tonnage sometime next year.
No, it is not about saving the planet, it is about defending one’s faith in the face of scientific evidence, and clinging to the idea that the movement can accomplish a larger goal, a goal that is threatened by the truth. Defenders of the global warming theory are believers in a one-world form of government in which the West is held accountable for the sins of it’s ancestors. It is the progressives’ version of original sin. If you were born into free enterprise, you are tainted with the excesses of capitalism.
Today’s most dangerous defenders of the faith are more likely to wear the robes of a district court justice than those of cleric; they are more likely to carry court briefs than to carry torches. Today’s defenders of blind faith and obedience walk the halls of Congress, not the Vatican. Al Gore and Barack Obama are players, front men, the Torquemadas of their time, who give voice to a progressive cadre that will replace the church, while the UN fills the role of Inquisition. As with the pre-reform church of the Renaissance, modern day progressives will stop at no end to preserve the faithful diligence of the masses. Not unlike the Church’s refusal to recognize additional Gospels in the Bible, scientific evidence is suppressed through personal attacks on the motives and methods of the scientists themselves, while all the time the believers cling to a crumbling ethos.
In lieu of evidence that man-made carbon emissions have a substantial effect on the earth’s climate, we are left with a choice: we can take it on faith that our modern lifestyle will end life on the planet and we can put in place the tools to reverse the progress of technology (except for the privileged), or we can look at the scientific evidence ourselves and determine if the sun does indeed rotate around the earth as some in government want us to believe. I, for one, am more inclined to have a good look before taking a leap of faith into economic ruin.