The New Republic’s Rebecca Leber seems very upset
You Can’t “Believe” in Climate Change
It’s not a religion. It’s a scientific fact.Lst week, Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy made little impression on Republican senators at an Environment and Public Works hearing, where she said, “Climate change is not a religion. It is not a belief system. It’s a science fact.†She would have been better off aiming her remarks at a different audience—anyone who says he or she “believes” in climate change.
The phrase, “believe in climate change†returns almost a quarter-million Google results. As McCarthy said, science is neither a faith nor a religion, yet the term belief pervades media and politics. Why do advocates so consistently play along with the climate-change-denier narrative?
Conservatives have long drawn comparisons between climate change science and a fervent religion. A 2013 National Review column articulated the parallels thus: “Religion has ritual. Global-warming alarmism has recycling and Earth Day celebrations. Some religions persecute heretics. Some global-warming alarmists identify ‘denialists’ and liken them to Holocaust deniers.â€
I agree, it’s not a religion: it’s a cult
Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups – Revised (Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.)
- The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law. (in this case, there are multiple leaders)
- Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
- Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s). (spreading awareness, demonstrations, dressing as polar bears, etc)
- The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel
- The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary
- The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
There are many others, I obviously do not want to excerpt the entire article. And when they start yammering on about it being a “scientific fact” and are presented with contradictory evidence, they go loony. Cult.
I was always taught that the cardinal symptom of a cult was its relation to outsiders, i.e. that all non-members of the cult are to be distrusted, avoided, silenced and ignored so that their subversive ideas don’t corrupt the believer. This would certainly analogise to the role climate “deniers” play in the imagination of the faithful.
You show severe disrespect by calling our military a cult because they believe in AGW
Your alma mater believes in AGW
The Pope believes in AGW
The American Academy of Scientists believes in AGW
The Ameticam Medical Association believes in AGW
Virtually every government of every country believes in AGW
You point out the extreme snow on the east boast but you seem to think that the record breaking no snow in California and Alaska are not significant
Who doesn’t believe? Well many Christian fundamentalists who also believe that Noah put T Rec and unicorns!!! Onto his ark do not believe in AGW
poor little john,
the military does what they are told to do by the civilian authority …. grow up
man made global warming is a cult that abuses children, steals money, denies freedom, and hurts the planet.
In the linked article you should read what climate scientist, and evangelical Christian, Katherine Hayhoe has to say about belief and global warming.
she says “…I do not ‘believe’ in global warming, it is the only logical conclusion based on the observed data and facts.”
That is a good summation for the way scientists and the scientifically literate view global warming.
John-so by your “logic”, the record snow in the Northeast would cancel out the lack of snow in Alaska and California, right? So, no change. Anyway, unless you can prove there’s never been a lack of snow in those two places at the same time in the past, which you can’t, then it means nothing.
Why has the cult of the climate truthers banned the words “climate change” from being spoken?….?
In the 70’s it was global cooling that was going to kill us. Leonard Nemoy (rip), hosted a show called “In Search Of” and it proved beyond all doubt global cooling was our end. In the 90’s it was global warming that was going to kill us. In the 00’s it was climate change that was going to kill us. Then the false data and manipulation was revealed. Emails proved those climafearists were lying. Just look into who is pro carbon taxation and it’ll all make sense. Ie, follow the money…
That is false. There was no scientific in the 70s that the Earth was cooling. It was a media construct.
This is false. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was formed in 1988. Frank Luntz recommended to the Bush Administration that talking about “global warming” frightened the citizenry and proposed using the softer, gentler “climate change”. Luntz also coined “death tax”.
This is false.
This is true. Follow who is funding Deniers.