- Through vilifying their opponents, demonologists attempt to close down discussion and debate. Such intolerance towards alternative and dissident opinions betrays the powerful anti-democratic impulse underpinning contemporary demonology...
And what heinous crime has prompted such superfluous moralism? Apparently, the church of global warming has become so axiomatic that to question its veracity, to practice good science and be skeptical of its modeled planet in the face of real empirical data, or to query the merits of centralized, state regulation in the name of the holy environment, is not just a crime of denial, of moral weakness, but of original sin manifest in every belching carbon footprint!
Sorry, got carried away with a touch of evangelical zeal and mixed metaphor: perhaps Obama needs another speech writer?
Nothing makes for bad politics like religious leaders dabbling in politics. In this instance, the demonology has found a willing supplicant and this, perhaps, will be the greatest legacy of the AGW hype: it was the last great gasp of the limits to growth, anti-development, anti-capitalist, anti-freedom, anti-progress church of the environment.
The problem with churches though is that there's always another one starting somewhere promising enlightenment in exchange for atonement. But unless the religion it is selling also offers hope and self-esteem, the parishioners will always re-locate when they hear the calling of a more authentic leader. And, fundamentally, there is the fatal weakness in environmentalism as a church: it is long on atonement and censure, very short on self-esteem and hope.
