By Gerard Baker
Friday, September 20, 2019
It’s been noted before that the cause of addressing
climate change has become something like the modern world’s version of a
secular religion. In much of Europe especially, but in sections of American
society too, a kind of climate theology has replaced
traditional Christianity as the ultimate source of authority over human
behavior, comprising both an all-embracing teleology of our existence and a
prescriptive moral code.
The High Church of Environmentalism has acquired many of
the characteristics of its ecclesiastical predecessor. An apocalyptic eschatology
warns that we will all be consumed by fire if we don’t
follow the ordained rules. The notion that it is our
sinful nature that has brought us to mortal peril—from the Original Sin of a
carbon- unleashing industrial revolution to daily transgressions with plastic
bottles and long-haul flights—is as central to its
message as it was to the Catholic Church’s. But repentance is near. A gospel of
redemption emphasizes that salvation lies in reducing our carbon footprint,
with reusable shopping bags and bike-sharing. The secular authorities preach
the virtues of abstinence. Meatless Fridays are no longer just for Lenten
observance.
Now its proponents will scoff, of course, and say there’s
a critical difference: The climate imperative is science-based, the opposite of
religion. Its bishops are Nobel-winners; its biblical texts are peer-
reviewed papers. But most people who express strong
adherence to the climate change gospel know and understand as much about the science
of carbon emissions or the greenhouse effect as the average
medieval villager understood about the Creation or transubstantiation.
In the iconography of traditional religion, children have
often played a central role. The revelation of universal truth to an innocent
child is an inspiring story that is very effective in both offering role models
and propagating the faith. There’s a reason the European
faithful used to venerate St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Bernadette of Lourdes,
the children of Fatima in Portugal: The testimony of a guileless child is a
powerful weapon against skepticism.
Enter the Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, now come
amongst us in New York for Climate Week. Her story is compelling: It recalls
that of St. Bernadette, exposed to the truth as a child and animated with a passionate
mission to share it with the rest of humanity. As with child saints of the conventional
type, Ms. Thunberg has overcome and indeed channeled personal challenges (she
calls her autism a “superpower” rather than a disability) and has proved a
remarkable inspiration to fellow teenagers throughout the world.
Like the children of Fatima, she has a simple message
that, if followed, promises to save the world from catastrophe. And now we have
the near miraculous spectacle of her sailing across the Atlantic without
emitting a molecule of carbon dioxide. Well, almost: It
seems that perhaps there was some climate-altering emission involved after all.
But it was a brilliant stunt. She could not have made a bigger impact if she’d
walked across.
None of this is to denigrate Ms. Thunberg. She’s clearly
a sincere and talented young woman who has dedicated herself to what she
believes to be the highest moral cause. Agree or disagree with “climate crisis”
rhetoric and some of the methods deployed in its name, but one can’t help being
impressed by her diligence in pursuit of duty and principle in an age with so
many less wholesome activities for teenagers.
Still, there is something about this near-religious fervor
among the climate change activists—a growing fanaticism—that recalls some of
the more troubling traits of extreme religious cults. Its status now as almost
universally accepted doctrine risks precluding necessary debates about practicalities
and policies. If human extinction is really only decades away, as some
activists claim, the implications are millenarian.
The case for man-made climate change is highly
compelling, but the more apocalyptic the rhetoric, the less likely it is that
good decisions will be made. Talk of extinction forces us to ignore the balance
between economic growth and both the causes of and
potential remedies for climate peril. There is an often ignored virtuous irony
in our planet’s destructive progress. While carbon-heavy growth is damaging the
planet, it is also producing the technological prowess to address the damage.
Take China alone. In the last 40 years its economy has
grown at an average rate of almost 10% a year, pouring incalculable numbers of carbon
molecules into the atmosphere. But the scientific and
technological innovations that growth enabled have
resulted in the invention there of some of the most important advances in
tackling climate change.
Rather than simply bewailing the costs of growth, Old
Testament-style, we should be mindful of its redemptive benefits too. Surely we
can all say amen to that.
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