Global Warming Jihad

Article by Butler Shaffer at LewRockwell.com:

In my college days, I was introduced to a book, written in 1841 by Charles Mackay. Titled Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, it remains a worthwhile chronicle – at least through the mid-nineteenth century – of some of the consequences of mankind’s periodic collapses into mass-mindedness. If Mackay was around today, he would be able to devote a chapter to the emergence of the latest secular religion: environmentalism.

It is a common mistake for people to assume that religious faith and fervor are qualities to be found only within institutionally-structured churches with formal doctrines and rituals. They are to be found, in varying degrees, within all belief systems, be they secular or theistic in nature. The polar opposite philosophies of Marxism and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism – both of which openly condemned traditional religion – are, themselves, grounded in a faith in various central propositions. True-believers of these doctrines who voiced doubt as to any of the underlying premises, have been subjected to purges as enthusiastically conducted as medieval trials for heresy.

I am a strong defender of the processes of scientific inquiry. And yet, I am aware that most scientists cling to a faith in conclusions that have been widely accepted within their respective communities, and angrily react against any heresies – however well-documented and reasoned – that arise from skeptical minds.

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