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Environmentalism is the new religion?

“Environmentalism is the new religion in this post modern world and like all religions you have an ”end times” senario to believe in.”So us sinfull humans must be punished for our love of the fossil fuel and motorway and overseas travel.And the penance we must pay is carbon tax.And we all await a fiery future with global warming for our sins!”

Something that shits me at the moment is the frequency with which I’m seeing comments like this – that environmental activism is just a new religion. I’ve seen it on blogs, in newspaper Op-Ed pieces, and on Usenet. Often it is combined with a view that market forces will avert problems or provide the best solutions.

Yes, it’s true that environmental activism may be a religion to some. But to others it is just cold, rational, thinking. It is simply not in our interests to severely disrupt an environment that our comfort, economies and lives are deeply entwined with, in complex ways that we sometimes have a poor understanding of. ‘End-times’ scenario’s are often the realistic consequences of not changing our behaviour to acknowledge this.

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