This is a good article. I often compare today’s global climate change fearmongers with my experiences as a religious man in the 1970′s as some of us were drawn into the “Late Great Planet Earth” theology. The characteristics of the believers whether in a “last days theology” or in the pseudo-science hype of the global warming believers are rather similar. We both believed in some form of “special knowledge” that the unbeliever simply did not understand, bascially because we were the righteous and enlightened while they were the sinners and selfish. In both cases mounting evidence to the contrary did nothing to shake the faith of the true believer in their belief. In both views, there was at the foundation of their belief a view that we were a special group of people with a special knowledge about a special and unique time that threatened catastrophe upon the earth. Perhaps Al Gore, a lifetime Southern Baptist, was especially prone to thinking in such terms because many Southern Baptists accepted the “last days now theology”. He did not accept that line of thinking because he was more scientific than the often unscientific “last days now proponents.” But there is no reason men of science cannot chase hyped up catastrophic philosophies now tendencies, as do those of a more religious mindset. In the long run, I think this will be the lesson of the Global Warming view. When it is discredited, it will be used to remind us that there is great need to beware of fearmongering whether in science, religion, or politics. Humanity is driven by hope and fear, and we can get suckered in by extremes of either.
