The Metaphysics and Some Politics of Global Warming

From The Wall Street Journal
July 10, 2008; Page A14
Regarding Bret Stephens's "Global Warming as Mass Neurosis" (Global View, July 1): In 1992, at my 25th Harvard College reunion, we got an accurate forecast of the "ideological convenience" driving global warming alarmism. In a discussion of the Rio Summit on environment and development, one of my classmates effused, "Who would have thought that the environment would bring us world government?" In other words, the advent of world-wide "pollution" controls will lead to world government (which all of us statist Harvard grads eagerly await).

On the other hand, climatologist Patrick Michaels has noted that we merely need to "follow the money" to explain global warming enthusiasm among scientists and academicians: Huge amounts of taxpayer dollars are running down the drain of climate research, and the people raking in the bucks are the same ones spouting the global warming nonsense.

Grant W. Schaumburg Jr.
Boston

Here are the global warming movement's cultic parallels, many of whose characteristics can be found in Walter Martin and Ravi Zacharias's famous 2003 book, "The Kingdom of the Cults":

(1) Leadership by a New Age prophet -- in this case, former Vice President Al Gore.

(2) Assertion of an apocalyptic threat to all mankind.

(3) An absolutist definition of both the threat and the proposed solution(s).

(4) Promise of a salvation from this pending apocalypse.

(5) Devotion to an inspired text which embodies all the answers -- in this case Mr. Gore's pseudo-scientific book "Earth in the Balance" and his new "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary.

(6) A specific list of "truths" which must be embraced and proselytized by all cult members.

(7) An absolute intolerance of any deviation from any of these truths by any cult member.

(8) A strident intolerance of any outside criticism of the cult's definition of the problem or of its proposed solutions.

(9) A "heaven-on-earth" vision of the results of the mission's success or a "hell-on-earth" result if the cultic mission should fail.

(10) An inordinate fear (and an outright rejection of the possibility) of being proven wrong in either the apocalyptic vision or the proposed salvation.

Finally, since this cultic juggernaut has persuaded (brainwashed?) a majority of Americans into at least a temporary mindset of support for its pseudo-religious scam, Mr. Stephens's label of "mass neurosis" seems frighteningly accurate.

Jim Guirard
Alexandria, Va.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is responsible for establishing the hottest years on record, not NASA. Its data set is considered more reliable. And they say that the hottest year on record is 1998, followed by 2006. And the hottest 10 years on record all occurred in the last 15 years.

Richard Levangie
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Call it religion if you wish, but get it straight. It is the cynics and the intransigent who are "morbid-minded." Those who are willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the entire world are the ones practicing the "life-affirming" brand of religion.

Hugh Siegel
New York

Freud was wrong. Libido does not move the world; fear does. Power-seeking politicians thrive on that notion. They first plant fear and then offer a solution, acquiring power in the process. Global warming hysteria is an example. No scientific basis, but a tool for collectivistic control, or for advancing business interests, or both: Witness Al Gore's companies selling "green" solutions.

Tico Moreno
Sanibel, Fla.

If global warming is religion, does that make Al Gore, with his massive carbon footprint, Elmer Gantry?

Robert Trask
Oakland, Calif.

Mr. Stephens misleads readers when he says that oceans are cooling, but forgets to mention that he's referring to faulty temperature sensors. Scientists identified and corrected this problem last year. The most recent analysis, using millions of measurements from a variety of sensors, shows strong ocean warming over the past several decades.

Climate scientists have been studying and debating global warming for decades. Through that process they have reached a remarkably strong consensus: Human activities are affecting Earth's climate, and the impacts of unchecked global warming could be severe.

Lisa Moore, Ph.D.
Environmental Defense Fund
New York

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