Why Environmentalism is both a Religion and a Con Game

Chet Richards over at the American Thinker answers the question: Why Emvironism becaame both a religion and a con game First, Mr. Richards explains the difference between a Conservationist and an Environmentalist:

I am a Conservationist. I am not an Environmentalist. What? Aren’t the two the same thing? No, they are not. In fact the two movements are diametrically opposed.

John Muir was a Conservationist, not an Environmentalist. He saw the wilderness as a “primary source for understanding God: The Book of Nature.” Muir did not worship Nature, as modern environmentalists do. Muir worshiped God, the Judeo-Christian God. So, here is the difference: Conservation derives from the Hebrew Bible. Mankind is to be Stewards of the Land. We are charged to husband God’s creation.

Environmentalists, for the most part, believe that the Earth’s biosphere is God. And, that human beings are destructive parasites, eating away at the life of their deity. In effect, most environmentalists are atheists searching for something larger than themselves to worship. But environmentalists see themselves as not being the riff-raff parasites that the rest of mankind are. Environmentalists believe they are the elect, the knowing, the superior beings, the priests, the Gnostics.

Because I worked in the Navy Environmental Program, some people think I too am an environmentalist. But I, like Chet Richards, I am a conservationist, a steward of God's creation. I worship the Creator, not the Creation. I recognize my place in creation as a fellow creature, who none the less has been given responsibility for the creation.  Environmentalists like to say that we conservationists want dirty air and polluted water.  That was never true, of course.  After all, we live here too, as well as our children and grand children.

 After discussing Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrilich, two unfortunate examples who gained fame and a modicum of fortune by scaring the public with unscientific theories, he then gets into the heart of the problem with James Lovelock and his theory of "gaia."

And then came James Lovelock with his “Gaia Hypothesis.” This is the notion that the biosphere is an environment-regulating ensemble of living organisms. In the large, the biosphere, together with its non-organic matrix, could be considered an organism, itself.  The idea is interesting. Indeed, it has proven to be scientifically fruitful.

But other people latched onto the biosphere and made Gaia a god. And, with it, made environmentalism a religion. A religion, which Lovelock himself rejects as misinformed – if not dangerous. Lovelock went through his hysteric period in the early years of the ecology mania, but he has since moderated his outlook now that his predictions of imminent environmental doom have proved unfounded.

In answer to the question "Why do people do it," Richards writes that it is a combination of ignorance, insecurity, and hubris. I think though, that the reason people put on these cons, and others follow them, is that people don't want to face up to the fact that the correct answer is the ancient one: living a spirit filled life following the Creator of everything that is, and that is not.  But man and his ego always get in the way of the message unless people proceed carefully and prayerfully.

Muhammad's ego got in the way 1400 years ago, and we are still facing jihad today.  The Gnostics thought they had discovered "secret knowledge," but there was no secret knowledge.  God had put it out there already.  Today, man thinks he is "evolving" and doesn't need to follow the old laws.  But as they will sooner of later discover to their own horror, the God of creation did not set these rules to punish, but rather, so we could live long and happily in His Creation.