Environmentalism: the new religion?

Environmentalism, the doom and gloom that surrounds the reporting about the imminent demise of the planet by its careless inhabitants, the pontification from those who want to tell the rest of us what we are doing wrong, and the shock and horror that I hear from youngsters, all remind me of a different time, when I was lectured about the same stuff, although then it was not global warming, but rather, global icing, and the horrors of land fills and disposable diapers.

In fact, I even switched to cloth diapers for one of my kids, because I was so concerned about the impending disaster, and wanted to do my share in alleviating the planet's burden.

Then the Chernobyl debacle occurred, and I remember how scared we all were about that. Years before, the incident at Three Mile Island had made a profound impact on the perils of nuclear reactors and nuclear power.

So, it was with great interest and amazement that I just read a couple of not-so-old speeches of Michael Crichton. I did not know much about the man, other than the fact that my kids loved Jurassic Park, and had re-read the story umpteenth times. For anyone who is starting to panic and thinks that the end of the world as we know it is near, I recommend reading his speeches here and here. They are informative, rational, without all the hype, and provide food for thought.

In fact, I was surprised to find out that the Chernobyl disaster, although a tragic event, was not really the global catastrophe it had been depicted. About 50 people died in Chernobyl, which is apparently the number of Americans that die every day in traffic accidents.

In the final analysis, Crichton equates environmentalism with religion, ascribing it as holding all the incidents of the Judeo-Christian faith: the garden of Eden, a paradise, where man is in a state of grace and unity with nature; falling from grace leads us into a state of pollution, and we are faced with a future day of judgment. As "energy sinners", we are doomed to die, unless we seek salvation -or its modern day equivalent: sustainability.

Now, if environmentalism is the new religion, who are the real prophets and who are the Pharisees?

environmentalism religion Crichton Chernobyl global warming