The green gospel
From Paul Horgan Sir: I read the article by Allister Heath (‘It’s a wonderful world: richer, healthier and cleaner than ever’, 2 December) with interest. The author is correct to point out that the optimism of Indur Goklany’s book will be drowned out by the doom-mongering of the environmentalist lobby. I believe that the reason for this is simple. Environmentalism is the new religion of the Western world. It has replaced the scientific secularism of Marxism/socialism, which itself replaced monotheism when this began to be discredited by Darwinism.
This Earth worship has all the hallmarks of Christianity, which is why it is so easily accepted by the non-church-attending masses. Just as the Roman empire discovered, when the masses have embraced a religion the state has to follow, and it is doing so with a vengeance.
Consider this: the ejection from Eden and original sin are replaced in environmentalism by the transformation of the largely agricultural economy by the Industrial Revolution into a polluting hell on earth. The Ten Commandments of this new faith are the injunctions to lead a greener lifestyle. We have Armageddon replaced by the cataclysm of global warming. True salvation is achieved by going green — recycling wherever possible and driving an economical car. Sinners are the people who drive 4x4s, and the Second Coming becomes an age of total use of sustainable resources and de-industrialisation when we may return to the pastoral age we abandoned.
The religion has its own church and prophets, represented by unelected and unaccountable groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, whose words are accepted as gospel. It has its militants, who picket power stations and destroy farming and other businesses with which they do not agree. Their theology precludes all forms of industry as we understand it and results in the ignorant persecution of the innocent. We saw this with the Brent Spar affair, where the dumping of a redundant oil platform caused boycotts and demonstrations despite the fact that the environmental impact of the operation was minimal.
Of course, in this new age, what Allister Heath wrote will be seen as heresy. It remains to be seen how this new Church treats its heretics.
Paul T. Horgan
Crowthorne, Berkshire
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