Even though negotiations for a new global climate accord at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen seem to be rapidly deteriorating, with frustrated demonstrators trying to force their way into the talks, you wouldn’t know it by reading the (largely) right-leaning pundits. They all seem convinced that global environmental-pagan-cult rule is only days away. For example, we have this little gem from Joe Soucheray.
“It is a religious gathering in Copenhagen, nothing more and strikingly pagan in nature, but religious. They might as well be wearing hemp cassocks and green vestments, with a glittering crown of recycled pop-can tops for their spiritual leader, Al Gore, who is trying to pioneer the theological mischief known as plenary indulgences, only this time you can use gasoline to sin in St. Paul if only you plant a tree in Keokuk after first paying a middleman.”
The environmentalism = paganism rhetoric ranges from conspiratorial to spectacularly florid. It makes the usual climate-accord supporting disclaimer by Pope Benedict XVI seem so understated and reasonable.
“The final point of the Pope is dedicated to challenging those notions of man’s relationship with the environment that lead to “absolutizing nature ” or “considering it more important than the human person”, as it eliminates the “ontological” difference between the human person and other living beings”. In the name of a supposedly egalitarian vision of the “dignity” of all living creatures, such notions end up abolishing the distinctiveness and superior role of human beings. They also open the way to a new pantheism tinged with neo-paganism, which would see the source of man’s salvation in nature alone, understood in purely naturalistic terms.“
You know discourse on the topic has flown off the rails when the Pope’s “beware of paganism” boilerplate seems like a breath of fresh air. Amidst the accusations that we’ll all soon be worshiping Gaia in an imaginary socialist utopia, there’s still the issue of if the world can actually move forward on an issue that hundreds of institutions and thousands of scientists have a broad consensus on.
“The fundamental question is who are we as human beings if at some future date the next generation lives in a world with declining prospects and no possibility of reclaiming the beauty of this planet. They will look back at Copenhagen and ask why did you let this fail? What were the arguments? Didn’t you realize that we were at stake?” – Al Gore at Copenhagen.
With all the hot air over the “climategate” e-mails, and the lockouts and walkouts at Copenhagen, I have a hard time believing we’ll be forcing Michelle Malkin to sing “we all come from the Goddess” anytime soon, let alone see a comprehensive accord from the world’s nations that is anything more than a face-saving fig-leaf at this point. Then again, who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky (about the treaty part, not Malkin singing goddess-chants). As for tarring anyone who supports forward movement on climate change as a pagan cultist, I suspect the meme itself will never die, but that it will grow increasingly hollow as the world’s (non-Pagan) religions increasingly see the need to engage in “climate justice” for their global flocks.
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