The Sick-Souled Religion

Hat tip to Jay Nordlinger over at NRO for directing me to this excellent Wall Street Journal article by Bret Stephens, in which Stephens discusses the motives for the rigidly held beliefs of the global warming crowd even in the face of mounting evidence that the world has entered into a cooling phase. The global warming movement has often been likened to a religion in which one must suspend credulity, analysis and rational thinking in order to adhere to a higher truth, a higher purpose. Read the whole thing but let me highlight a couple of excerpts from the column which jibe perfectly with my own view that a distrust of capitalism and its success is imbedded deep into the souls of the global warming hysterics:

Socialism may have failed as an economic theory, but global warming alarmism, with its dire warnings about the consequences of industry and consumerism, is equally a rebuke to capitalism. Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification.

The column ends with this brilliant insight:

Finally, there is a psychological explanation. Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a large dose of penance. What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

As it turns out, a lot, at least if you're inclined to believe that our successes are undeserved and that prosperity is morally suspect. In this view, global warming is nature's great comeuppance, affirming as nothing else our guilty conscience for our worldly success.

In "The Varieties of Religious Experience," William James distinguishes between healthy, life-affirming religion and the monastically inclined, "morbid-minded" religion of the sick-souled. Global warming is sick-souled religion.

Of course, Al Gore is the unquestioned leader of this movement to drastically alter how we live, but others in high-places have drunk the kool-aid, including the execrable Harry Reid, whose comments this week can fairly be described as sick-souled:

“Coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick. It’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

Watch the video and get Captain Ed's comments on this nonsense here. We now have two nationally-elected Democrats coming out in favor of nationalizing the U.S. oil industry. We have the Senate majority leader claiming that "we’ve got to stop using fossil fuel." We have attempts from the Democratic Congress to sue OPEC and to curb speculation in crude markets. The same Congress is hauling oil executives up to Capital Hill to defend themselves and their industry, and calling for windfall profits taxes. We have Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi insisting that "we can't drill our way out of this."

These are the people who will be the making the decisions come November.