The religious mindset embraces the belief that there is more to life than the material world of the senses. There are truths that transcend the here and now. Things that give a non-contingent meaning to human existence. This is obvious with the monotheistic religions, and a little less obvious with Buddhism and polytheistic beliefs. Still, the appeal of this sort of belief in transcendent truths is pretty obvious. That means that not all that many people who reject established religions will move over to some sort of David Hume or Bertrand Russell-type sceptical view that what you see is what you get – we are here because of the fortuitous collisions of trillions of atoms, lots of time and even more luck. As Hume famously said, “the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster”.
That means that myriad people who hold secular views in today’s world are going to invest other things with a sort of enervated, but still transcendent, worth and meaning. It will become a sort of religion for them. And ‘climate change’ is the obvious exhibit number one. All sorts of people talk about this issue through a patently religious-type lens. They invest it with a sort of transcendent value. Mere cost-benefit type analyses are too tawdry and aren’t allowed because this is something beyond the material world of trade-offs and economic thinking. It becomes an explanation for everything, and so cannot be falsified (and really is not a scientific claim at all). Nor does it matter if actions taken in furtherance of this quasi-religious goal will accomplish anything at all, or not. As with the religious martyr, if China and India build a new coal-fired power plant every week (and they are) and the Trump administration pulls out of the Paris Net Zero accord (and it will) – meaning anything an Australia or Britain or Canada might do, including going back to the Stone Age tomorrow, will make virtually zero difference to future temperatures – none of that matters. Moral righteousness irrespective of consequences is what counts and what gives a sort of untainted meaning to life. ‘We will be a moral beacon, whether others copy us or not. We act in the service of a transcendent truth, etcetera, etcetera.’
Readers will think I’m over-egging this and exaggerating the type of thinking that drives many of the climate change cultists. But I don’t think I am. Talk to them of former Obama science advisor Steve Koonin’s book Unsettled, which pokes all sorts of holes in the supposed ‘settled science’ around global warming, and Bjorn Lomborg who argues our money could be infinitely better spent in preparing for a degree or two higher temperatures, and they will dismiss this all out of hand. Point out that extreme weather events have been declining, not accelerating (and the data are clear on this) and they will ignore you, and each time there is a fire or hurricane or flood, for them it will be a sign of the Climate Change God’s displeasure with human actions. No pedestrian human actions or failures will divert them from uttering the all-inclusive explanation that ‘it’s climate change what dunnit’.
Take the massive fires in Los Angeles. All the usual suspects have jumped on the ‘climate change is the culprit’ express. You’ll have heard this from Gavin Newsom, myriad Democrat politicos, Hollywood starlets, the preponderance of the legacy media (seemingly unaware, even after the recent U.S. election, that the vast majority of voters don’t give a flying firetruck what they think or are selling), the Teals in Australia, Bob Carr, the list goes on into the horizon. Now, a non-religious outlook that focused on the empirical facts would point to the lack of water management (no water retention, no dam building, and in fact dams removed so that this past year’s record rainfalls all ended up in the ocean) despite voters passing Proposition 1 to spend $7.5 billion to make it happen. It would suggest that the failure to do proper forest management and burn offs (in deference to the environmental lobby) mattered a lot too. As did the fact many water hydrants were empty of water. As did the $18 million cut in LA fire department’s budget last year, to fund DEI crap. As did DEI hiring practices and promotions in the that same fire department. As did all the homelessness that correlates with more arson. Ditto the illegal immigration gangs – start a fire and then loot when the owners have to leave. And did you know that there was no viable insurance industry for this in LA because the socialist Dems were dictating premiums that the insurance industry knew – given everything else Team Newsom was doing – were insanely too low. So many couldn’t get insurance.
Victor Davis Hanson sums it up quite pithily. These fires were “a total systems collapse”. Not spending on water storage. Suffering from an extensive DEI – so, by definition, no concern with merit in hiring and running the fire department – hierarchy. No forest management. ‘Newsom was fiddling’ while LA burned. It was like a ‘DEI Green New Deal hydrogen bomb’. And this despite huge rainfalls 11 months ago. And warnings from the insurance industry that went unheeded and forced many of these companies to leave. Nope, instead LA cut the fire department budget by almost $18 million last year.
But hey, if you’re a Teal or Bob Carr or one of many, many Democrat politicians this all happened because of ‘climate change’. Sure, I realise that not all exponents of this explanation are true believers. Renewables rent-seekers are grifters. And Gavin Newsom is watching his political future burn up before his eyes and needs to blame something other than Democrat policies. But we all know there are plenty of true believers in this cult. Heck, half the Coalition partyroom probably falls into that category (barf, barf). No amount of empirical explanation will dent the desire for these believers to embrace the gods of climate alarmism. And their need to lay moral blame on all who refuse to genuflect at the altar of this new pseudo-religion.
More has been done to protect and advance free speech since Donald Trump won the election than was seen in all the tenures of all the establishment Anglosphere governments over the last two decades – that is just undeniable. Likewise, the Don’s pending administration will do more to fight back against this climate change religious worldview than any established Anglosphere conservative government has or will do. Because when the costs get too high, businesses flee and everyone else is laughing at you for wearing a hair shirt to get to heaven, the spell can be broken. Los Angeles voters are getting what they voted for – good and hard.
James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University. This article first appeared in Spectator Australia.
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