This is Evil

By Chuck Ansbacher

Monday February 12, 2007

Over the weekend the National Post featured this bullshit article on their front page, accompanied by an illustration or Al Gore re-imagined as the Virgin Mary, cradling An Inconvenient Truth in his arms like the Holy Bible. The article is infuriating. Go on and read it for yourself. The temptation to spit on your monitor should become uncontrollable at the half way mark, when energy saving light bulbs are deemed “modern votive candles,” and the impending effects of global warming compared to the Second Coming of Christ. For the conservatives of the world, this has become the only solution to combating climate change; turn science into something as disputable and abstract as religion, and portray the scientists themselves as nutty zealots. While such rhetoric is completely baffling to most people, it will undoubtedly become the argument of the right as climate change gains greater public recognition. Get ready to see Bill O’Reily accusing his opponents of being “obsessed with science,” and of trying to “indoctrinate the public with their beliefs.” While the motivation of these nay-sayers remains perplexing (money?), it is undoubtedly strong, and their tactics will probably be effective. In referring to the set of laws that scientists govern themselves by as “beliefs,” it is easy to draw parallels between science and religion. Suddenly global warming and it’s predictions become Apocalyptic in their scale, and Albert Einstein becomes John the Baptist. But there is a fatal flaw in this reasoning. What Al Gore plainly laid out in Truth were not his beliefs. They are facts. Climate change is happening, and the longer we put off dealing with it, the more devastating an effect it will have on our planet. In publishing this story, and lending any credence to the argument that science is religion and environmentalists are zealots, the National Post has literally done the devil’s work.