An Internet friend recently shared his take on a new climate study that is headlined Historical records miss a fifth of global warming. His interpretation, with which I concur, is:

The basic premise is “our climate models are right – it’s the data that’s wrong.” It’s part and parcel with the approach that NASA and NOAA have taken to adjust upwards the recent temperature record in order to get it closer to model predictions.

Why would a scientific agency adjust numbers to fit models, rather than adjusting models to match numbers? Perhaps because this particular field of study has drifted away from cold, dispassionate adherence to “science.”

Most who pay actual attention to global warming research (as opposed to those who simply repeat the old and debunked 97% mantra or chant “settled science” in true Orwellian fashion) know that we are about 20 years into a global warming “pause” that was not predicted by any of the models, and that has elicited over 5 dozen post-hoc explanations. A rational person should, at this point, be questioning the alarmism that continues to be bleated by the likes of John Kerry and Leonardo DiCaprio, and should be more likely to say “well, hold on there, Hoss, your models ain’t working so well.” I number myself among those who have made that statement, and, based on what we currently know, place myself in the lukewarmism camp.

While wearing that particular badge is slightly less likely to bring upon me the slings and arrows that “skeptics” endure, the badge still marks me as an outlier in polite company. Why? Why this persistent embrace of alarmism and dismissal of questions rooted in actual history?

The conflation of embrace of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and religion has been made by many, myself included. The parallels are obvious, but answers for why are a bit less so. Certainly, the commonly-exhibited distrust of technology and human progress provides some insight, as does the anthropomorphizing of this big rock we all live on, but we need reasons for those, as well.

J. Anderson Thomson, a psychiatrist, wrote a book called Why We Believe in God(s), wherein he describes the evolutionary instincts that are sated by belief in a deity or higher power. Since, no matter our choice of faith, we are all humans, the idea that we are biologically wired with proclivities towards faith gives us a starting point.

If we look for common themes in the major religions of the world, we might be surprised (well, I’m not, but others might be) to find themes common with dogmatic adherence to alarmist AGW. Consider that many of the major religions invoke man’s imperfection, that they preach purer thought and better behavior in order to gain some post-life reward, that asceticism and self-denial are virtues, and that pleasures of the flesh are sinful. Consider that AGW invokes the image of man as a blight on an otherwise pristine (Eden-like, even) planet, that the “excesses” of cars, air conditioning and technology are the manifestations of the blight, that embracing those excesses is sinful, and that eschewing them is the path to righteousness and nirvana. If we parallel AGW with Western Christianity, we find commonality in the concept of original sin.

We can also find parallels between religion and AGW in the priesthood. While many religions have actual ascetics who live lives of deprivation and prayer, the higher ranks within religions are populated by people who drape themselves in finery, live in comfort (off the money of the faithful) and sometimes (quietly) indulge in the very behaviors that their dogma decries. Our AGW elite behave similarly, enriching themselves off that which the AGW “church” demands be done, flying private jets around the world, and so forth and so on.

Thus, dogmatic belief in AGW alarmism can fulfill some of the same evolutionary needs that faith fulfills, both for the religious and the secular. We don’t actually have to understand why guilt about embracing the pleasures that energy and technology bring fulfills our wiring, we can simply observe that thousands of years of history demonstrate that it does.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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