Environmental Paganism

It’s a fun thought for a Sunday morning. The new much-acclaimed Democratic legislation pretends to be saving the planet and reducing inflation. No one really believes that it will do so, but that is unimportant. It’s not about results; it’s all about the spin. And Joe Biden and his minions in the media keep saying that the new law is a great leap forward. Remember the last Great Leap Forward, instituted by Chairman Mao? 

Anyway, I cannot help but agree with Stephen Moore, to the effect that the current climate change hysteria represents a return to paganism. It has produced a cult.

After all, as we and many others have noted, our advanced civilization believes fervently in mutilating children. A pox on your house if you dispute the new pagan dogma. Is this a form of human sacrifice? You bet it is.

So, Moore recalls a statement from none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to the effect that the new legislation is good because it shows us willing to make a sacrifice to assuage an angry planet. No kidding. We cannot allow the planet to be angry at us.

Pelosi (D-CA) claimed the wind, solar, and electric subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act would placate an "angry" planet. "Mother Earth gets angry from time to time, and this legislation will help us address all of that," the speaker said.

This is a highly revealing statement. Do Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues really believe that spending $300 billion on Tesla subsidies (with batteries made in China), windmills (made in China), and solar panels (made in China) is going to save the planet, stop the rise of the oceans, and lower the global temperature?

If they are merely promoting a pagan religious cult, they do not care whether the bill works as intended. They are undermining the religion of the patriarchs and Western monotheism. That seems to be an important goal in their cultural revolution.

For an in-depth analysis of the encroaching paganism, I recommend Tara Isabella Burton’s excellent book, Strange Rites. 

As for whether it will work, the truth is, only the dopes and dupes who run Western governments are working to destroy their countries, in order to placate the goddess of the Planet. As you know, the rest of the world, our opposition and our adversaries, from Russia and China and India, to Africa and South America, does not grant credence to schoolchildren, and is ramping up energy production, from coal to nuclear to fossil fuels. No fools they.

In truth, if the legislation works as intended, it will not change much of anything:

Even if this additional $300 billion were to work as planned, the Wall Street Journal reports that the impact on global temperatures in the coming decades would be to lower them by 0.001%. So, instead of the global temperature being an average of 59 degrees Fahrenheit, it will be 58.999 degrees. Thank God! We are saved from Armageddon.

But, what really matters, Moore notes, is that we are going to sacrifice the economy, and repeal the Industrial Revolution, because it has offended the goddess of the Planet. 

But as Pelosi's quote makes clear, this is about symbolism. It is about ruining the economy as a sacrifice to Mother Earth. Marc Morano, the journalist who runs the Climate Depot website, asks: "Will human sacrifices be next to appease the 'angry' Earth gods? Actually, this bill will create human sacrifice by imposing even more suffering from energy deprivation, supply chain issues, good shortages, inflation, debt, and bad science."

Who will suffer? Poor people, of course. Since the new law is specifically designed to help the poor people who constitute the Democratic base, you can feel reasonably confident that poor people will suffer the most. It’s like the aberrant notion that the best way to educate minority children is to fill their minds with critical race theory. When schools do it, they discover that the supposed beneficiaries of their largesse do not know how to read and write. But they can mouth leftist platitudes.

Nowadays, Europe, following the lead of Sri Lanka, is becoming energy deprived. It is now rationing energy. And, of course, the great Angela Merkel succeeded in empowering Vladimir Putin, Russia and China.

He's right. The suffering that will occur from this assault on American energy security and reliability could be profound — and it will be the lowest-income people who will be hurt the most. Inflation will rise as energy prices soar. The shortages of energy will cause hardship for many consumers, including food shortages. Europe, which got hooked on the green energy fad, is now rationing energy. In Spain, there are new restrictions on using air conditioning to set the temperature of your store or home at less than 80 degrees — during a heat spell. It's one of those sacrifices to Mother Earth.

As for the climate science, Moore reminds us that, however hot it has been in America this summer, it was hotter in the 1930s. It is good data point to weigh:

The warmest years in North America are not recent years — instead, they occurred during the 1930s amid the Dust Bowl era. This was before 80% of the carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere. Back then, tens of thousands of U.S. residents died from extreme weather. But now we have, through modern electric power and technological innovation, major ways to reduce death rates from weather events. The way to save the Earth is through more growth, more innovation, and a richer planet.

And, of course, the American public does not care. It has not bought the new paganism. It wants a better economy. And it prefers the One God, the God of Moses, to the pagan divinities that Moses freed us from:

Only 1 out of 20 people rate climate change as the No. 1 problem facing our country. The public wants lower inflation and more prosperity. This law delivers neither.

The God that most of us worship wants us to create peace, prosperity, and light. The god of radical environmentalists will deliver darkness, despair, and decline.