A new religion: Environmentalism?

The Current Online
Posted : 2007-09-17 19:56:07

Environmentalism has become one of the fastest growing religions in the world over the past two decades.

In 2003, famous author Michael Crichton made popular this not-so-new idea that environmentalism was a religion.

Lynn White first proposed environmentalism in 1967. White was a professor and researcher with Stanford, Princeton and other notable higher education institutions.

While most of Crichton's books and articles are seen as fiction or stretching the truth, he is known to be both an avid environmentalist and an anti-scientist.

From some of his papers and speeches, others have taken along the same path, with some claiming that environmentalism is replacing religion all together.

This begs the question, what is in a religion?

According to Webster's 2007 dictionary, religious is defined as "relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity," and religion is defined as "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs and practices."

The ultimate reality of environmentalism is a sort of impending doom - global warming. It is also just becoming "wrong" to not be environmentally friendly.

Just as it may be considered in many religions to be wrong to murder or steal, environmentalism is just the same, showing how we are killing the planet and abusing our resources and power given to us by nature.

Just look at how Hummers are looked down upon, and so is littering. Walking down a street that has lots of litter, people do not think, "Wow, these people are anti-environmentalist."

Instead, they just think the municipalities cannot afford to clean up the streets. This paradigm of environmentalism will change how everything is handled.

Environmentalism has become institutionalized. Just to name the intergovernmental organizations (those organizations created by a treaty between nation states): Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NAFTA), European Environment Agency (EEA), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN). Environmentalism is no longer a game or a habit.

It could be claimed that the churches of environmentalism are recycling centers, where anyone can go to dump off goods to be recycled. Some even claim that public schools are the churches of environmentalism.

The literature on being an environmentalist is extensive and at anyone's fingertips via the largest set of activist groups in the world.

Environmentalism is also much like other religions in what it demands - or requires.

In order to be considered an environmentalist, one cannot just recycle once or twice a year. It's a life style that requires sacrifice, another concept prevalent in religions across the world. In order to be an environmentalist, one must sacrifice.

While it is highly thought that being environmentally friendly is costly, the practice becomes cheaper by the day, and in fact, cheaper than using old technology.

In some states such as New Mexico, a house can be outfitted with solar panels or wind turbines for as little as $10,000 after government subsidies.

That is essentially a one-time fee, some maintenance down the line assumed, but any excessive energy generated by a private citizen has to be legally bought by energy companies. So in fact, it can be profitable to be an environmentalist.

Religion plays a large role in voting behavior. Just as some religions are more highly looked upon in certain governmental bodies, so is environmentalism.

Think about the likelihood of a non-environmentalist becoming governor of California. This is unfortunately just as likely as a Muslim becoming president of the United States, or even governor of Texas.

For those who fancy Google for research, one of the first sites found on environmentalism is http://environmentalism.com, which on the first page it opens with "Environmentalism is not about a desire to have cleaner water and air."

It is now a full-fledged religion, and its main tenet is "raw nature" as god-like, and Mankind as a plague infecting it."

Whether or not this is true will probably never be settled, however, it is evident that environmentalism is setting the standard in nearly every walk of life and becoming the new paradigm of the Western world.

Not only are cars and large machinery affected by environmentalism, but now it seems that everything is affected. It is difficult to not know what environmentalism is, or be cognizant of the ideas.

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) questions how if environmentalism is a religion, that is can be taught in schools.

The U.S. Constitution calls for the separation of church and state. If environmentalism did become a church, how would the US Supreme Court handle this?

If everyone were an environmentalist, would anyone care?

Would teaching environmentalism become the same as saying the pledge of allegiance in elementary school?