A new religion is sweeping the world – the religion of climate change. Like many of the ancient religious dogmas, it relies more on faith than evidence and also like traditional religions, it runs the risk of becoming fanatical.
For the firm believers, evidence of climate change devastation is everywhere. Every weather anomaly is now caused by or at least magnified by climate change. The world will end if we don’t take action. It’s a noble cause that particularly appeals to young urbanities.
People need a cause, something to believe in. While places of worship may have trouble filling their pews, there’s seems to be no shortage of people who want to attend climate change rallies. And like many religions, it’s your duty to attract others to the fold.
If you are a non-believer or even a sceptic, you are to be scorned and shunned. Being an agnostic or even an atheist is perfectly acceptable in modern society, but if you question any part of climate change theory, you’re an enemy to the human race.
Flexitarians are drawn to Beyond Meat burgers because they’ve been told it’ll help save the climate. No use getting into the intricacies of how cattle utilize land unsuitable for crops and feed unsuitable for human consumption, they’ve been told that meat production has a higher carbon footprint and that’s all that matters.
Beyond the trendy activities, most of the activists spend their time calling on governments to take action. “Reduce greenhouse gas emissions before it’s too late,” they lament. Somehow, many seem to believe governments can solve the issue without affecting how people live, work and play.
The majority of people are in favour of action to address climate change. Even for most sceptics, reducing fossil fuel consumption where feasible seems like a good plan.
But how many people are willing to support actions that cost them a significant amount of money or that force them to change their lifestyle?
Here’s a simple example. Reducing highway speed limits by 10 kilometres per hour would save a great deal of fuel and also save lives. The only cost would be more time to get from point A to point B. That would seem like a small sacrifice on the altar of climate action, but it would be wildly unpopular.
Interestingly, green is the new red. Saving the climate somehow aligns with sticking it to the rich and the big corporations. Just make the rich pay for whatever is needed to save the planet.
Canadian oil and gas is villainized and we shouldn’t have pipelines to export it. The world should use oil from Saudi Arabia instead.
There are some inconvenient facts that the climate change religion doesn’t like to hear.
Canada accounts for 1.6 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions so whatever we do in this country has a negligible impact. Try having a climate action rally in China.
The world’s climate has always changed and it would still change if human greenhouse gas emissions were dramatically curtailed. There are factors at play beyond the activities of humans. Any climate change comes with positives as well as negatives.
The warnings of impending doom are increasingly shrill, but has your life actually been affected? Farmers would seem to be the most at risk from climate change, but the weather risks faced by producers in this country don’t seem much more daunting than past generations.