Monday - March 26, 2007

Editorial: The Climatarian Church

I haven’t done one of my long, tongue-in-cheek editorials in quite some time so I figure I’m past due for another verbal explosion. While relaxing on vacation last week, I had a sudden thought occur to me over a pitcher of margaritas.

I got to thinking about creationism versus evolution and the difference between science and faith. Then, in a flash, Al Gore jumped into this mental discussion going on in my head and suddenly it all made sense as you can read below.

Upon my return, I had almost forgotten about this train of thought until I started seeing videos of Gore testifying before Congress last week. Before you can say “polar bear extinction”, my fingers flew across the keyboard and the vision became satire right before my very eyes. I then spent a little time in PhotoShop reinforcing the vision and what emerged is this ...

Archbishop Gore And The
Climatarian Church Of Latter Day Scientists

Al Gore should never have been allowed to go before Congress last week and by all means should not be allowed to take his message to our schools. His doing so violates the First Amendment intent of separation of church and state – not to mention the fact that conducting a national campaign to raise himself to messiah level and establish a new church is downright sacrilegious.

“What’s that?”, you say, “Gore is not a preacher.”

Wrong.

Gore is indeed a preacher and is head of the new Climatarian Church Of Latter Day Scientists. Let me explain …

The first thing a new startup religion needs is an existing religion to build a base on. The Muslims stole prophets and teachings from Christianity. The Christians stole from the Jews. The Jews didn’t actually steal anything. They just got a ten-percent discount from God on common sense ideas carved into stone in the Sinai Desert.

Let’s look at part of Archbishop Gore’s testimony to Congress on March 21 …

“I believe the purpose of life is to glorify God, and we can’t do that if we’re heaping contempt on the creation.” ₁

Whoa! The Prophet From Tennessee goes all the way back to Genesis and invokes God and Creation and chastises the human race for peeing in the swimming pool. You can’t get any more basic than that. The Hebrews are now second in line for having received the Word Of God, according to Gore. He got it first. Checkmate, Judah.

The second thing a startup religion needs is a prophet who has been cast out, wandered in the wilderness, purged himself of sinful thoughts and had a vision from … somewhere. Failing that, any fruitcake who has spent too much time gazing at the sun or his own navel will do in a pinch.

You may recall the Fall of 2000 and the aftermath of the Presidential election that Gore narrowly lost by a few hundred votes. Here was a man who had spent his whole life chasing one elusive goal – becoming President of the United States. He had spent his youth in the Army press corps covering Vietnam from behind a typewriter in the sweltering heat and danger of paper cuts. Then after years in Congress and later in the Senate, he was elevated to the Number Two slot in our Republic by William Jefferson Clinton, a direct descendent of P. T. Barnum and his wife who undoubtedly could trace her ancestry (and political habits) back to the Medici family.

Gore was only a heartbeat (and a blue stained dress) away from his lifelong dream. Then, with a resounding thud, the voters in Florida forgot how to punch chads – or some similar mythical occurrence that altered the course of the stars, re-aligned the planets and placed a dumb redneck rancher from Texas in the office that was destined to be his. Destiny can do that to you at times.

He screamed, ranted, wailed, tore his raiment, heaped ashes on his head and appealed to the highest magistrates in the land – to no avail. The prize of immortality as head of the Free World was wrenched from his grasp in a spiritually shattering instant.

He was last seen on a bleak December night downing Heinekens with Tom Petty and band (appropriately known as The Heartbreakers). Then he disappeared into the wilderness (actually the South of France but the difference is marginal at best).

There he fought his demons, gazed at his navel and grew a beard. He also had an epiphany. The message he received was to go forth and expand on a book he wrote earlier in life that sold dozens of copies worldwide.

The voices told him to address mankind and bring about a Luddite revolution that would set mankind back hundreds of years, remove evil technology and return us all to a utopian village of pastoralists completely in tune with God’s creation around us.

These are the same voices, derived from magic mushrooms or other natural ingredients, that have educated prophets for thousands of years. St. John of Patmos tried them and saw riders on pale horses and whores in Babylon. The Prophet Gore saw melting glaciers and an Academy Award.

Which brings me to the third thing a startup religion needs: a good PR department.

Now Jesus was really cool. He gathered these twelve guys around him, showed them miracles of God and rose from the dead right before their eyes. These twelve guys then went out into the world, completely convinced they had broken bread and shared a Chablis with the Son Of God. You just can’t do better than a dozen convinced (and convincing) true believers for spreading the word.

Mohammed came along and had an even more direct publicity department, namely the point of a sword – which will convince most people to believe in relatively short order. Either that or the unbelievers are eventually disposed of through attrition.

The Prophet Gore has them all beat though. Moses, Jesus and Mohammed never came close to the modern PR experts known as Hollywood and Media. This twin-headed dragon of modern propaganda holds the masses tightly in its grasp and controls what the people think, believe and crave. In a nutshell, they have us by the short hairs.

So the Prophet Gore went to these public relations magicians and their money changers for help. They provided the financial backing and the commensurate hype to help Gore make a book and a movie to distribute to the masses that would carry all the prophet’s warnings of doom and all the “wrath of God” stuff necessary to convert the unbelievers.

But wait! “Unbelievers” in what?

Aha! There comes the tricky part. The prophet had to come up with a message that was (a) vague, (b) convincing, and (c) unable to be disproved. After suitable consultation with the voices, the prophet came forth with the message of “Global Warming”.

“What we’re facing now is a crisis that is by far the most serious we’ve ever faced.  The Arctic ice will be gone entirely in 34 years.

The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, ‘Well, I read a science-fiction novel that tells me it’s not a problem.’” ₂

Folks, this is Revelations and Twilight Of The Gods all rolled into one. Hear the Chosen One! Heed his words or God will smite you all with hurricanes, floods and various assorted chiggers and gnats of doom.

Now anyone who didn’t sleep through geology class knows that the planet we live on is a closed ecosystem that throughout its lifespan has gone through numerous warming and cooling cycles so an explanation is pretty much only a good guess until we collect more data. On top of that, how much warming or cooling is what we could call “extraordinary”? This makes the prophet’s message vague.

The prophet points at recent deadly hurricanes and throws out as evidence certain glaciers that are getting smaller (pay no attention to the many others that are growing). He cites measurable statistics such as “one degree centigrade rise in worldwide temperatures” and “Arctic ice will be gone in 34 years” as though he has personally measured them himself with a precise caliper. This makes the prophet’s message convincing.

Then, unbelievers and skeptics are pilloried and ridiculed as if they have no say in the matter. Imminent scientists are told to shut up and get with the program … or else. The prophet brushes aside factors that we know are causing a temporary rise in worldwide temperatures such as sunspot cycles, planetary orbit and methane from cow flatulence and keeps hammering home the message that humankind is responsible and we must do his bidding … or else.

That’s where the rub comes in. The prophet declares in sweeping, majestic tones that we should eschew technology and revert back to a utopian vision of energy provided by windmills and people getting around on horseback. If we don’t we’re doomed to fry in the hell we create around us with our modern technology – which, by the way, is much cleaner and non-polluting than anything we had two hundred years ago … before we decided to upgrade our windmills and horses to clean nuclear power and EPA-approved internal combustion engines and clean, lead-free fuel to feed them.

“But, but, but”, you ask, ”This doesn’t mean it is really a new religion, is it?”

Haven’t you been paying attention here at all? I have shown you the prophet, the plan and the purpose. What else do you need to convince you that this is voodoo science and magic practiced on a planet-wide scale before an unwitting audience?

Wait. There is one last thing. There is one word that is used continuously by the prophet and his PR department to convince you to accept the new dogma. That word is “consensus” and it is used to end all argument about global warming. It must be true because there is a “consensus” among “leading scientists” that global warming is a fact and we’re responsible.

There is another word for “consensus” and that word is “faith.” We must have “faith” in the message of the prophet because all those scientists have arrived not at a provable scientific conclusion but have gathered together, rubbed their magic eight balls and arrived at a “consensus”.

Before I leave you with this testament regarding this startup religion, let me give you something to ponder. In the Middle Ages, sinners could “purchase” from the Catholic church what was called an “indulgence”, according to Canon Law.

An indulgence is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due to sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence was granted by the church after the sinner had confessed and received absolution. ₃

In other words, you could pay off the church and receive absolution for your sins. The modern-day Climaterian Church has something that is strikingly similar to these medieval “indulgences.” It is called “carbon offset services”.

A carbon offset service is one arranged with such a provider, that achieves this net reduction through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases. A wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits. ₄

In other words, you can pollute to your heart’s content, live in a 30-room mansion and force coal-burning power plants to provide you with ten times more electricity than the average home in America, you can jet-set around the globe releasing hydrocarbons into the atmosphere at ungodly rates and even mine toxic zinc for profit on your property – as long as you purchase an “indulgence” from a “carbon offset service” who will go plant a few trees in Oshkosh to “balance” out the environmental sins you have committed.

That, my friends, is old-time religion at its best. We shall now pass the tithing plate – the Prophet Gore needs your support. Hallelujah! Anybody interested in playing with my rattlesnakes?

———————————

¹ - “Gore Takes Global Warming Message to Congress”, National Public Radio transcript, March 21, 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9047642

² - “Al Gore Testifies Before Congress on Global Warming”, National Public Radio transcript, March 22, 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9072304

³ - “Code Of Canon Law: Indulgences”, Canon 992-997
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3I.HTM

⁴ - George Monbiot, “Selling Indulgences”
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/10/19/selling-indulgences/

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/26/2007 at 05:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Editorials • Religion • Satire •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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