Now, I was somewhat offended to find out that the reason I drive an SUV is that I am an immoral person. I thought my wife and I chose the car for good reasons.

We live at the top of a hill that regular cars can’t easily climb in the winter. We park off street (to give our neighbors more space) at the top of a sloping walled driveway which requires a vehicle with a little bit of extra ground clearance to be able to open the doors. Also, we just had a baby this year, so we wanted a heavier car that would be safer for her in a collision.

Any legislation attempting to create greater global good must first overcome the harm it causes by canceling out the many many small goods we all try to achieve with our personal choices.

Being the calm master of rational rhetoric that I am, I expressed all this to my old friend by telling him that he was the immoral one for wanting to kill my baby – that he advocated legislating her into an accident in a car that would slide on the ice, hit something solid, and fold up on her like an accordion.

At the same time I also mentioned to him that newer model cars now all seem to have the headlights on all the time.  (A government requirement?) I assume that the reason is greater safety – an economic good. But this also produces lower gas millage (and, if you believe my friend, greater environmental damage through a larger carbon footprint)  – an economic evil.

I posed this challenge to my (ex?) friend and, having not heard back, I would like to open it up to anyone who believes that such legislation, based on climate science,  can be enacted as to create greater overall benefit. Please tell me, which is the more morally correct act:

1.) Disable my always-on headlights for a lower carbon footprint?

2.) Keep the always-on headlights for greater safety?

Before you claim that you can enact beneficial climate protection legislation that will, no doubt, encompass many such issues, I’d like to see you produce some convincing math to answer just this one simple yes or no question:

Lights on or lights off?

If you believe that any of the technologies we have talked about are possible (and there certainly are some good reasons to think so), then it would seem that we can look forward to a very interesting future. It may be that we are destined to be a race of immortal beings with powers that we would previously have described as godlike, or maybe we will just create the machine creatures that will replace us, or even something in between as our technology becomes more and more a part of us. Alternatively, we may still be heading for some sort of end of the world scenario, in which we, and all of our works, will come to some cataclysmic end.

Every technology we have talked about holds immense promise for bringing us all a much better life, however, every technology also seems to have some end of the world scenario associated with it. This could be because any power can be used for good or ill, or it could just be the way we tend to think.

There have been many ‘end of the world’ scenarios before, and we have survived them all without even breathing very hard. Here is just a small sampling:

• A couple thousand years ago, there were people predicting that all civilization was doomed by the military practice of the time of salting the Earth of a defeated nation, so that no crops could be grown there again. The theory was that eventually all farm lands would be salted, through ongoing warfare, and then everyone would starve.
• The year 1000 AD brought the first millennium crisis, with people believing that Christ was sure to return and Armageddon would follow.
• In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted overpopulation and mass starvation was just a decade away, and it has continued to be thought to be “just a decade away” by many others, ever since.
• In the 1970′s with global temperatures having fallen steadily for 40 years, some concerned environmental scientists predicted the start of a new ice age, and told people that global cooling (yes cooling), caused by our modern industrial practices, was going to freeze us all – unless we shut down all the factories.
• In the 1980′s we were going to be annihilated at any moment by a nuclear war between super powers, perhaps started by computer error or a computer hacker.
• There was another millennium scare in 2000, and this time, there was the millennium bug with computer date stamps not registering properly past Y2K – it was certain to threaten modern civilization with a massive global computer shutdown.

However we have not survived the entire list of imagined world ending disasters – not by a long shot. Just for fun, here are a few additional possible scenarios: (This is the short list. Many more available at www.exitmundi.nl):

• cosmic ray burst
• super volcanism
• drastic climate change
• another big bang
• deadly new mutant animal species
• super virus or bacteria
• black hole

Now here is an interesting thing about all the scenarios we just listed: they could all be natural occurring phenomena. At any time, we could all be killed by a completely natural disaster according to the plot line of any of these scenarios. However, most people do not seem worried about the world suddenly coming to an end through natural forces.

Now take a look at the list again, but this time put the words “New technology causes…” in front of each of them. Do the scenarios now seem more likely? To a lot of people, the prospect that science could cause some of these things seems far more likely, and/or worrisome, than the idea that they might occur without a human cause.

Now take a look at the list again, but this time, put the words “New technology saves us from…” in front of each. Does that make you feel better? Most people don’t seem to think about the fact that we create science to shelter us, and to serve our needs, and that this should make a scenario where science saves us, more likely than one in where science accidentally destroys us.

The point we are trying to make is that there is no particular logical reason to believe that such a disaster will occur soon, let alone that we will somehow cause it with our science. However, the idea that this might be the case seems to be in a lot of people’s heads. Most people seem to believe that the idea of science causing such a disaster is more likely than it occurring naturally. The only explanation we can find for this bias is that certain idea-organisms have reasons to want us to resist technological change.

These idea-organisms will continue to promote disaster scenarios to slow our technological progress. More such scenarios are always in the works. Some people point to prophecies that foretell our immediate doom, saying that the Mayan calendar predicts a “new cycle” in 2012 and that our technology will destroy us then. Some predict that the “real” millennium computer bug will happen in 2038 when the UNIX date time format runs out of space. Global warming has us burned, flooded, or frozen (pick the one that scares you most) sometime in your lifetime. And there is the nanotech earth eating goo scenario.

This all seems very scary doesn’t it? But you can probably always find a prophecy to say whatever you are scared of, if you just look hard enough. For example:

If you believe in prophecy and are afraid of nanotechnology, have you ever considered this registered trademark of The Sherwin-Williams Company? Perhaps they should never be allowed to use nanotechnology in their paint factories…

If we were to allow this to happen, after being so clearly warned by this obviously prophetic logo, wouldn’t our faces be red?

(We know, the joke isn’t as funny in black and white, but color printing costs being what they are, what are you gonna do?)

It is always more interesting to say that the world is about to end than it is to say that the world will continue on and be just fine. It will always grab more attention. It will always produce more newspaper headlines and teasers spots for later news programs. (“There are three common household products that are probably in your home right now, and could suddenly cause the end of the world! Tune in at 11 O’clock to find out what they are.”) Such fears are exactly the kind of thing that Collective Identities use to gain control. The message they send is that you will be safer if control of such dangerous matters is left to some Higher Power.

But why should we believe that the Collective can protect us from ourselves? We know that a free market works to give us the things we want, and that the Collective almost always does a worse job. When it comes to deciding what technologies will be pursued, the free market has a record of producing things that benefit individuals, while large collective entities, in competition with each other, have given us things like atomic weapons and genetically engineered diseases. There is no reason to believe that central control will not do more harm than good.

It may be true that as individuals get more powerful, a single very upset person might one day have the power to destroy everyone and everything. However, a Collective is more likely to create the technology that would make that possible, and keeping someone from using it, once it is created, will be a real trick. Also consider that the only people who ever seem to be willing to commit such acts of murder/suicide are those infected with the urgent cause of some Collective Identity.

If we allow collective Higher Powers to decide what technology is developed and what is suppressed, it is more likely to create harmful dangerous technology, and suppress good uses for advanced technology, such as giving us all longer healthier lives. This could actually make the difference between you living to see some incredible future world, or dying of old age just decades before things really get interesting.

If we can control the future in any way, reducing collectivism’s drag on scientific progress is probably our best bet. As a person living in the early part of the 21st Century, you may well be part of a truly unique generation of human beings on the planet Earth. But which unique generation are you a part of?

You might be part of the last generation that has to die, or the first generation of immortals.

Whether you let the development of new technology be influenced by individual hopes and dreams, or controlled by some collective mindset, could well make the difference of whether or not you get to witness the future of mankind.

We can’t tell you if the future will be hell on Earth, or heaven, or something more mundane in between. All we can say is that we think it would be a real bummer for you to die of old age just before it becomes clear what is actually going to become of humanity. And it would be especially annoying if the only reason you were not saved was because some group of people, hosting idea-organisms based on writings that are thousands of years old, denied your right to life by slowing the progress of medical technology.

Do your best to stick around. You don’t want to miss the punch line, do you?

1. There is a historical correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature. This correlation is probably mostly feedback from temperature change (more CO2 comes out of solution as oceans warm and more goes in as it cools), but…

2. We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so even if we don’t know exactly how much an increase in CO2 will drive temperatures, it is also a forcing factor according to some curve. Now, this curve is certainly not linear and we don’t really know where we are on it, and the majority of correlation being ocean feedback makes it really complicated, but…

3. We have put together computer models that account for everything we know about, and the only way we can get them to fit historical data is to apply certain CO2 forcing formulas. If these formulas are accurate, then the current rise in CO2 that we are seeing will continue to produce greater heat, and eventually this will reach a level of doing more harm than good. And…

4. The only formulas we can figure out that work are based on effects from human generated CO2, so if human beings could just reduce their CO2 output, we might not have to worry about future, potentially harmful temperatures.

* * *

Now, here are the scientific problems I have with this story (the economic issues would require another post):

A. Having a formula that turns CO2 into higher temperatures and successfully maps past temperatures, in no way guarantees that it correctly projects future temperatures.

I know enough math (or could look it up – because it has admittedly been many years) to generate a formula to produce a curve to give a good fit to almost any data set and then have it do whatever I choose after that fit. So, even if I allow for no agenda on the part of the climate modelers, I have to think about their reasons for choosing one formula over another (in this case, a curve that continues linearly, or takes off exponentially, rather than the curve that rises slower and slower logarithmically). Their choice in this regard is based on some hypothesis about how CO2 produces greater temperature, but this hypothesis (there are actually more than one, because different modelers get very different future projections) does not seem to be experimentally testable.

B. There is still a lot of room for doubt that the climate modelers have accounted for every other forcing effect besides CO2 that might have produced recent historical temperature records.

Solar forcing is a strong candidate for being such an unaccounted factor. There are strong historical fits with temperature (even stronger than CO2 correlation on longer time scales) and absolutely no reason to believe that the correlation is feedback rather than forcing – while the mechanism by which earth temperatures can drive atmospheric CO2 is obvious, the mechanism by which earth temperatures could drive sun spots is unimaginable (at least not by me and I have a pretty good imagination).

[Here is a link to a video talking about the most recent science I can find on solar forcing: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/]

C. There is a lot of room for doubting that the modelers have properly accounted for every possible negative feedback effect that might completely mitigate the problem.

It is intuitive that there are such negative feedback mechanisms, or we would probably see many more historical swings from ice-house to hot-house planet and back again. There are only a few in hundreds of millions of years, with our current ice age state exhibiting many many smaller swings that have never broken through the ice age temperature ceiling that we are currently closely approaching. Something happens at that temperature that keep us in an ice age cycle. I am not sure what that is, and I don’t think anyone else is either. But the fact that we have been in an ice age for millions of years, with none of the interglacial periods (like now) breaking a certain temperature level, indicates some downward temperature effect probably kicks in at this level.

This would probably be both some feedback on the shorter time scale of interglacial peaks and a separate downward temperature pressure from whatever slowly sent us into the ice age, as shown by the long term declines of both high and low maximums in the graph below. The later might be the continental drift of Antarctica into a polar position to hold extra ice and act as a reflector.

My favorite candidate for the former shorter-term feedback (unaccounted for in climate models) is cloud cover. Greater heat produces more clouds. More clouds reflect more light. More light reflected causes cooling. Negative feedback.

But that is just a guess – it could be anything or nothing. The IPCC reports I have read basically say [paraphrasing] “We don’t know if there will be more or less clouds or if this would reflect more incoming light or absorb more outgoing heat.” There is a lot of room for uncertainty here.

D. The temperature records upon which the climate models are based, and therefore the degree that CO2 has been implicated in global warming (as the default candidate), may not be correct.

There is an ongoing disagreement between satellite and surface based measurements. The surface based measurements seem to show more recent warming. The argument in favor of the surface based temperature record has been that the satellites do not monitor the poles, and that most of the warming is happening there. But there is no known mechanism (at least not any that I have been able to find an explanation for) by which CO2 increase would mostly heat the poles .

Another issue is that it has recently come to light that there have been some odd choices made in compiling data for the temperature record upon which the models were based. For example, only one site out of dozens was chosen to represent the entire Antarctic continent, and that chosen site showed the greatest warming signal of all stations – an 8x greater warming signal than the raw data from all those stations. This sort of thing could explain the greater polar warming and the land versus satellite data discrepancy.

[Here is a link to an article about temperature data selection in Antarctica:

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/ghcn-antarctic-warming-eight-times-actual/]

And if the land based temperature record is bad, then the models built to fit it are all bad.

So, when the modelers say things like, “Only human action can explain the temperature record” they may be absolutely correct – its just may be a different kind of human action than what they are considering…

E. And last – but perhaps most importantly – the projections made in the IPCC 2001 models have not proven accurate.

There may be better models now, and they may still predict immanent warming that may reach dangerous levels, but the projections that have been around long enough to be tested at all, have failed that test. With no increase of the hypothetical problem over 10 years, either the hypothesis is wrong, or it is less of an immediate threat than was predicted.

I find it hard to be convinced that there is an urgent need for immediate political action to stop a problem that moves so slowly as to not show itself for a decade.

Personally, I start out as a believer and join the “denier” camp about half way down the list.

So, when do you stop believing?

Scenario 1:

• A. It is claimed that a large asteroids is on a collision course with the earth.
• B. The location of the asteroid is published and astronomers all over the world (professional and amateur) are able to spot it with their telescopes.
• C. Anyone can use well tested mathematical formulas to compute its path and confirm the impending collision. These same formulas have been confirmed by observation to correctly plot the path of other asteroids time and again.
• D. Various studies are published predicting Estimates of the damage that will be done based on land strike and sea strike scenarios. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, floods, and drought are considered possible or likely consequences, depending on where the asteroid hits.
• E. There is a movement with a costly plan to build a rocket that might be able to divert the asteroid to prevent the collision.
• F. The call goes out for your money, vote, and/or personal effort to help the cause.

Scenario 2 (as above, but):

• A. It is a cloud of smaller meteors that will cause multiple smaller strikes.
• E. The plan of action is some sort of magnetic space net. It is widely questioned whether it will actually help, or if it is already too late.

Scenario 3 (as above but):

• B. The location of the threat (the raw data) is kept confidential by a small group studying the threat.
• C. They assure us that there will be a collision based on well tested formulas, but we can’t do the calculations ourselves.

Scenario 4 (as above but):

• A. It is a cloud of space dust, rather than an asteroid.
• C. Rather than well tested formulas, brand new, untested, computer models (code not released to the public) are used to predict the development of the threat based on new scientific theory (space dust is attracted by our planets magnetic field or some such). But we are assured that these scientist know what they are talking about, and anyone who doesn’t believe is a “denier”.
• D. The potential damage predicted is not anything as obvious as physical collisions – but instead the effects of the dust on our atmosphere are projected as being harmful in various ways. It is even possible that there will be some positive effects, but these are downplayed.

Scenario 5 (as above but):

• E. Studies suggest that the threat is increased by human action. (The use of electricity is said to be causing our magnetic field to be more attractive to the theoretically harmful space dust that only the trained scientists can see) There is a movement with a costly plan to reduce human industry – replace electricity with older power technology – fund development of theoretical new power technology.
• F. You are asked to accept new central political control over a huge section of human industry/production.

Scenario 6 (as above but):

• A. The threat is not anything extraterrestrial but based on global measurements of with regular natural variance that may be as large as that being pointed to as evidence of a threat.

Scenario 7 (as above but):

• C. A whole decade passes with no increase in the threat.
• E. Believers continue to claim that their is no time to waste and that the “scientific debate is over”.

Scenario 8 (as above but):

• G. Leaked emails, data, and computer code show that the “scientists” who would not share the data or code willingly, appear to have an agenda in promoting the threat and suppressing any scientific study that disputes their alarming claims.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

“Last month, Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world’s top climate modellers.

But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.”

In fact, the most recent temperature records, rather than matching IPCC predictions, are right on track for a simple combination of two natural trends.

• 1.) A gradual warming trend as we return to the temperatures of the medieval warm period (hotter than now) from the temperatures of the little ice age. (For a look at how the IPCC scientists have massaged the data to try to get the inconvenient medieval warm period to disappear, read this -> http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf )
• 2.) The multi-decade cycle described in the top article that represents the interaction of sun output cycles with ocean current cycles – and conforms exactly with the multidecade shift between sensationalist claims that we are going to burn up and sensationalist claims that we are going to freeze, should temperatures continue in one direction linearly or worse (like the 2001 IPCC predictions all showed).

Note that according to this simple hypothesis (which so far fits observable data better than 2001 IPCC predictions) we are unlikely to be as hot as 1998 again until the mid 2040s.

>
> Thank you for publishing ‘God Wants You Dead‘, it was a very very
> insightful read. I have only one issue to take up with you; you
> advocate correcting others when they reject or accept an ideology,
> when ignoring one or more of its parts, but pages later condemn
> environmentalism out of hand and seemingly in total. Yet one of the
> main ideas of environmentalism is the conservation of resources in
> order to prevent a decline in human standards of living, which seems
> like a good idea. Seed banks, electric cars, solar power, and other
> progress minded memes are formed by this ideology, despite its flawed
> ideas of saving charismatic megafauna and rejecting nuclear power.
> What do you think of this? Thank you again for the great thoughts
> you’ve shared with me.
>
> John
>

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Email From: Paul Rosenberg

>
> Hi John,
>
> You’re welcome!
>
> Yes, I see your point; we’re criticizing environmentalism as a whole.
> I guess it depends upon how we define it. I’d have to go back and
> check to see how precise we were. Perhaps we should add a line or
> two of clarification.
>
> Like you, I think making less of a mess is a good thing, and such
> actions could be defined as “environmentalism,” and I wouldn’t
> criticize those things in particular. (Though I would still object to
> them being included in a big bag of ideas and acted upon just because
> they were in the bag.)
>
> I’ll forward this note to Sean and see if he has any responses. (He’s
> been pretty absorbed in a few things of late, so he may not be able to
> respond.)
>
> Best regards,
>
> Paul

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Email From: Sean Hastings

>
> John,
>
> The second paragraph of GWYD’s section on environmentalism reads:
>

In defining what we mean by the Environmentalism idea-organism, we can say that we are referring to that which goes above and beyond the simple altruistic meme “try to minimize your impact on shared resources.” As we have seen with other Ideologies, Environmentalism may have some symbiotic and altruistic memes, as well as many parasitic memes bundled together. — GWYD 2.7.3.3

>
> This is clearly a nod to the fact that some memes grouped into the
> standard Environmentalism package might certainly have beneficial
> effects if applied without the attached religious dogma. It is
> possible that you feel that we are picking on Environmentalism only
> because it is the Ism we discussed that you have the most attachment
> to. However, I will acknowledge that Environmentalism is particularly
> worrisome to me for a number of reasons, so it is also quite possible
> that I am overly critical of it, even if I believe that my reasons are valid ones.
>
> Where deistic religions revere mankind as the creator’s greatest and
> most important creation embodying divine spirit, and collectivist
> philosophies believe that mankind acting together as a whole
> represents the greatest good, environmentalism actually treats mankind
> as something separate from, and even opposed to, the natural order
> which it casts as the highest good.
>
> Considering how many horrible abuses of human rights have resulted
> from philosophies that supposedly held humanity in the highest esteem,
> the potential of a philosophy that shows signs of promoting the same
> level of zealotry, while casting human beings in a much less favorable
> light, quite frankly, scares the crap out of me.
>
> Additionally, the attack on science that the whole “Climate Change”
> thing represents bothers me greatly. The scientific method is one of a
> precious few tools that we have to find real truth in the world, so I
> am bothered by anything that degrades the term “science.”
>
> Here is something I wrote just the other day on the topic:

Drawing conclusions about what will actually happen to the climate, based on climate models, is not science as defined by the scientific method. The scientific method requires us to form a hypothesis, set up a testable experiment, observe the results, draw conclusions, and make all of the above public so that others can confirm that the experiment is repeatable.

In the case of long term models of the behavior of a planetary climate, each model can be taken as a new hypothesis. The only possible experiment to confirm a model/hypothesis would be watching the climate and seeing if it conforms to the model’s predictions.

Previous climate data is the source of such models, and thus can not also be taken as confirmation of those same models. Only future climate behavior can scientifically confirm any model.

If your hypothesis makes 100 year long predictions, the experiment will take 100 years to run once, and another 100 years for others to repeat.

Until that happens, it can not rise to the level of being called science.

Since waiting around for 200 years, to see if a given long range climate model is reliable, is not practical in terms of Human lifespans, instead of science, we get people arguing about which hypothesis they think is more likely to be true, and who’s credentials make them more likely to be able to predict the results of an experiment that would take far too long to actually run.

Even if the people creating these models and arguing about them are “scientists,” as defined by having a degree from a university in some science, what they are doing in this field is not science by its most basic and important definition.

>
> Anyway, I hope I have adequately addressed your point – and sorry for
> the rant. I do tend to go on a bit once you get me going. :-)
>
> –Sean
>
> PS. Is it ok if I put your letter on my blog?
>

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Email From: John Senner
>
>It’s great with me if you blog this – thanks for two great responses.
>
>By the way, I got your book from legaltorrents.com but have
>just now ordered a hard copy to get the word out – way to stick up for
>rationalism and original thought.
>
>John

This new ideological organism, that I sometimes refer to as “Envirofundamentalism,” has many parallels to other religions. It has multiple Hell/Armageddon scenarios of global warming, ozone layer depletion, poisoned seas, genetically modified food monsters, etc. It has its own versions of a kosher diet with organic produce, free range meat, vegetarianism, and the like. It requires its sacrifices of time and energy to various odd rituals such as separating your trash into multiple categories. It even has its own version of Pascal’s Wager called the “Precautionary Principle.”

One of the advantages that this new religion currently has, is that it is not generally recognized as a religion. It is therefor more successful at influencing even those governments that are trying hard to maintain a separation of church and state. It has succeeded best so far in Europe where its biggest competitor, Christianity, had been previously weakened by the various “isms” clashing in World War II, but it has since spread to every other continent and is doing quite well.

In a previous blog post entitled “Pope Blasts Marx – Misses Gore,” I talked about a letter written by the Pope that showed his recognition of the way in which supposedly secular philosophies can compete directly with Christianity. However, I noted that he seemed to be missing the biggest threat of Environmentalism being such a competitor. But perhaps my criticism of his strategy came too soon. A new development has just occurred indicating that maybe the Pope recognized this competition but had another strategy in mind all along. (Either that or His Holiness reads this blog and I was the one that tipped him off :-)

What I am referring to is a recent news stories that the Catholic church is planning on increasing the number of deadly sins:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=4424390

Three of the new “sins” to make the short list should be quite familiar to any faithful believer in the tenants of this new hybrid socialist/environmentalist religion:

• Environmental Irresponsibility
• Genetic Engineering
• Inequality of Wealth

So it is looking very much like the Catholic Church has decided to follow a strategy of “If you can’t beat ‘em – join ‘em.”

This is by no means a new way to go for a religion that started out as an offshoot of Judaism, granted divinity to its prophet to compete with the divinity granted to the Roman Emperor by his followers, folded its prophet/god back into its monotheistic GOD as well as an all encompassing over-soul by borrowing from Eastern religious ideas, co-opted other European religions by adopting their icons in the form of various angels and demons while stealing all of their high holidays and renaming them, drifted far into the secular world of bloody warfare and political machinations, and returned to the spirit of the recorded words of its prophet only when too many translations of those words into languages people could actually read finally existed for the discrepancies to continue to be ignored.

While it is certainly a long strange road from Genesis 9:2-3

And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

to a Catholic church that may learn to embrace animal rights – stranger things have certainly happened in the world of Collective Idea-Organisms.

This is a very interesting play for Catholicism to make and it will be fun to see how it plays out.

Well, perhaps “fun” is not the right word. Western civilization has made great progress through a delicate trick of balancing religious and secular powers against each other and leaving space for individual freedom and innovation in between. If this new attempt at an alliance between Catholicism and Envirofundamentalism makes more people notice the similarities between the two, it could produce more resistance to the influences of such idea-organisms on secular governments – and that would be a good thing. However, it could just as easily be a path back to the bad old days of people being ruled by a single united idea-organism – a church/state combination that called for the death of all unbelievers. The balance that we have achieved may be much more precarious than people realize.

It remains to be seen whether or not we can continue down the path of progress that western civilization has only relatively recently learned to tread, or if we will return to the big old sins of waging collective war on individual liberty and achievement. The unification of a powerful old icon for enslaving minds and the hottest new “up and comer” among such icons is a prospect to be greatly feared by those who believe in individualism.

Every collective idea-organism has its traditions that are practiced to create a sense of group unity and used as signals of belief so that fellow members of the group (and infidels) can be identified. These include everyday behavior such as clothing worn, hair styles, jewelry, make up, language spoken (or at least sub-dialect jargon) – and they also include specific days of celebration that require specific religious observances. While such tokens of belief are mostly harmless (at least they are today in places with a more secular society) they risk being incompatible if you are trying to be a member of more than one religion at the same time.

My most recent thoughts on this matter were inspired by an article today in the Jerusalem post about some Jews who are also trying to be Environmentalists. They have started a campaign to warn other Jews that burning Hanukkah candles produces unnecessary Carbon Dioxide:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546797524&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won’t need another miracle,” said Liad Ortar, the campaign’s cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site’s environmental forum.

So you see, a custom honoring the story of a miracle performed by the God Jews believe in can be thought of as contributing to our damnation based on the story of the Hell Environmentalists believe in. Mr. Ortar (quoted above) who makes a living from Environmentalism (so I suppose we could call him one of its holy men), apparently also considers himself to be a Jew. However, he believes that GOD would rather get the short count on his sacraments than be bothered to perform any miracles to save mankind from Chanukah candle generated green house gases.

It is interesting to note that Environmentalism has impacted other religious traditions as well. (So they are not just persecuting the Jews.) The Christmas tree is a common Christian tradition. However killing a tree is probably the least green thing a person can ever do – other than maybe digging up and burning the millions of year old remains of sacred dead tree corpses just to stay warm. (If you were a proper natural sort of animal you’d have fur for that!)

So what is an Environmentalist who wants to remain Christian supposed to do?

A plastic tree was once an acceptable solution for those who didn’t want to kill a tree, but these days plastic is considered evil too. Apparently it doesn’t biodegrade in the ground and this makes it bad – even though rocks that don’t biodegrade in the ground are not bad – including shale which has the same chemicals in it as plastic. And when you think about it, its not surprising that plastic doesn’t biodegrade in the ground considering that it is made from a liquid that is found naturally in the ground. But somehow, the process of pumping a natural liquid out of the ground, removing part of it to make plastic, and then putting that part back into the ground where (by not bio-degrading) it is guaranteed not to hurt anyone or anything, has been deemed sacrilegious by Environmentalists.

So the only environmentally righteous solution is a live tree. (At least until the extension of plant’s rights prohibit tree-napping as a crime) But to bring a live tree into your house, you have to also include a lot of dirt and roots. This reduces the size of the tree that can be used. Much like lighting one less candle, a smaller tree with a lot of dirt attached can be seen as an apt metaphor for the reduction of competing religions that the growth of Environmentalism is causing.

And the majesty of the symbol is indeed reduced. New York City’s celebration of Xmas has only been influenced by Environmentalism to the degree that the tree lights are the more efficient LED rather than incandescent bulbs. However, the small Westchester village I live in (just north of NYC) has gone for the live tree this year. Consequently, our government sanctioned official Christmas tree is actually smaller (unless you include the huge stand full of dirt) than many of the trees in Westchester living rooms.

It is particularly ironic that the Christmas tree symbol being degraded is actually an old pagan religious symbol that Christianity co-opted and that this symbol was based on older versions of nature worship.

If Environmentalism continues to grow in mind share, it will probably have to do something similar in co-opting the symbols of other religions. In fact, the whole Hanukah story of one day worth of oil lasting for eight days could easily be co-opted as a symbol about conserving resources. What other religious symbols could be turned into environmentally conscious messages? I wonder if the Romans ever re-used those crosses for the next batch of criminals? They would certainly have recycled the nails – metal didn’t just grow on trees back then.

Recycling old religious symbols and holidays might seem particularly appropriate for Environmentalism, but it is something every collective idea-organism does as it takes over previous belief systems and/or mutates from one form to another. Is Environmentalism already doing this? Maybe so.

Environmentalism’s big holiday, called “Earth Day” is celebrated on a different day in the United States than in other countries. There is no doubt that many of the organizers of the first such celebration were also Vietnam War protesters which included many people with strong communist leanings. So it might not be just a coincidence that, while the rest of the world celebrates Earth Day on the more appropriate Vernal Equinox, in the United States the official holiday is a month later, and that the very first such Earth Day observance on April 22nd, 1970 marked the 100th birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

In the United States, we observe Environmentalism’s high holiday on the birthday of a famous mass murderer – a man who was more widely known by his pen name, Vladamir Lenin.

That said, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to see one of the newest such collective idea-organisms, start to reach for one of the same old handles that nations and religions have long used to control people. Still, I really didn’t see this particular development coming until today, when I read this article entitled “Want to Go ‘Green’? Stay Married”:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3946834&page=1

Apparently a study was done at Michigan State University which came to the (fairly obvious) conclusion that when a couple divorces, and starts living apart, they use more resources than when they are together. They are using resources to light and heat two living areas, they are less likely to be sharing a car, etc. So the conclusion was that married people are greener – more environmentally righteous.

Various religious and political systems have always had an interest in human mating habits. The idea of marriage is nothing more than the sanctioning of sexual behavior by religion and/or nation state. An idea-organism that can connect itself to various biological drives is far more likely to survive and replicate, so such ideologies evolve to exploit all the built-in human fears and desires that they can. Fear, hunger, and sex drive are three of the most powerful biological motivating factors.

So, like I said, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Environmentalism start to reach for the same handles that other collective idea-organisms have used so successfully. In fact, if it can actually make inroads into controlling the sex drive, it will have the whole trifecta. It already has the standard scare stories and dietary controls.

This table is an extended version of one found in the book, “God Wants You Dead.”

Looking at this, Environmentalism seems to be overly weighted towards using fear as a control handle, but maybe this is just because it hasn’t really managed to infiltrate the sex drive yet. Perhaps when this new collective idea-organism figures out how to have its own sort of marriage ceremony, the emphasis on scaring people will relax somewhat. Maybe Environmentalism will end up condoning polyamorous group marriages, as this would create much larger (and therefore more resource sharing) family units. Until then, we can probably expect a continuous parade of new frightening scenarios telling us how technology will destroy the earth, as this is Environmentalisms most effective hook.

Note that I am not saying than any particular such scenario isn’t plausible. It certainly makes a great deal of difference if any particular scare story is true or not, but it does not change the nature of these ideological organisms and the way they try to control us. That is why I am always suspicious when people are trying to scare me into doing what they want me to do – even when their stories sound very plausible, or are backed up by the opinions of a lot of seemingly intelligent people.

It may be that we are indeed all going to die of some sort of ecological disaster if we don’t follow all the directives of the Environmentalist leaders.

But we might also all be killed by terrorists if we don’t grant our national governments greater powers to spy on us and control our lives.

And it could equally well be true that we will all go to Hell if we don’t live our lives the way the priests of some particular religion tell us we should.

It is often hard to tell what is a real threat and what is just so much more B.S.

So hold on to your ability to make your own decisions. Do not surrender your mind to any collective idea-organism, no matter how much it scares you with hypothetical disaster scenarios. You do not need to let other people decide the truth for you. Even if the occasional bad idea has slipped into your head, your core self can still be relied on to determine the truth, as long as you are always willing to question and re-think things from time to time.

Just use the mind you have created for yourself. You have built a mental structure that allows you to evaluate the world. You have assembled the mind that you wanted from the ideas that you found to work best for you. Furthermore, if you have managed to read all the way to the end of this post, then odds are you did a pretty good job constructing that mind.

The rational mind that you have put together, let nothing put asunder.

In the letter, the Pope blames atheism as the cause of the many atrocities committed in the name of Communism in the 20th century. He also points to the ideological remains of communism, continuing to live on in more capitalistic cultures even as previously communist states have left these failed ideas behind, as the cause of rising atheism in Europe and North America. The overall theme of the letter is that faith equals hope, that atheism causes misery, and that religion that reaches out and embraces others will save the world.

The English translation of the letter can be found here:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html

Now I have to give the Holy Father credit here, because he is definitely correct about some of his causality. He is right that Communism could not have seized complete control without minimizing the influence of Christianity. He is also correct that the left over influences of communism (often called progressivism) is definitely playing a role in the current reduction of Christianity in Europe and North America. But (and this is a really big but) in extolling the virtues of hope/faith he is missing the fact that it is actually faith that causes the big problems.

While it is true that the communists didn’t believe in GOD, they definitely had faith in The State, and their belief in the greater good allowed them to do some terrible things. The Nazis also had their own religion that gave them hope/faith in the natural superiority of the Aryan race, and perhaps they even thought the old Norse gods would lend them a hand or hammer. And belief in a monotheistic GOD has no shortage of culpability for atrocities. The Catholic church of the middle ages, in full control of the show, committed acts of torture and genocide that, if they do not actually surpass the death toll records of communism and fascism, at least put it up on the score board as a respectable third runner. (And please note that these results are not yet final.)

The truth is that peace and prosperity have never been achieved through the dominance of a single ideology over the minds of a group of people. Historically, where we see times of peace and prosperity, we see separation of power and co-dominance of ideas. Where no single philosophy is allowed to gain too much power, no one is persecuted and new ideas are given a fair hearing.

The free exchange of ideas creates a better world for us all.

The creeping effect of too much faith is why I sometimes refer to hope as the “slowest evil.” This is also a reference to the fable of Pandora’s box. She was said to have a box containing all the evils in the world. Then one day she foolishly opened the box to look inside. As all the evils in the world started to escape, she quickly closed the box again, but Hope was the only thing she managed to keep from escaping. The fact that Hope was in the box at all implies that it was one of the evils that the box contained.

Hope can indeed be evil, or at least lead to evil – that is if it is an irrational hope. There is nothing wrong with being optimistic rather than pessimistic when those are the only two choices, but never discount being realistic whenever you can be. Maintaining hope/faith when it is unwarranted is a sort of evil. When your hope is proved wrong, it should be abandoned. Not doing so is to abandon reason instead.

Gradual change from optimistic hope to irrational faith is the course run by every ideology that turns to evil means to accomplish its ends. Hope that they are doing the right thing becomes faith that they are doing the right thing becomes the knowledge that they can do no wrong.

When people believe they can do no wrong, they are rarely found to do anything right.

In the book “God Wants You Dead,” Paul and I explain that religious and political philosophies are sub categories of a type of ideological entity that we call “collective idea-organisms.” We show how such multicellular ideological constructs, existing across many minds, will turn individual hope/faith to their own (often evil) ends. We try to show the reader how the story of humanity is the story of the evolution of, and competition between such ideological entities. (We also included funny cartoons to lighten the mood ;-)

But let’s get back to what the Pope thinks is happening today. He recognizes that his own particular faith is on the decline in Europe and North America, and that something else is on the rise. He calls it atheism, but is that really what it is? Is it just the absence of his particular religion, or is it actually the encroachment of another ideology that is very much like a religion? Is there a new collective idea-organism battling Christianity for mind share – mental territory?

Looking at the ideology of the modern Western world, I fear that a new collective idea-organism is indeed on the rise. It has moved more quickly in Europe, where the rise and fall of fascism and communism significantly weakened Christianity, leaving an ideological void to be filled. In North America, Christianity is still strong enough to give it some resistance, so this new ideology is gaining strength more slower there.

This new collective idea-organism is known as Environmentalism, and it is indeed using the remains of communist/socialist/progressive philosophy to advance its cause. It is a new religion where the idea of a “Divine Plan” is replaced by the concept of “Natural Order,” and it certainly offers its own ideas about morality. It could probably be part of an overall climate of peace and prosperity, just as Christianity has been in various places at various times, but only if there is separation of powers and other ideas are allowed to exist in a state of co-dominance. Given full control, this collective idea-organism will be just as dangerous as any other.

If Environmentalism is allowed to take full control of any government, we are likely to see as much evil as we might expect from any religious oligarchy or other form of totalitarianism. This seems particularly likely when you consider that Environmentalism starts out openly containing an idea that most other ideologies end up with only when things start to go very bad – the idea that individual human lives are not of paramount importance.

If you are a person who is infected with the collective idea-organism of Environmentalism, you may now think I am an evil person for saying these things – that I must be a tool of the earth-hating corporate devils. But please consider that when you find yourself inclined to think that someone is evil, simply because they hold opinions that are contrary to your own, that this is an indication that something is bending your mind in an extremely unpleasant direction. Please also consider that your hope/faith that your cause is good may some day lead to a great deal of harm, should you let go of your ability to rationally question the dogma.

Just as not every person who thinks of themselves as a Christian is an evolution-denying fundamentalist who believes the earth is only 6000 years old, not every person who thinks of themselves as an Environmentalist is an intellectual slave to an ideology that promotes nature over man. But I have seen the passion that Environmentalism inspires in some, and I really do fear its potential to evolve into a more harmful Enviro-fundamentalism.

There is nothing wrong with the altruistic idea that one should minimize one’s impact on shared resources. But this does not mean that you should buy into everything that anyone attempts to sell to you in the name of Environmentalism. You must ALWAYS question each new idea separately, and be willing to abandon old ideas as new evidence dictates. If you refuse to allow multiple ideas to bundle together under a single label, and continue to question old and new ideas, then no collective idea-organism will ever be able to control your mind.

And try not to allow yourself to be labeled. If you don’t buy into the group label, then it is easier to think for yourself. Instead of thinking of yourself as a Christian, think of yourself as a person who sees many important truths in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Instead of thinking of yourself as an Environmentalist, think of yourself as a person who sees the wisdom in considering the impact on shared resources before acting.

Or to quote the great Ferris Beuller:

It’s not that I condone fascism… or any “ism” for that matter. “Isms” in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an “ism,” he should believe in himself.