Global Warming and Pagan Emptiness

One of the few western leaders in this part of the world to speak out against the climate change hysteria we are now witnessing, is Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney. Here are some excerpts from a recent interview with him on the subject.

Your recent remarks questioning the claims about man-made climate change have drawn fierce criticism here in Australia. How do you account for that?

Cardinal Pell: Despite the fact that Australians like to see themselves as a ruggedly independent, rational, and democratic people, in some respects a herd-like mentality still prevails. Right now, the mass media, politicians, many church figures, and the public generally seem to have embraced even the wilder claims about man-made climate change as if they constituted a new religion.

These days, for any public figure to question the basis of what amounts to a green fundamentalist faith is tantamount to heresy. The angry editorials and letters to newspapers certainly suggest this.

He links the lack of religion of many of the adherents with climate change, something he noticed many years ago with those who were most scared of the bogeyman of the past - nuclear war.

It is true that some of the more hysterical and extreme claims about global warming appear symptomatic of a pagan emptiness, of a Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature.

Years ago I was struck by the fears that middle-class kids without religion had about nuclear war. It was almost an obsession with a few of them. It's almost as though people without religion, who don't belong to any of the great religious traditions, have got to be frightened of something.

Cardinal Pell is also up with the play on the science involved, so read the interview for more.

Related Link: Interview with Cardinal Pell on Global Warming and Pagan Emptiness ~ The Catholic World Report