The Religion of Green | Text by David Baucom | Holiday Issue 2010
It’s those who fail to grasp religion's core essence — particularly, its base indulgence of spiritual longings at the expense of independent thought — who will fail to grasp, and even deny, that the world's new religion is: Green. In the Green movement we see the deification and worship of the planet, the preaching of "original sin" in our "selfish" drive to exploit nature, and moralistic dogma that threatens the contrarian independent thought, practical approaches to environmental problems, and the practice of science.
Environmentalists cast Earth as a single transcendent being — often with a “consciousness.” Just as God is vague and mysterious to religionists, so too seems to be the anthropomorphic Earth to faithful Greens. Like the Christian or Muslim God, the Earth has given birth to us and blessed us with the provisions of life. We owe Mother Earth a debt we can never repay for Her blessings, as the traditionally religious owed their Heavenly Father for his. Yet, instead of aligning with Mother Earth’s "Divine" nature, we are sinning against Her. Through "innate selfishness and greed," we exploit Her goodness through extraction of resources, pollution and "overdevelopment." We have broken Her commandments, and must constantly seek atonement for this Original Sin. We do "penance" through Green practices — recycling, using less, and "buying Green” — now all unquestioned dogma. There is faithful unity of belief, purpose and action, most of which involves sacrifice in service to the Earth, all under a moral tone. Admiration goes to those making the Greenest measures and sacrifices, and scorn to those who "overuse” and don't "do their part" to serve our Earthly Mother.
But here one might cry foul, and interject a fundamental difference dispelling such a comparison: Religion is based on faith, while environmentalism is based on faith's very epoch-shaping opposite, science. Of course, the subject matter of environmental issues is grounded in science. If its proclamations on issues like global warming came from ancient texts and mystical revelations, today's Green movement obviously wouldn't exist any more than the public policies it's ushered. And yet just as the its conclusions are less scientifically established than most realize, its ensuing policies, conventional wisdom, culture, and lifestyles are even less reality-based.
Despite that environmentalism deals with scientific issues, one can see in its movement the social dynamics of religion. The Green movement taps psyches like religion does to satiate the same basic fears, weaknesses, and spiritual longings, assuaging people's sense of collective guilt and desires to feel moral and connected with communities through a common noble purpose. The result is a "feel-good" movement that overrides practical approaches and actually subverts science.
I remember a Green commercial, in which Harrison Ford's voice poignantly notes, across views of various appealing animals, that about 10 species go extinct ... every day. Forever. But I wasn't quick to mourn mankind's loss of cute creatures. I know that the overwhelming majority of species on Earth are: microorganisms and insects. I'll pass on the kleenex. I further know that species have always — long before man existed — been going extinct. And that new species have always been continually generated. The commercial didn't mention any of that. Typical of Green rallies, it glossed over key contexts, offered no clarity, and was mainly a moralistic appeal to unity of feeling and purpose, referencing collective guilt. Worse than the ad's sins of omission were its sins of implication: that nature has inherent value apart from its value to us, with "rights" of its own in competition with the rights of humans, and that humans have "original sin" in violating it.
It typifies today's pop Green, its religious subordination of reason to the pursuit of shared moral faith.
