Worse than a warble glomist? Not quite.

Ecological doom and gloom has been something I've grown up with. As I matured and became aware of the world around me the big scare was the ozone layer. I stand to be shown evidence to the contrary, but I think that one was probably right, it seemed to me that there was a bloody great hole. The rush to ban CFC's seems to have arrested the problem, at least, I think so, it's a story we've not heard in a long, long time. I'm assuming that nature and this planet, being the marvellous things they are, will, in time repair the damage, maybe this process is underway? As I say, the story is such a blast from the past it is easy to forget that it ever happened at all.

However, I do remember that the scare at the time was that with the hole in the layer as it was, the entire populations of Australia, New Zealand and the southernmost residents of Argentina and Chile were going to die in agony of rampant skin cancer. I certainly don't recall that happening.

Ecomentalists love to catastrophise, and with good reason, it makes people give them their undivided attention and the contents of their wallets. The whole global warming/climate change gig has been running for a while, since I was a teenager, certainly. I'm now in my mid 30's. I distinctly remember being told that islands in the Pacific were doomed and that the only way you'd be able to visit St. Paul's would be by going for a paddle. All this was to happen in the next ten to fifteen years, unless action was taken. Now. I was scared, the house I grew up in in rural Kent was below sea level, with only the flat expanse of the reclaimed Romney Marsh between us and the channel, it was surely doomed.

We are told that CO2 emissions continue to rise, or at least do not fall to a level below those which were recorded some five years after the first catastrophic predictions were made. The house in which I grew up is still dry, no atolls have disappeared, I have yet to see anyone wear a souvenir St. Paul's life jacket.

Still the predictions of despair come, every time the same time frame is quoted, near enough to be alarming, but far enough into the future to allow redemption. I'm not sure if the countdown clock is re-set each time.

People talk about the Green God, and environmentalism being a new religion, and they are entirely right. The similarities are striking.

It may be a bit of laugh, but Harold Camping confidently predicted the onset of Armageddon this weekend, the fact that you are reading this is a demonstration that this didn't happen.

Well, he's at it again:

Evangelical priest Harold Camping has set a new date for the world’s end as he backtracked from a prediction that ‘Judgement Day’ was supposed to come last Saturday.


The US Christian, who made headlines for his outlandish claim that a selected 200 million of the world’s population would be raptured, has now marked 21 October 2011 in his calendar as the real date for the apocalypse.


The 89-year-old had previously stated that an earthquake – bigger than anything ever felt before - would strike each corner of the planet by 6pm local time on Saturday 21 May.


But according to Camping’s new end of world forecast, the globe will actually be engulfed by a huge fireball - exactly five months after the botched doomsday prediction.


Speaking of the failed ‘Judgement Day’ on his radio show last night, he claimed that 21 May 2011 was just an ‘invisible judgement day’ and that he understood it as a spiritual, rather than physical event. 


After hiding in a motel for two days, the Californian preacher admitted his Bible-based calculations were incorrect.


He said he believed rapture didn’t come because God decided to spare humanity five months of “hell on earth.”


During his hour-and-a-half radio broadcast, he said: “It won’t be spiritual on 21 October. The world is going to be destroyed all together, but it will be very quick.”

Most people are looking at this guy as some sort of nutter, many of them will be environmentalists scoffing at this man's, and his followers', credulity.

But stop for a minute. Consider the similarities.

He uses a text, which a mutual friend of mine on Facebook described thus:

Sometimes we take the Bible too literally, forgetting it's actually a composite work of fiction translated from a mishmash of defunct languages via Latin and therefore about as near to the 'absolute truth' as unsolicited email from Nigeria.

A harsh, if fairly accurate description. Say this to a Christian, (the same will also hold true of Jews and Muslims about their holy texts) and you run the risk of being shouted down. You see, it is all true, the animals in the big boat, the walls of the city falling down, the parting of the Red Sea, it is all true. It must be, because it is written here. The text cannot be challenged. It is, a-ha, gospel. Any attempt to question the content or the interpretation is, literally, heresy. It cannot be allowed.

Now speak to the warmist, question their data, their holy book, question the interpretation of their data, you'll get a very similar response. The denial of peer review is an anti-heretical device.


People who leave the fold are treated in a similar fashion to those who have turned their back on the Westboro Baptist Church.


They too have their Popes and high priests, people who are infallible. There can be no discussion.


They too confidently predict the end of the world. Some would suggest here there is a difference, the faithful of the Abrahamic religions welcome the prospect of the end of days, even if with more than a little trepidation. Enviromentalists want to avoid the scenario, but why do I get the impression some of them would derive great pleasure from treading water as the seas rise with an indignant look on their faces, saying 'I told you so'?


And just with Camping, when the predicted end does not materialise, they just pick another date. And another, and another.


There is very little difference between the methods of control used by religious organisations and the activities of the environmental lobby. There is very little difference between the two camps' desire for our cash and our unquestioning obedience to their pronouncements and decrees. Very little difference in the way they want to have the say in how to run your life.


Actually, there is one difference, Camping has at least had the guts to hold his hand up and admit his calculations are wrong. That is a confession I've yet to hear coming from the Green Church.


Save resources, water, food and energy, reduce waste. It makes sense on a personal and national economic level, but don't dare preach to me and spread your baseless tales to get what you want, you just look like these guys:

Update:

American Thinker has had similar thoughts.