Climategate, the release of emails showing that the climate change threat has been fabricated by scientists, presents the Left with a grave spiritual crisis. Yes, for the bloviating UN climate bureaucrats and some unscrupulous scientists, the climate hoax was perhaps nothing more than a
jobs program. But the Save the Planet crusade was, for the hard core, a de facto religion that required faith, sacrifice and personal standards of "holiness"—saving energy, recycling, driving hybrids, etc. (Please, no emails about being a good steward of the Earth. I recycle too, voluntarily. We’re not talking about that.) This was a program that wanted to mandate the correct way a human should live and what they should be allowed to consume.
So, with the reputation of some key climate scientists--the environmental movement’s religious scholars--
now in tatters, the reaction by the Left to Climategate--
alternately defensive and dismissive-- is to be expected. And that the Copenhagen Climate Summit is still happening next week is no surprise. Having long ago rejected the traditional Judeo-Christian worldview and capitalism, the radical environment movement--including it's elite in suits and ties--is a group that spiritually and ideologically must feel that it has nowhere else to go. Will the faithful suddenly make peace with capitalism and limited government and enjoy living guilt-free in a wealthy civilization? Can they just roll up their banners, go home and say it's ok to drive the SUVs they once denounced as symbols of selfishness and evil? Will they finally allow themselves and others to enjoy cheap energy from the abundant supplies of coal in this country? How about reviving the simple luxury of incandescent light bulbs? Or seeing that the Earth was created for man, and that mankind is not a sinister outside force destroying it?
Some will, maybe. The fellow travelers who bought into climate change because of the global media campaigns are now leaving the faith in droves. But 20 years after the fall of communism, the communists still march in Moscow and Paris. Faith persists when the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.