Of course, it’s easy to call anything a religion (or a cult), because the words are so fuzzily defined that almost anything can fall into them. But let’s imagine that they’re right. Imagine there’s some stable psychological role that religion plays, to do with authority and community and morality, and that green activism plays the same role; or that the fear of ecological disaster, or AI apocalypse, triggers the exact same pattern of neurons to fire that fired in the brains of the Branch Davidians or the Heaven’s Gate lot. [...]
You know what? I think there is quite a lot of overlap, psychologically speaking, between some climate activism and some religious belief. There’s even a brand of theology called “ecotheology” which explicitly makes that link. A lot of the behaviours seem similar, about sin and abstinence and guilt as well as the unwavering faith and conviction. I also think that Left-wingers have found it easier to believe in climate issues because it’s easier to square it with stuff they want to do anyway, like higher taxes on industry and greater state intervention, while Right-wingers tend to see it as in opposition with the free market, so they are more likely to reject it. That’s not surprising, that’s bog-standard motivated reasoning. We all do it.
But I am also pretty sure that Greta Thunberg is, largely, right when she says that there really is a looming problem. that the world’s governments and businesses aren’t doing enough to avoid the worst effects, and that we really are going to face up to a need to balance economic growth against ecological loss. And if she’s right, it doesn’t matter if she was told it by a burning bush, we still need to do something about it.
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