Why Did Global Warming Become a Moral Matter?

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/why_did_global_warming_become.html ^ | Tim Thorstenson

[ventanax5]

As a scientist, I find the current strategy of the global warming crusade to be fascinating. Particularly because I am a scientist, I also find it insulting. Everyone should find it very disturbing.

I am referring to the fact that the global warming issue is now regarded as a "moral" matter by its advocates. None other than The High Priest of Global Warming (Al Gore) has decreed it as such. Of course, there is some obvious humor in this because the liberals will also tell you that you "cannot legislate morality". Well, it does not take complicated logic to conclude that if global warming is indeed a moral matter and if it is true that you cannot legislate morality, then it should hold that you cannot legislate global warming.

But making funny distracts us from a deeper concern that should worry anyone who wants to see the truth remain relevant in the matters that face our society. To see this deeper danger, let us forget about global warming for just a moment and consider morality in very general terms.

There are numerous ways to define morality, but one that is particularly helpful here is to regard morality as the "lens" through which one views the facts. Morality should not be used to simply deny the facts; and people who really understand morality do not use it that way. Rather, they use morality to put the facts in a proper context. Morality tells them "what to make of the facts".

[GOP_Muzik]

brilliant post. I love the quasi-religion reference.

[Doug Loss]

It's not a quasi-religion, it's a full-blown one. It's as scientific as Scientology is, but no more. When you forbid anyone to question the tenets of your faith, you're no longer dealing in science, you're dealing in religion.

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

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[Red Badger]

Making a "moral" argument out of Global Warming takes away all science and leaves just emotions. Truth doesn't matter, only feelings matter.......thus my tagline du jour....

[expatpat]

He doesn't understand that it is a "moral" matter within the religion of Global Warming. Every religion has its own morality code, and this is in the code of the Global-Warming religion -- the Chruch of What's Happening Now.

[rottndog]

When you forbid anyone to question the tenets of your faith, you're no longer dealing in science, you're dealing in religion cultism.

Corrected.

[delacoert]

Once upon atime, Ted Haggard tried to make green an Evangelical issue.

Evangelicals Will Not Take Stand on Global Warming
The Greening of Evangelicals
Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative

[Steve_Seattle]

One aspect of this that the author doesn't touch on is the "Bush factor." I am absolutely convinced that Bush's skepticism about global warming is one of the factors that motivated global warming proponents to ratchet up the rhetoric and demonize anyone who expressed any reservations about the reality, causes, or effects of global warming.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

American morality has until the 1960's been based solely on the Judeo-Christian values found in the Bible. Once we started abandoning those principles, morality became whatever we wanted it to be. And since man is "born in sin, shapen in iniquity", and "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?", we quickly find ourselves on the "wide path to destruction". That is why only when God delivers "whoseover will" from their fallen state, will love, joy, and peace be restored eternally to creatures once again "in His image and likeness". As long as this fallen world persists, with Satan "going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may to devour", man will be in a consistent state of "trouble like the sparks that fly upward" from a fire.

[Let's Roll]

ALL liberal issues are moral - that's why they don't need the tenets of traditional religion, they have their own.

[RightWhale]

In this case 'why' is a valid question. 'Why' implies purpose, choice, and falls into the field of Ethics. That global warming has some of the trappings of religious matters does not make it religious nor its followers, but appearing in moral choice is possible outside religion. Global warming would not present a moral choice however, since that is an individual perquisite, but a state choice, which is possibly ethical. However, 'why' is not a scientific question and that a scientist asks it does not make it scientific.

[NavyCanDo]

because it is now a religion and Al Gore the High Priest.

[r9etb]

He may be a scientist, but this piece goes to show that "being a scientist" does not necessarily equate with being able to reason outside of his chosen field.

Thorstenson apparently doesn't even recognize the fact that he's actually making a moral argument of his own -- which rather unfortunately concedes the point against which he's trying to argue.

Moreover, the controversy in question has to do with the assumption that human actions -- essentially voluntary ones -- play a role in global warming. And, on the other side, there's the questions of suppressing dissent, false reporting on both sides, and so on.

Of course there's a moral component to the debate.

[edsheppa]

it is exactly what the liberals have always (unfairly) accused us conservatives of doing

The fellow makes many good points, but this isn't one. The charge is not unfair at all. One need merely read a FR crevo thread to see it. And I will say further, that even on AGW there are many conservatives who cannot view it as a scientific matter but only as a necessarily political one. But political vs. moral matters not, there's no essential difference in the behavior.

[wayoverontheright]

Why Did Global Warming Become a Moral Matter?

So that the masses would give up their freedom and their money willingly?

[Elyse]

One aspect of this that the author doesn't touch on is the "Bush factor."

I agree. If Bush is for it, then you have to be against it. There is never a middle ground where you can meet. You have to fully demonize Bush and everything he believes in, period.

[BuffaloJack]

It's never been a moral mater. It's always been a means to advance socialism.

[Steve_Seattle]

I don't think the author has quite posed the problem correctly. If global warming is real, and will have serious negative consequences, and if it is largely caused by human activity, then it IS a moral matter. What he is trying to say, I think, is that global warming has become an "idee fixe" - an obsession - for many people, and that this prevents them from even considering whether there is evidence against it, and allows them to demonize the global warming skeptics. The problem is not that the issue might have moral ramifications, but that it has become such an emotionally laden topic for some people that they have become impervious to contrary facts.

[CPT Clay]

As a geologist I would like everyone to google "oolite".

See what happens to exess CO2 in the atmosphere.