Global Warmenists In Search Of Their Messiah

Peter Preston is facing an inconvenient truth:

Only one American in three believes that human beings are responsible for climate change: a polling result 10% down on where opinion rested the year before.

Oh, dear…

Worse, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a hoax or a scientific conspiracy – not doubting, just damned blank certain – has doubled since 2008.

How terrible. But maybe it’s just the Yanks?

Are the issues clearer, the people more committed, here in Britain? Call for the latest evidence from Ipsos Mori – and find that the proportion of UK adults who believe that global warming is "definitely" a reality has plummeted from 44% to 31% in the last 12 months.

Heh! Guess not!

It isn't hard to collate the factors that drive disillusion. Professors with a colloquial touch writing "awful" emails; a recession so tough that it blows future shock away; a cold, cold winter the Met Office didn't forecast; scientific angst about swine flu revealed as way over the top; dodgy figures, dodgy reporting, dodgy issues way up to UN level.

Yup, that doesn’t help, for sure…

Environmental issues have slithered down the greasy pole of public anxiety. They won't get much of a mention on the hustings in May: no fresh commitments, no crucial pledges. In one sense, the heat may by rising; in another, the heat is off.

You could say, Peter, that we’ve all realised that there’s far more important things afoot.

And that, of course, is cause for very significant concern.

Only for the people who stand to gain from continuing the scam…

Democracies move in particular ways. Voters have to clamber on board when sacrifices are required. They have to see the need for pain, to sense the danger of doing nothing.

The point is, though, they see those shouting the loudest making no sacrifices whatsoever. Like George Monbiot, Al Gore, etc.

What's to be done (except wait for a natural disaster that ends all argument – and much else besides)?

Oh, right. That’d help.

The mask always slips sooner or later, right?

First, through gritted teeth, say what won't work, what's been tried already and failed.

More jaw and Gore from politicians can't cut it.

Indeed. It’s a busted flush.

The audience that matters is out there, sleeping or drifting. And rousing it will demand something different, not more of the same.

So, what do you think you need? Real, incontrovertible, peer-reviewed and replicatable scientific proof?

Ah:

And the plain fact is that we surely need a prophet, not yet another committee. We need one passionate, persuasive scientist who can connect and convince – not because he preaches apocalypse in gory detail, but in simple, overwhelming terms.

You need a man of faith, not science?

We need to be taught to believe by a true believer in a world where belief is the fatal, missing ingredient.

Well, I think that closes the book on whether global warmenism is a religion.

After all, when its high priests start looking for their messiah, what else are you going to call it?