Have you ever noticed how global warming alarmists exhibit all the characteristics of those normally belonging to religious cults? (The numbered quotes below are from the American Family Foundation’s list of cult characteristics: http://www.prem-rawat-talk.org/forum/uploads/CultCharacteristics.htm)
1. “The group is focused on a living leader [e.g. The “Goracle” or the “One”] to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.”
2. “The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.”
i. It is assumed (and expected) that you already accept man-made global warming as fact; after all, “the debate is over.”
3. “The group is preoccupied with making money.”
i. Al Gore, climatologists, green groups, General Electric, and the federal government (to name a few) are heavily invested in the business of global warming.
ii. For example, General Electric stands to make billions if Cap and Trade is enacted.
4. “Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.”
i. Questioning the theory of man-made global warming is tantamount to denying the holocaust (so don’t do it, you flat-earther, you!).
5. “Mind-numbing techniques are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).”
i. Have you attended a university and/or watched mainstream media (e.g. MSNBC) lately?
ii. Again, we are told that “the debate [over global warming] is over.” That’s funny; I don’t remember there being a debate.
6. “The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel.”
i. The mantra is “green” is good, and everything else is an abomination.
7. “The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).”
i. Those who live “green” lifestyles are saving the planet; everyone else is killing it.
ii. Recently, “[Nancy] Pelosi linked global warming to environmental justice, saying the right to a clean environment is also a human right” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLcZ2jQ4mu4rd7XlB3hetiVn1qbAD98F32AG0).
8. “The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.”
i. Those who do not support “green” ideas, products, laws, etc. are heretics.
9. “The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities.”
i. The Goracle flies to environmental speaking engagements in Gulf Stream jets while we, the commoners, are supposed to ride bikes to work and use one-ply toilet paper.
10. “The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).”
i. Obama believes the government should bankrupt the coal industry (through Cap and Trade legislation) even though most of our electricity comes from coal.
ii. The First World uses official development aid as tool to influence energy policy in the developing world by funding “green” energy projects (e.g. solar panels and wind farms) while refusing to fund “non-green,” cheaper, more reliable, energy sources (e.g. coal and natural gas).
11. “The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.”
i. “What?! You’re not driving a hybrid?”
ii. If CO2 is a pollutant, then if you are exhaling, you are polluting. According to this logic, merely by existing, all humans are destroying the planet (Never mind the fact that volcanoes release far more CO2 each year than the entire human population combined). Therefore, it is extremely selfish to have children. In fact, any increase in the human population is bad. Human beings are a nothing more than a malignant growth on this planet.
12. “Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.”
i. Obama (5/16/08): “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.”
I could keep going, but you probably get the idea.
— Woody