Thanks for the thoughtful answer. As I think I implied in what I wrote, I am not a card-carrying member of the cult. For me it is more like Constantine. Maybe the same for many politicians. You see a sign. There is a battle to be fought. You claim that if you win, you will convert knowing that if you lose it is irrelevant . You win the battle. You join the cult, but adapt it to your own ideology. Center of the cult moves to Rome and it helps perpetuate power. Maybe even becomes a good thing.
Sorry for mixing these things up, but for me the analogy works.
If the cult helps the US to achieve energy independence and maintain a technology lead while concurrently restraining Chinese growth maybe it isn't so bad even if it is wrong.
If it leads to a massive, socialist wealth-redistribution weakening the West and Western values that is bad.
So I say if the cult is going to win, at least make sure it's future doctrine is shaped from the right('s) perspective.
The US won by the current rules of the game. All it needs to do is make up new rules that favor its strengths which are innovation and creativity - not wasteful use of energy. To me, at this point, it is a no brainer.
When Freepers claim the US can't do it, they are being unpatriotic. When they worry about not helping all those poor Asians and Africans by constraining the carbon usage they are either being bleeding hearts or disingenuous.
“If the cult helps the US to achieve energy independence and maintain a technology lead while concurrently restraining Chinese growth maybe it isn’t so bad even if it is wrong.”
I can’t recall a time in history when that policy has worked out well.
The "cult" has been completely taken over and is being run by re-tread marxists and ex-communists like Gorbachev. Former founders of organziations like GreenPeace and the AudobonSociety have left because the leftists took them over and moved into politics rather than actual environmental science.
Trying to move them to the center from within is hopeless. Blatant refutation of their junk-science is the only answer. The US is the cleanest country on the planet that has any sizeable population. Instead of others trying to hijack our economy with Kyoto-type treaties, we should demand that other countries adopt our current environmental laws.
That would do far more to improve the environment, and level the "free-trade" playing field at the same time.
GW is nothing but a club invented to beat the US economy over the head with.