Global Warming Ruled a Religion by British Judge

American Thinker ^ | April 30, 2009 | Marc Sheppard

[neverdem]

A fired British executive is suing his former employer on the grounds that he was unfairly dismissed due to religious views – his belief in global warming. 

According to the Independent:

“In the first case of its kind, employment judge David Sneath said Tim Nicholson, a former environmental policy officer, could invoke employment law for protection from discrimination against him for his conviction that climate change was the world's most important environmental problem.”

The judge ruled that Nicholson’s extreme green views fit the definition of “a philosophical belief under the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003.”  So strong were these “beliefs,” that they “put him at odds with other senior executives within the firm.”  The 41-year-old told the employment tribunal that, as head of sustainability at Grainger plc, Britain's largest residential property investment company, he constantly tangled with fellow-executives over the company’s environmental policies and corporate social responsibility.

Nicholson complained that senior executives obstructed his attempts to lower the company’s “carbon footprint,” and that while Grainger advertised green policies, executives actually drove "some of the most highly polluting cars on the road".  He also griped that chief executive Rupert Dickinson refused numerous requests to change the company’s policy toward employee air travel.  Nicholson even included this personally upsetting example in his written complaint: "He [Mr Dickinson] showed contempt for the need to cut carbon emissions by flying out a member of the IT staff to Ireland to deliver his BlackBerry that he had left behind in London."

All of which offended Nicholson’s green beliefs, which he says dictate his very existence, "including my choice of home, how I travel, what I buy, what I eat and drink, what I do with my waste and my hopes and my fears".   

Harry Trory, counsel for Grainger, argued that Nicholson’s “views on climate change and the environment were based on fact and science, and did not constitute a philosophical belief.”  But the judge agreed with Nicholson, finding that “his belief goes beyond a mere opinion.”

The decision makes Nicholson the first person ever to be allowed to sue for religious discrimination with environmentalism listed as the affronted creed.

What next, Earth Day declared a religious holiday, tax-exempt status extended to recycling plants, or defacing effigies of Al Gore prosecuted as a hate crime?  Not likely.

On the other hand, greenies scoffed when Michael Crichton first called environmentalism “one of the most powerful religions in the Western World” over five years ago, insisting that “settled science” was on their side. Since then it’s become increasingly evident that alarmists’ warming beliefs are based not on reason or evidence, but a trusting acceptance in the absence of either.  They outright refuse to discuss it, debate it, or abide those daring to question it.

Antitheist Sam Harris once wrote:

“The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so.”  

If British carbo-chondriacs now choose to capitulate which better exemplifies their position in an effort to exploit victims’ status, we can only hope their American counterparts soon follow their lead.

It’d be well worth a few silly law-suits to establish precedent necessary to keep this nonsense out of our public schools on those very same grounds.

And that’s just the tip of the expanding iceberg.

Hat Tip: Larwyn

[HiTech RedNeck]

Fitting.

[americanophile]

[Spktyr]

Makes sense, as Anthropocentric Global Warning cannot be proven as fact - so it must be a religion.

[ChicagahAl]

"All of which offended Nicholson’s green beliefs, which he says dictate his very existence"

For a person to be so shallow...

is appalling.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Bump. Ping.

[USNBandit]

Religion, no. Disability based on mental illness, yes.

[GeronL]

something flying over my house barking...

these people are insane

[Steve Van Doorn]

It is a religion. They worship mother nature.

[Vanders9]

The 41-year-old told the employment tribunal that, as head of sustainability at Grainger plc, Britain's largest residential property investment company, he constantly tangled with fellow-executives over the company’s environmental policies and corporate social responsibility. Nicholson complained that senior executives obstructed his attempts to lower the company’s “carbon footprint,” and that while Grainger advertised green policies, executives actually drove "some of the most highly polluting cars on the road". He also griped that chief executive Rupert Dickinson refused numerous requests to change the company’s policy toward employee air travel. Nicholson even included this personally upsetting example in his written complaint: "He [Mr Dickinson] showed contempt for the need to cut carbon emissions by flying out a member of the IT staff to Ireland to deliver his BlackBerry that he had left behind in London."

He sounds like a right pain in the tail.

[momincombatboots]

I think that is appropriate along with Darwinism. Maybe we can correct some thinking by seeing these ideas and there adherents as they are. Darwinism has been used to promote racial disparity and the belief that an embryo is not human.

[boxerblues]

Good let them rule it as a religion and them shut them up like are trying to do to Christianity

[agere_contra]

“carbo-chondriacs”, LOL

[Gorzaloon]

Tim Nicholson, a former environmental policy officer, could invoke employment law for protection from discrimination against him for his conviction that climate change was the world's most important environmental problem.”

Tim, you were fired because you were an @$$hole. Get over it.

[1010RD]

Luckily, we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights to protect us from this nonsense, right?

[concerned about politics]

“a philosophical belief under the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003.”

It is a religion.

Earth religion is a New Age term used mostly in the context of Neopaganism. It is an umbrella phrase that is used to cover any religion that worships the Earth, Nature, or fertility gods and goddesses, such as the various forms of goddess worship. Some find a connection between Earth-worship and the Gaia hypothesis. Earth religions are also formulated to allow one to utilize the knowledge of preserving the Earth.

[concerned about politics]

dictate his very existence

Exactly. Most left wing cults evolve from this pathology. These people have no identity of their own. The cult gives them not only an identity, but a psodo-family that recognizes them as well.

Small children , while going through their developmental stages, will often start "clubs" that give them and their friends a temporary group identify. As time goes on, the children usually grow out of this club mentality. Others never mature beyond this stage. These are the liberal fringe groups that go out of their way to make themselves known, even though they serve no reasonable purpose in a normal society.

The Oboma cult is a classic example of this malady. These are the lost souls who have never gone beyond stage two in Maslows Hierarchy of needs.

[LearsFool]

Good! Can we get a little “separation of green and state” now?

[Category Four]

Only in England ... "I think it must be one o' them Crackpot Religions."

Monty would've had a field day with 'em.

[cookcounty]

"What next, Earth Day declared a religious holiday...?"

Then it would have to be kicked out of the schools!

Unless it was a form of Islam. Then they would have to have "Green Rooms" in the schools.

[MNDude]

If Sam Harris’s description of religion vs. science, then global warming is definetely a religion.

[Crawdad]

Faith: belief in things unseen.

[pleikumud]

You’re right - the whole idea of “man-made global warming” is a pagan religion. Obama and the Congressional National Socialists think they are high priests of Global Warming, beating on the drums, praying to the Gods of the Greenhouse Gases, spreading ignorance around the country.

Obama wants Cap & Trade, which would be a death sentence for our economy. I have to wonder if Obama and the other Socialist sponsors of this legislation are aware of basic facts. For example: 1) greenhouse gases are not evil, they are essential to keeping the earth warm enough for humans; 2) the most common greenhouse gas is water vapor; 3) CO2 is not pollution, it is essential for plants and humans; 4) CO2 is only a trace element in the atmosphere at 380 parts per million; 5) humans and their activities account for only 3% of CO2 emissions each year; 6) the earth has had cycles of cooling and warming about every 1,500 years due to variations in the sun’s activity and our orbit around the sun; 7) these cycles are beyond human control; 8) about 1,000 years ago, Greenland had vineyards; 9) the earth is cooling now, not warming relative to prior decades; 10) water expands when cooled (or frozen) and contracts when heated, so warmer temperatures would reduce sea levels as ice caps melt; and 11) a major reduction of sun spots in recent years suggests a coming mini ice age.
An excerpt from the March 2009 issue of The American Spectator: “All scientists agree that if man-made global warming is real, it would leave a fingerprint in the form of temperatures increasing with altitude in the tropical troposphere portion of the atmosphere up to a hotspot about 10 kilometers above the surface, reflecting the pattern of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Warming due to solar variations or other natural causes would not leave such a fingerprint pattern. Recently, higher-quality temperature data from balloons and satellites ... enables us to settle the man-made global warming debate definitively. The data from weather balloons shows the opposite pattern: no increasing warming with altitude, but rather a slight cooling with no hotspot. The satellite data shows the same result: no increasing temperature with altitude, no hotspot, no fingerprint, maybe again a slight cooling with altitude. Game over. QED. The global warming empire is rattling around but has not and cannot come up with an effective response. The data is the data. The science is the science. Man-made global warming is a hoax developed to serve powerful special interests.” (This was written by Peter Ferrara.)

Obama may not know these things, or he may be choosing to ignore the facts in order to create a huge new bureaucracy of socialist government control over our lives. Cap & trade would cause a huge decrease in GDP along with a huge increase in energy costs for Americans, and massive unemployment - probably higher than 15%. This will weaken our national defense capability versus our enemies, threatening capitalism and freedom.

Everyone should write to his or her Congressmoron. Remind them of the facts and the damage that would be caused by “cap & trade”.

[VRWCmember]

This is GREAT news because now we can challenge all this climate change legislation based on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment!

[VRWCmember]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg says we should respect the precedents of foreign courts, so this ruling by a British judge that belief in Global Warming is a religion therefore means that any legislation related to climate change would be a direct violation of the first ten words of the Bill of Rights.

[SunkenCiv]

A fired British executive is suing his former employer on the grounds that he was unfairly dismissed due to religious views -- his belief in global warming.

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[steelyourfaith]

Thanx !

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

You mean if my faith is in opposition to what my company does, I can force them to do what I want them to do, without holding an executive position, or owning voting stock?

Wow, who knew??

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

My tagline used to be:

Global Warming is to Revelations as Darwinism is to Genesis.

[lormand]

We already know that this religion has a “Jihad” like does the Muslims.

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

Ping me if you find one I've missed.

---

[Kenny Bunk]

This man should be immediately hired as the top Green/HR Officer of a Fortune 500 Company.

That way, he can search for Green-minded executives who also meet EEOC Diversity Guidelines. E.G., An Afro/Asian/Native American Transvestite Transexual PETA member, in the last stages of AIDS wearing Birkenstocks, a pink ribbon, a Sierra Club pin, and of course it goes without saying, an Obama campaign button.

Let us pray. We pray thee, O Lord, that this wanker and all of his significant others, regardless of race, creed, color, date of birth, and or sexual orientation, be devoured by deviant polar bears in a leisurely fashion for our edification and delight. Amen.

[momincombatboots]

Nice try LOL.

[pleikumud]

Even the State Department worships the gods of “climate change”.
http://www.state.gov/g/oes/climate/
Recently there has been a woman on the TV show Jeopardy who works for the State department, and she said she spends all her time on “climate change”. Talk about a waste of our taxes!

The lunatics are running the mental hospital.

[gleeaikin]

[The CEO] “showed his contempt by flying out a member of the IT staff...to deliver his Blackberry....”

And was it a she, and pretty too?

[gleeaikin]

I don’t know about some of the other things listed, but your number 10 struck me as partly wrong, so I Googled “effect of temperature on water volume”. The facts are that water is the most shrunken at 4 degrees Centigrade, about 39 degrees farenheit. As it goes lower it starts to expand. Also as it goes higher it also expands. Since the kind of warming that global warming people are talking about is well above 39 f, then the water would definitely expand.

[Vanders9]

You cynic you :)

[pleikumud]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(molecule) It is far more complicated than people imagine, which is why homo sapiens doesn’t really understand the climate on earth. Predictions about what will happen 50 years from now are bogus. We don’t even know where a hurricane will make landfall in 48 hours, except to say, “somewhere between Lake Charles, LA and Pensacola, FL - but maybe it will turn back and hit Tampa”

From The American Spectator March 2009 page 48: “The North Pole’s Arctic ice cap is primarily over water. So if it melted completely, sea levels would decline, not rise. However, the melting of ice and glaciers over land leads the resulting water to run into the oceans, producing increased sea levels. The South Pole’s Antarctic ice cap is primarily over land. But recent trends have been for the Antarctic ice cap to expand, while it is the Arctic ice cap over water than has been reported as receding due to slight melting. That slight Arctic melting was due to temporarily warm ocean currents. In the past couple of years, that slight melting has been reversed, and the Arctic ice cap has been restored to 1979 levels.”

[SunkenCiv]

10) water expands when cooled (or frozen) and contracts when heated, so warmer temperatures would reduce sea levels as ice caps melt

I think we're on the same page here anyway, but gleeaikin is correct about the way water behaves.

water is the most shrunken at 4 degrees Centigrade, about 39 degrees farenheit. As it goes lower it starts to expand. Also as it goes higher it also expands.

The reason ice cubes float is right in that sentence. Also, if the Arctic Ocean surface ice melts, it takes up exactly the same amount of space as it did when it was ice. If the Antarctic melted catastrophically (a nuclear weapon, for example, more like a bunch of nuclear weapons; or a great big bolide impace), it's reasonable to expect that the water would mostly be near freezing when it hit the oceans, and therefore would absorb heat from the surrounding waters, freshen them, and cool them down. Over time, the loss of the weight of the ice would lead to isostatic rebound, Antarctica would rise, the ocean basins would deepen at the same time (roughly 70 per cent of the surface is water, but most of the rebound would be in the southern hemisphere, where much more of the surface is water). Thus, after the immediate rise, over centuries the sealevel would decline.

I'd also point out that some of the ice of Antarctica is below sealevel right now, even though there is land under there, and would take up no more space in the oceans than it does now.

The oceans don't warm at depth (in the sense that somehow, by magic, the extra heat claimed to be caused by "greenhouse gases" gets stored in the oceans, and follows the conveyor belt down); instead, the oceans are quite temperature stable not far beneath the depth where the sunlight never penetrates. The oceans get brinier and denser with depth, and below a few hundred meters there's not even much oxygen (there's no photosynthesis; biological processes consist of bacterial activity). Where the Earth has seafloor volcanic activity, including the vents here and there on the fault lines, there is heat. Bacterial activity converts hydrogen sulfide and water for use as food.