PEACE WITH THE CREATOR, PEACE WITH THE CREATION
Different roads converging upon the same point
I shall preface these words with something of a disclaimer. Writing about religion tends to make me nervous. I tend to write of spirituality rather than of religiosity, referring to some Ultimate Reality or One rather than God. For good reason. God is ineffable.
I am also nervous because it is very easy to make claims or arguments that force adherents of this religion or that faith onto the defensive or, indeed, onto the attack. I agree with Gandhi that arguments over religion denote a lack of spirituality in the first place. In addition, a religious mode of argumentation can have negative connotations. The problem with organized religion is that the organisation can develop a meaning above and beyond, even over and against the religion. The result is that when people come to hear sacred words or come across sacred principles, they may come to associate them with a bad practice rather than their original meaning.
And that’s before we even come to the sensitivities of the adherents of various religions. To make critical comment in any way can seem to be an attempt to prove one religion superior to another. I shall be discussing sacred texts in an attempt to define principles of social and environmental justice. I shall be discussing the meaning of these texts, on the presumption that they do indeed mean something. This is not an attempt to claim that this religion is superior to that, this holy book is superior to that holy book. I have no interest in such arguments.
Jeffrey Moses has written a book called Oneness: Great Principles Shared by All Religions. On the cover is this quotation from the Dalai Lama:
Every major religion of the world has similar ideas of love, the same goal of benefiting humanity through spiritual practice, and the same effect of making their followers into better human beings.
That is my view too. Yes, there are finer distinctions to be made, and these are important in articulating the various aspects of faith. But I reject a narcissism of minor differences to embrace the moral ground that unites each and all. Moses insists that the founders of all major world religions - Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Confucius and Muhammad - have all taught the principle of loving one's neighbour as thyself. This takes us beyond the minimal self of egoism to the maximal self that comes in unity with others, love of self and others as a mutual growth.
These are the fundamental moral truths wherever one’s spirituality is grounded – whether in Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism or Islam, or, indeed, in the re-emerging nature religions. When organised within religion, I take these moral truths to be signposts pointing the way. Of course, at some point, the spiritual journey comes to an end, we know the way and come off the path. At that point, we have no further need of the organisation. But that’s the end of the personal journey. Others may still need the signposts.
Gandhi argued that, 'Religions are different roads converging upon the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads as long as we reach the same goal?' And there are many roads. The important thing is to start making the journey in the first place.
War with the Creation, War with the Creator
Over recent decades, the ecological message has been taken up by the faith community and presented in terms relevant to sacred writings and tradition. So extensive has interest been in environmental matters that one can clearly discern the contours of an emerging eco-theology.
This development has clearly alarmed those with a vested interest in the despoliation of the planet. Those concerned with the commercial exploitation of the Earth are now attempting to reinforce the old split between the flesh and the spirit. Of course, by confining the sacred to the spiritual realm, the material world is made available to plunder and pollution – to commercial desecration.
So it is worth addressing the attempts that are being made to halt the advance of the ecological message and obstruct the efforts of the world’s religions to respond to the threat of climate change. Former Conservative MEP and now UKIP member Roger Helmer is an active promoter of climate change denial. Who, on Earth, is Roger Helmer? You might well ask.
Roger Helmer is a man big on Christian principles. He is so concerned that the Church focus on spiritual matters that he has condemned its involvement in environmental issues as a distraction from its true mission. It would have been remarkable had the Church not taken a position with respect to the ecological threats facing life on Earth, one would have thought. But Helmer is adamant that the environmental issue, of concern to every single person on this planet, is no concern of the Church. Helmer, mind you, is engrossed in the very material world of business, despite taking his stand on Christian principles. And he is also actively involved in climate change denial. All of which should take some time and effort sorting out.
I had only ever heard of Helmer with respect to his ‘Euroscepticism.’ I did a little research and discovered that the man has courted controversy on a number of issues. Arguing, in 2011, that there should be two categories of rape, "stranger rape" and "date rape", he proceeded to claim that a woman who is date raped "surely shares a part of the responsibility". ("Tory MEP causes rape row over 'share of responsibility'". BBC News. 25 May 2011. Retrieved 25 May 2011.) For what, turning up for the date. Ludicrous.
Helmer has also claimed that homophobia does not exist and that the word "is merely a propaganda device" designed to "denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions". (Helmer, Roger (2009-07-19). "Poles take some stick". Retrieved 2009-08-11.) I have heard Helmer adopt precisely this line of ‘reasoning’ with respect to climate science. He has also argued that climate science is a propaganda device which sidelines scientists with contrary views and which allows poorer nations to guilt trip the west into handing over funds, for so long as the climate science hoax lasts. Helmer has been expecting the science for human made climate change to unravel for a few years now. In truth, the evidence for human made global heating has been strengthened even further since Helmer made these claims. The contrary explanations that the likes of Helmer continually promise have yet to materialise. Solar activity and volcanic eruptions have been checked and tested, again and again. Professor Richard Muller was once a climate change ‘sceptic’. His BEST team checked solar activity and volcanic eruptions and found their influences to be negligible and non-existent. Muller looked at the evidence and changed his mind. He now describes himself as a ‘former climate change sceptic’.
It’s evidence that counts, not opinions based on politics. All scientists are sceptics. Climate change deniers just close their ears to the evidence and denigrate the science and the scientists. That’s what makes them deniers. That’s a very important point to establish, because Helmer routinely switches the attention from the climate science itself to the pecuniary motivations of those advocating the science of global heating. He did precisely this on the George Galloway Talk Radio show, giving a long list of individuals and governments, such as the Maldives Islands, who are only interested in exploiting climate science for monetary gain. Yet, when criticised, Helmer hides behind philosophic convention: ‘If you’re only interested in repetitive ad hominem abuse, please do it somewhere else.’ But ad hominem abuse is precisely what Helmer specialises in, not science. He name dropped the odd scientist who is rejects the climate consensus (and alleged that many more have agreed with him in private, although they prefer to remain anonymous), he avoided offering alternative scientific explanations, and pushed on to the ad hominem assaults which, to cut a long story short, amounted to no more than the hoary old accusation that ‘they’re all on the gravy train’. Yes, the same accusation that Helmer has built his political ‘career’ on with his attacks on the EU.
Helmer has a fine line in traducing those who do not conform to his prejudices. In March 2012, Helmer spoke out in support of Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, and his condemnation of the government's plans to introduce same-sex marriage as a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right." Helmer went on to argue that same-sex marriage could set a precedent leading to the legalisation of communal marriage and incest. ("New UKIP MEP: Will gay marriage lead to incest?". Pink News. 6 March 2012. Retrieved New UKIP MEP: Will gay marriage lead to incest?.)
Well, to O’Brien, Helmer and all those who state their views at extremes, I shall just quote Shakespeare and say ‘the lady doth protest too much’. In Peoplewatching, the zoologist Desmond Morris writes of ‘Overkill Signals’ in the behaviour of those who protest too much with their sexual, or, rather, anti-sexual signals. We should be cautious of individuals who take such a close interest in the sexual affairs of others. To be fair, the law puts such issues in the public domain, but that nevertheless begs the question of why certain sexual activities are legal and others not, why some are deemed moral and others not.
But I’m more interested in Helmer’s modus operandi. Helmer employs a well-worn tactic here. It’s the old ‘thin end of the wedge’ argument: associate something that is being proposed, and which is entirely reasonable, with something that is still taboo, and likely to be unpopular. The pro-fox hunting lobby used to do the same thing, first fox-hunting will be banned, then fishing. It’s an approach designed to associate a minority opinion with something that commands common assent. It’s also a view that presumes that people who live by a moral code have no part in its negotiation or renegotiation – the principle is set in stone for all time. Not so. The natural law is nature as seen through the eyes of reason – our reason, the reason of all individuals who live by a moral code.
But at least we’ve established that Helmer is a man of strong Christian principles. Or, rather, he is a man strong on asserting Christian principles, which is quite different. He certainly asserts Christian principles against positions that threaten to interfere with the way he thinks the world of business should operate. As a man of great spiritual concern, Helmer took it upon himself to give the Church of England a lecture on spirituality. In a letter to the Leicester Mercury on 16 November 2009, Helmer accused the Church of having "abandoned religious faith entirely and taken up the religion of climate alarmism instead". (Stratton, Allegra (2009-11-20). "Climate change denial MEP attacks church". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2009-11-20).
Helmer’s assault upon the Church of England was quite gratuitous. He accused the Church of having abandoned religious faith to take up ‘the religion of climate alarmism instead’. He claimed that bishops are spending more time preaching climate change than the Gospel of salvation. The claims, of course, are all false. There has been no neglect. Pronouncements on the climate crisis form one part of what the Church of England has been doing, and they have not ceased their normal services.
But Helmer’s extreme criticism is worth examining. One would have thought that the Gospel of salvation is connected in some way with the material terrain as we work our ways up towards spiritual perfection. Helmer argues as though we may wilfully destroy the planet as a mere material terrain, so long as we attain salvation in the spiritual realm. But that begs the not insignificant theological question of how we earn that salvation this side of Heaven. There would appear to be little point preaching the Gospel of salvation if we were somehow allowed to wilfully destroy the foundations of life on Earth. Helmer’s view corresponds to the reactionary position that God created the Earth for us to do with as we want. But if we are to take a stand on Judaeo-Christian principles, we need to establish clearly that the relation of the Creator and the Creation comes with a moral code written into Creation, a code that we ought to live up to. That is a view that enjoins us to work upwards to spiritual perfection through the material world. That is a very different notion to the one Helmer is proposing.
Helmer asserts that the scientific evidence is now showing that human beings are not having the impact on the planet that the ‘climate alarmists’ claim. Helmer’s specific claims in this respect are unimportant. They are precisely the same claims that are repeated as a mantra by climate change deniers. It isn’t serious science, of course, it’s the political management and manipulation of popular opinion. My specific interest here is what Helmer has to say about religion.
On the George Galloway Talk Sport show, Helmer made a number of highly contentious charges against the Church of England: ‘the church seems to spend an awful lot of its time talking about the new religion of global warming and less about the old religion of Christianity. But I think the big issue is this whole question of global warming itself rather than what the Church has to say about it.’ Helmer refers to ‘the climate alarmist theory’. He repeats this well-rehearsed assault: ‘most of us think that the Church should be concerned with religion, with Christianity… what we don’t expect is for the Church to be coming along and taking a position on a highly contentious scientific issue, where they have no particular scientific issue, where they have no particular position to take a view on, and I think the Church should concentrate on religion and not on the new religion of climate change.’
What can we make of Helmer’s views, either as science or as religion? Well, not much, neither as science nor as religion. Helmer’s approach has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Under analysis, it crumbles so completely that there are only the holes left.
He condemns the Church for its lack of scientific expertise. The Church is not claiming scientific expertise, it is pointing to the expertise of the climate scientists. And the fact is that Helmer, despite taking his stand on scientific expertise, thinks even less of the climate scientists than he does of the Church. Helmer himself is not a climate scientist. He has a mathematics degree. He alleges a lack of scientific expertise in others in order to silence them, then makes a series of positive statements with respect to climate change. One gets the impression that Helmer is not a character much worried by charges of hypocrisy.
So let’s look at his repeated charge that climate science is a new religion of climate alarmism. If, by ‘climate alarmism’, Helmer means the science of climate change, then the overwhelming evidence is in favour of a human made global heating, with a temperature increase of anything from 2-6C in the offing without massive reductions in carbon emissions. Reason enough for alarm, one would have thought. And that’s a matter of good, sound science, not religion.
If Helmer knows better, then he should do what real scientists do, some original research, and then put up the evidence instead of citing the authority of scientists who are not part of the consensus. Those scientists certainly exist. The problem is that they themselves have yet to produce explanations that fit the known facts. If and when they should ever do this, we will know about it.
Any ‘alarmism’ that climate scientists are guilty of is an ‘alarmism’ that is based upon sound science, painstaking research, fact and evidence, not religious faith. A non-falsifiable hypothesis is not science, it is faith. Climate science is not a religion, old or new, but conforms 100% to scientific principles. AGW is eminently falsifiable. It’s evidence that counts. Helmer is free to falsify the evidence for human made global heating and propose an alternative explanation for the global temperature increase. That he does not do so strongly suggests that he cannot do so. Helmer dismisses the case for human made global heating as ‘a lot of hype and nonsense’. It should be very, very easy to expose and falsify then. The only proviso is that his case has to be able to withstand proper scientific scrutiny. To date, Helmer hasn’t done that. None of the climate change deniers have.
What Helmer does do is twist the evidence, cherry pick the data and employ statistical legerdemain. It’s the familiar approach of the climate change deniers, and immediately exposes the hollowness of Helmer’s scientific case. If you dismiss a scientific position as ‘hype and nonsense’, you have to deliver on the science or lose credibility. What Helmer offers is lame.
Helmer argues that the evidence is for global cooling, not heating. Yes, the well-known climate myth of the deniers. Helmer says: ‘we’ve seen in the last hundred years an average temperature increase of less than one degree centigrade. It’s about 0.7 degrees centigrade. That’s a very small change and it’s entirely consistent with well established, long term natural climate cycles. In fact the hottest year in living memory was 1998, that’s more than ten years ago now. Since then temperatures have been flat or falling, and it’s extraordinary that we’re still getting excited about climate change and global warming, when it appears to have stopped happening.’
Helmer’s statement is incorrect and contradictory. Before getting into specific details, we should note the contradiction in Helmer’s reasoning. In one sentence, the global heating that is happening is part of ‘long term natural cycles’, in the next sentence global heating ‘appears to have stopped happening’. What happened to the natural cycles causing the heating? You can’t say that global heating is consistent with natural cycles in one breadth, and then say it isn’t happening in the next. Unless one is merely citing natural cycles to explain everything and nothing.
And it is worth drawing attention to the extent to which Helmer quotes the climate change denial spiel verbatim. ‘The 0.7 °C increase in the average global temperature over the past hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.’ You can pick this up almost word for word from any number of denialist web sites. Helmer has learned his lines and is repeating them like a parrot.
Oh, and the claim is not only unoriginal, it is wrong. As the New Scientist points out: ‘The rapid warming since the late 1970s has occurred even though other factors that can warm the planet, such as the sun's intensity, have remained constant.’
As for Helmer’s specific claim of cooling, this is no more than the statistical trick of using the extreme El Nino year of 1998 as a base point and noting that the temperatures fall after. ‘It was quite possible in 1998 to say that if this trend continues then we’re going to be in trouble, but we’ve now had a further ten years since 1998, eleven years in fact, and that trend has not continued, it appears to have reversed.’
In point of scientific fact, the trend has not reversed. Two temperatures since have been higher than 1998. Further, seven of the temperatures after 1998 are in the highest ten in recorded history. The overall trend remains upwards, as a few minutes research will verify. Helmer employs not science but statistical tricks to deny climate change in the public view. It isn’t a ‘science’ that conforms to accepted scientific principle. It isn’t clever either. It takes a few minutes to refute.
Note also Helmer’s attempt to exploit the psychic effect of small and large numbers. He states that average temperature increase is ‘about 0.7 degrees centigrade’ and claims that that’s ‘a very small change’. In statistics maybe, but in terms of climate that’s a big change. And it’s about to get bigger. Helmer’s playing with the psychology of numbers reveals either his scientific illiteracy or his political motivations. His claim that a 0.7C of global heating is a ‘very small change’ betrays a complete ignorance of delicate balances at work within the climate system and ecosystems.
The fact is that Helmer has no scientific case, he has done no original research and has no evidence to bring to the table. There is a hymn sheet of climate change denial out there and characters like Helmer just sing from it. Every claim Helmer makes can be read in Christopher Booker’s The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The Obsession With 'Climate Change' Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History? Booker quotes Professor Lindzen: 'Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st-century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally average temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections contemplated a roll-back of the industrial age."
Helmer makes precisely the same point, diminishing the significance of a 0.7C temperature increase and caricaturing the scientific methodology: ‘It seems that people would rather believe the computer models that predict warming and predict sea level rises rather than going out and observing the actual facts on the ground which are quite different.’ At a Conference in the EU parliament ‘I had scientists and other commentators from around the world … presenting a very coherent case that the theory of anthropogenic global warming simply doesn’t match the facts. If you choose to believe a lot of computer models and computer predictions, then you get one result, if you actually go and get the data and what’s going on in the world today you get a quite different result’.
As if scientists rely only on computer predictions and fail to do any research. The claim that computer models can be made to predict anything scientists want is simply false. Climate models are based on the physical laws that apply in the real world. If Helmer doesn’t know that, then he is an ignoramus.
Helmer suggests that climate scientists are relying one computer models and are not going out to collect the ‘actual facts on the ground’. Again, he is simply wrong. He is so wrong, in fact, that one has to question why and how he is given a platform. In fact, the crucial evidence that CO2 warms the planet comes from the fields of physics and chemistry, and not from general climate models. It’s the facts on the ground which constitute the evidence for global heating, not the computer predictions. And when all the data is examined and set in the context of long-term trends, the conclusion points to global heating induced by human activity. And that’s the conclusion that the scientific community has drawn as a result of observations and fundamental physics, not computer modelling. Computer modelling deals with predictions.
Helmer’s distinction between computer modelling and ‘real world’ observation of fact crops up time and again in the assertions of climate change deniers. Its appeal lies not at the level of science but politics – it appeals to a common sense division between the ‘real world’ of physical fact and the made up world of computers. It is mere a crude appeal to a common sense division between the real world we see and the artificial world of computers. That division appeals to those who lack an understanding of, and even fear, science and technology.
The claim that human made global heating is based on narrow and flawed computer modelling is fatuous. Paul N Edwards, associate professor in the School of Information at Michigan University, has subjected this claim to rigorous analysis. In A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press 2011), Edwards presents a wealth of material concerning the painstaking and complex nature of the data gathering process, pointing to the millions of pieces of data collection, management and evaluation that goes through dozens of stages to form the global climate picture. Even the most cursory acquaintance with how climate science proceeds is sufficient to expose the complete vacuity of the computer modelling objection raised by climate change deniers. In referring in such general terms to computer modelling, Helmer and his like merely make manifest the extent of their scientific illiteracy. Or their political motivations behind such scientific illiteracy.
Helmer proves his illiteracy with other statements. He points out that CO2 is not the most important greenhouse gas, water vapour is. True, but not the point at issue. The fact that Helmer thinks this is a significant point suggests either a poor grasp of science or a deliberate attempt to deceive. Water vapour is a feedback, not a cause of heating. The amount of water in the atmosphere is dependent upon the temperature; any excess rains out within days.
He continues: ‘Human emissions of CO2 are about 3% of the total global carbon cycle, so I think it is more bizarre actually to say that human activity can change the whole world and the whole climate system.’
This is just fundamentally bad science and betrays a complete ignorance of the way that CO2 works in the atmosphere. Once more, the claim is read directly from the climate change deniers propaganda sheet. It’s a claim that is repeated many times. The fact is that the 3 per cent figure is obtained only by counting water vapour, which is a feedback and not a cause of global heating. But the figure is an irrelevance in any case. Arguing that the small amount of human emissions in the atmosphere don’t matter is like saying you can safely drink a glass of water with only a bit of strychnine in it. The figure is irrelevant. Its the physics of the properties that matters, not the “amount”. Peter Gleick gives good advice here to those who get this elementary science wrong: ‘Go back to any basic chemistry and atmospheric science textbook.’
Again, though, we make an error if we confine our attention to the science. It’s politics and it’s all about manipulating public perceptions. The figure might be irrelevant at the level of science. But politically, it is highly important. This is a clear attempt to exploit the psychic impression of numbers. In terms of science, Helmer’s point is another irrelevance. Human carbon emissions may look small but their significance is large. When a natural source of carbon has a natural sink, there is a carbon balance. The problem is one of carbon imbalance. Carbon emissions as a result of human activity lack a carbon sink, hence a growing carbon imbalance. If human carbon emissions formed 100% of the total global carbon cycle, there wouldn’t be a problem if sources and sinks were in natural balance. The question doesn’t concern the numbers, it concerns the carbon balance. This is elementary stuff, yet it escapes Helmer and the deniers. Or they understand the point well and are out to exploit the ignorance of the general public.
When asked about the melting of sea ice, Helmer says this: ‘I know that the Arctic ice cover was at a relatively low level in 2007 but all the latest information is that in 2008 and 2009 the cover has increased and is getting thicker…’
Getting thicker…. Is he referring to climate change deniers? Scientists have now recorded a record melt of sea ice in the Arctic. Records have not just been broken, they have been smashed. Helmer asserts that politicians ‘have climbed onto this climate change bandwagon … believe they have no option but to pursue it, but as a famous economist once said, when the facts change, I change my mind’.
Despite the record melt in the Arctic, Helmer continues to espouse his denialist faith. He has to. It’s all in the cause of the new religion of mammon. Helmer is free to worship at the Temple of Mammon. What he has no right to do is call this establishing society on Christian principles. ‘Ye cannot serve two masters’.
He has no right to claim to be engaging in science, either. Prof Richard Muller is a former climate change sceptic who, as leader of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (Best) project, has produced research to show that almost all of the temperature increase of the last 250 years is down to human carbon emissions. "We were not expecting this, but as scientists, it is our duty to let the evidence change our minds." Muller let the facts change his mind. Helmer, believing what he chooses to believe, and fitting the facts accordingly, has not changed his mind. And he has the temerity to accuse the Church of embracing the ‘new religion’ of ‘climate alarmism’. This is politics of the worst kind and we need to take a stand on both science and religion against it.
Helmer claims the IPCC is a governmental body and not a truly scientific body. He claims that the 2000 plus scientists involved are uncomfortable with the supposed consensus. When pressed, he claims to have met two, he won’t name the others. Even the most cursory examination of the volumes of scientific literature published can establish the active involvement of scientists in the IPCC.
And that’s the best he offers. Oh, and a reference to Fred Singer.
The problem is that Helmer criticises the Church for taking a position on climate change, despite a lack of scientific expertise on its part. Helmer also lacks expertise, yet feels free to take a position, on no other basis than picking which scientific authority he chooses to believe. There’s a new religion at work here, alright, and it isn’t environmentalism – it’s money making, and those with gold in their eyes want to be free from moral constraints and religious sensibilities in order to do all the prospecting they want.
Having established that Helmer’s scientific case is no more than (politically motivated) ‘hype and nonsense’, I want to examine his theological credibility. The attack that Helmer launched on the Church was aggressive and extreme. So it is worth seeing how he can back that up at the level of Christian principle.
To repeat, Helmer accuses the Church of having abandoned religious faith and having taken up ‘the religion of climate alarmism instead’. ‘The church seems to spend an awful lot of its time talking about the new religion of global warming and less about the old religion of Christianity.’ He asserts that ‘the Church should be concerned with religion, with Christianity…’ To which the obvious response would be that that is precisely what the Church is doing, seeking to satisfy the spiritual yearning through the material concerns of human beings. Helmer seems to think there is a complete divorce between spirit and flesh. Well, this has never been the orthodox view, and is more akin to the Manichean heresy. Helmer isn’t allowed that view, because he expressly states that society should be built on Christian principles. Unless Helmer has a theocracy in mind, and that entails a direct involvement in the worldly concerns of politics. And it also involves a position on the social and natural environment.
Helmer made his statement shortly after having participated in an inter-faith event at Leicester cathedral concerning the threat of climate change. The Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, notes that Helmer did not express these views at the time, wondering whether "this was merely courtesy, or was it because the opportunity for a platform meant more to him than exposing his views to scrutiny or challenge from a live audience". ("Faith and the planet". 2009-11-19 ).
The Bishop is being gracious, but we understand the implication. Climate change deniers specialise in peddling their pseudo-science to non-scientists on TV and radio. Helmer had obviously seen how the climate message was making inroads and became alarmed. It’s all about manipulating public perceptions rather than engaging the real science. When it comes to presenting their ‘arguments’ to real scientists, the deniers are thin on the ground. For a good reason. They lack an alternative explanation for climate change, a proper explanation that is, one based on research, testing, evidence. If they should ever find that explanation – and it’s always possible, since this is science – then we will hear of it. The world of business is desperate to be told that it can carry on polluting with impunity. To date, we lack that explanation. Instead, we get politically motivated pseudo-science presented to non-scientific audiences and designed to denigrate climate science. The world of politics should be proud of itself, deceiving and dissembling to the bitter end.
Clearly worried by the extent to which the ecological message is winning adherents amongst members of various faiths, particularly among Christians, Helmer attempts to enforce the crudest of distinctions between the world of spirit on the one hand and the world of matter on the other. His message is that the Church should concentrate on spiritual matters and not get involved in Green issues. That ensures that the material world remains denuded of moral and spiritual significance, making it all the easier to exploit.
As though the spiritual concern can be divorced from material affairs. As though Creator and Creation can be separated in such a crude manner. As though men and women who believe in a Creator would have no concern for the Creation. Take this Jewish prayer: “And God saw everything that He had made, and found it very good. And He said, This is a beautiful world that I have given you. Take good care of it; do not ruin it.”
Helmer’s view is arrant nonsense, just another attempt to bully people of conscience into silence. It’s an attempt to silence the concern with social and environmental justice in a material world of injustice. We are being asked to settle for justice in the afterlife – the oldest con-trick in the book. Has Helmer been living in a cave? Has he not seen the democratic revolutions of the past few centuries?
I’ll take no lessons from Helmer, neither on science nor on faith, nor on theology. The most vociferous assertions of the apolitical conception of the spiritual have often hidden the ugliest of political motivations. And this kind of quietism has no basis whatsoever in the life of Jesus.
What historian and Christian Socialist R. H. Tawney writes in The Acquisitive Society is a decisive refutation of the ‘apolitical’ spirituality proffered by politically motivated men like Helmer. Tawney writes with such a combination of eloquence and power here that I make no apologies for quoting him at length.
"He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek." A society which is fortunate enough to possess so revolutionary a basis, a society whose Founder was executed as the enemy of law and order, need not seek to soften the materialism of principalities and powers with mild doses of piety administered in an apologetic whisper. It will teach as one having authority, and will have sufficient confidence in its Faith to believe that it requires neither artificial protection nor judicious under-statement in order that such truth as there is in it may prevail. It will appeal to mankind, not because its standards are identical with those of the world, but because they are profoundly different. It will win its converts, not because membership involves no change in their manner of life, but because it involves a change so complete as to be ineffaceable. It will expect its adherents to face economic ruin for the sake of their principles with the same alacrity as, not so long ago, it was faced by the workman who sought to establish trade unionism among his fellows.
It will define, with the aid of those of its members who are engaged in different trades and occupations, the lines of conduct and organization which approach most nearly to being the practical application of Christian ethics in the various branches of economic life, and, having defined them, will censure those of its members who depart from them without good reason. It will rebuke the open and notorious sin of the man who oppresses his fellows for the sake of gain as freely as that of the drunkard or adulterer. It will voice frankly the judgment of the Christian conscience on the acts of the State, even when to do so is an offence to nine-tenths of its fellow-citizens. Like Missionary Churches in Africa to-day, it will have as its aim, not merely to convert the individual, but to make a new kind, and a Christian kind of civilization.
Such a religion is likely to be highly inconvenient to all parties and persons who desire to dwell at ease in Zion. But it will not, at any rate, be a matter of indifference. The marks of its influence will not be comfort, but revolt and persecution. It will bring not peace, but a sword. Yet its end is peace. It is to harmonize the discords of human society, by relating its activities to the spiritual purpose from which they derive their significance.
Tawney 1982: 158
Add the cause of environmental justice to the cause of social justice that Tawney espouses, and this is a powerful statement of the relevance of the Christian ethic to social and political thought. A concern with the spiritual does not entail an indifference to the affairs of the material world, quite the contrary. Such a religion is indeed most ‘likely to be highly inconvenient’ to all those who desire to enclose, expropriate and exploit the world, its people and resources. Tough! Those who seek to hold the spiritual and material worlds in antithesis desire to live at ease in Babylon and avoid making an effort to build Jerusalem. Whatever else that is, it’s not the Jewish view and it’s not the Christian view. If, in politics, the Christian ethic favours the socialist and the ecological message over capitalist imperatives, it’s time for those of a religious sensibility to answer the question - when Christian principle and material practice are in collision, will Christians sacrifice principle to practice, or abandon practice in order to live up to principle? Or do they think it possible to preach the equality of all souls before God whilst practising the exploitation of one’s fellow man and woman? A religion which is founded on the words and deeds of a man who was executed as the enemy of law and order need not soften the materialism of principalities and powers but accentuate them. It’s called practising what one preaches.
The idea that Christian spirituality lacks political significance is itself a highly political perspective designed to protect existing power relations, however much they contradict Christian ethics. When human beings act iniquitously within Creation they blaspheme the Creator.
The idea that a spiritual perspective excludes a political concern in worldly affairs comes with the corollary that material world lacks spiritual significance. Such a view says more about modernity’s disenchantment as a dis-godding than it does about the true relation between Creator and the Creation.
The advantage of a sharp separation between spirit and matter to those with business interests is obvious, the world of moral value is placed on one side of the divide, whilst the material world is handed over to commercial value. The kind of Christianity that Helmer espouses in the view that Church should concentrate on spiritual matters is the kind that has no practical import in the world in which we live. And it is untenable.
Praising Cardinal O'Brien's condemnation of gay marriage, Helmer opined that "Christian moral principles are not a bad basis for a free and fair society".("New UKIP MEP: Will gay marriage lead to incest?". Pink News. 6 March 2012. Retrieved New UKIP MEP: Will gay marriage lead to incest?.) I can agree. So long as we are talking about Christian moral principles. These principles point to a free and a fair society based upon social justice. And social justice is linked to environmental justice in that the way that we relate to each other is connected to the way that we relate to the world around us. Spiritual concerns are material concerns. Helmer cannot tell the Church to confine its concerns to spiritual matters and then demand that society be based on Christian moral principles. That is a contradictory position.
There is little evidence of Helmer practising the spirituality he preaches. Helmer is quick to question the pecuniary motives of others. The government of the Maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting to draw attention to their plight, threatened by rising sea levels as a result of global heating. Helmer sees only political motives: ‘the sea level in the Maldives is not rising…. I see that underwater cabinet meeting as a last desperate throw to send western governments on a guilt trip and get some money in compensation before the whole global warming story is blown out of the water.’ The poorer nations most threatened by climate change are merely trying to ‘guilt trip’ the richer nations into giving them money. In one line we see the scientific and moral bankruptcy of not just the climate change deniers, but of the rapacious, iniquitous and unjust economic system they defend. That line could be written as civilisation’s epitaph, pointing to a human species that knew better, but chose not to do better.
Helmer employs the same reasoning with respect to Al Gore. ‘Al Gore in America has no particular qualification, but has made a career and has made a great deal of money out of climate hysteria’. No particular qualification? Gore was introduced to the idea of a global environmental threat by one of his college professors at Harvard, Roger Revelle, the first person in the world to monitor carbon dioxide (CO1) in the atmosphere. Revelle’s researches in the 1960s showed that concentrations of CO2 were increasing rapidly each year, explaining that higher levels of CO2 would create what he called the greenhouse effect, which would result in a warming of the earth. A continuation of this trend implied a profound and disruptive change in the global climate, threatening the basis of human civilization.
The case for human made global warming and climate change is based on some very particular scientific expertise. Gore’s argument is Revelle’s argument; the science doesn’t change no matter whose mouth it comes out of. Helmer makes an ad hominem attack on Gore. It saves him having to deal with Revelle’s science.
Helmer can offer nothing like this level of scientific expertise and experience. It should come as no surprise to learn that Roger Helmer’s background is not religion and the Church at all, nor science, but business. He has a mathematics degree, but his main concern if the very thing that he accuses Gore of – making money. Helmer is highly active in the mundane world of business, having held senior marketing and general management appointments in a range of companies, having ran businesses in the Philippines, Vietnam, Guam and Saipan and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Korea. No doubt, he is one of those economic libertarians advocating what are called ‘Asian values’, low wages, no rights, no trade unions, long hours – exploitative business values that have nothing to do with the values of Asian people. Helmer was appointed Adam Smith Scholar in 2005 by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right wing pressure group. In April 2007, Helmer became Chairman of the libertarian pressure group, The Freedom Association. Suffice to say that the views of these organisations have as little in common with Adam Smith’s views as Stalin’s did with Marx. Smith was not a libertarian, and was concerned to set markets within a moral code and a socio-institutional framework so that the pursuit of private gain did not dissolve the public realm. The idea that private greed leads to public good was Mandeville’s (The Fable of the Bees), and Smith argued against it (Tomas Sedlacek, Economics of Good and Evil 2011 Oxford). What libertarians like Helmer advocate is the anarchy of the rich and the powerful, and that is precisely what Adam Smith argued against.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
The interest of dealers ... in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.2
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Edwin Cannan,ed. (Methuen, London, 1961), vol i, p. 144 278. vol. 2, p. 284.
Those who portray Adam Smith as an apologist for deregulated private enterprise have only cherry picked the passages they want to read, and distorted them in their selection. And why not? That is the approach Helmer takes to science and religion too.
If Helmer is serious about building a ‘free and fair’ society on Christian principles, he needs to choose which master he wants to serve, God or mammon.
God or Mammon?
Helmer’s views are of a piece with those of Melanie Phillips and Ian Plimer, for whom Green philosophy is pagan, communist and against the Judaeo-Christian foundations of our civilisation. There is little evidence of Christianity in anything these characters say. The likes of Helmer attempt to confine the Christian ethic to the spiritual attic so that they can carry on despoiling the planet. And not only do they not practice the Judaeo-Christian ethics they espouse, they set about abusing the beliefs of others. There is nothing more likely to turn people against Christianity than such broad brush abuse of non-Christian. Gandhi argued that quarrels over religion show a lack of spirituality in the first place. Asked whether he was seeking to convert people to Hinduism, Gandhi argued that a real conversion would be if Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims etc were to live up to the ideals of their faiths. Pagans? Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. What of Confucius and Lao Tze?
Surely we are beyond imperialist claims that one faith is superior to all others. The Golden Rule is central to the moral law that is implanted within all human beings.
Christianity:
'Do to others as you would have them do to you.' ~ Luke 6:31
Buddhism:
'Hurt not others in that you yourself would find hurtful.' ~ Udana-Varga 5:18
Confucianism:
'Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.' ~ Analects 15:23
Hinduism: 'Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.'
Mahabharata 5:1517
Islam:
'No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother which he desires for himself.' ~ Sunnah
Judaism:
'That which is hateful unto you, do not impose on others.' ~ Talmud, Shabbat 31a
We return here to Jeffrey Moses’ book concerning Oneness: Great Principles Shared by All Religions.
The door is open to any person of spirituality. I won’t let the likes of Helmer determine the parameters of my spiritual expression, either in this world or the next, God forbid. If I have no trust in Helmer’s grasp of science, I have even less in his grasp of theology. Men and women of faith to hold their nerve and see the desecrators of the Creation off. The money-changers are running scared, hence their resort to abuse and the bullying.
This ‘my god is bigger than your god’ type of goading should be nipped in the bud. The best comment I have ever read concerning misplaced claims of human rationality and spirituality came from Mark Twain.
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His record is the fantastic record of a maniac. I consider that the strongest count against his intelligence is the fact that with that record back of him he blandly sets himself up as the head animal of the lot: whereas by his own standards he is the bottom one.
In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh — not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”
Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth, ed. Bernard Devoto (1938), 227-8.
In light of those sage words, I’m not inclined to squabble as to who has got the biggest god of all. Such an attitude denotes an absence of spirituality in the first place and is designed to cause conflict rather than serve the cause of peace. I tend to favour Meister Eckhart here, for whom reason alone was insufficient to form an adequate conception of the divine nature: ‘The proof of a knowable thing is made either to the senses or the intellect, but as regards the knowledge of God there can be neither a demonstration from sensory perception, since He is incorporeal, nor from the intellect, since He lacks any form known to us.' (Quoted in J. C. Clark, Meister Eckhart: An Introduction to the Study of his Works with an Anthology of his Sermons (London, 1957), p.28.)
I can’t find any basis for a rational debate here over the existence or non-existence of God, still less any basis for a conflict as to whose god is bigger and better than whose. God is not another being whose existence could be proven in the manner of a normal object of thought. God is certainly not something that can be proven in the realm of politics and on the occasions when people have thought that to be the case, the results have usually been very unpleasant and often very violent. I’m not interested.
God is Nothing in Eckhart’s view, something which implies a richer, fuller type of existence than that which is available to the senses and to the intellect. Similarly, Eckhart called God 'darkness' to indicate the presence of something brighter.
So, cautioning that such a conception of God is elusive, a matter of genuine faith and discipline, and not something to be used to spread rancour, abuse the views of others and back political platforms, I shall move cautiously onto the theological terrain. Suffice to say, those who claim that society should be founded upon Judaeo-Christian principles should make a start by practising what they preach, and cease abusing others’ beliefs.
So, with those cautions out of the way, I’d like to assess some of the claims being made on behalf of the Christian view against environmentalism as pagan, materialist, communist and marxist.
We can make short work of this rigid division between matter and spirit that the likes of Helmer insist upon. This division is contradicted directly by the Bible.
“This is what the LORD says:
"Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?"
declares the LORD.”
(Isaiah 66:1-2)
Heaven and Earth are as directly connected as are God’s throne and footstool. All these material things have been made by the hand of God. ‘Declares the LORD’. And that’s good enough for me.
The passage disturbed Augustine, since it is idolatry to adore the earth. His solution was to read the adoration of ‘the footstool of His feet’ into the adoration of the Eucharist, drawing an analogy between the Earth and the Body of Christ. Since the body of Christ was taken from the earth in the womb of Mary, then Christians can adore the earth without impiety: "In doubt I turn to Christ and find how the earth can be adored without impiety. . . . Flesh is from the earth and He received flesh from the flesh of Mary; He walked here in the very flesh and gave that flesh to us to cat for our salvation; but no one eats that flesh without first adoring it. Thus we have found how such a footstool of our Lord's may be adored. Not only do we not sin by adoring, but we sin by not adoring." (Enarrationes in Psalmos 98 9 (37, 1265).
Augustinian subtlety, even sophistry, the sceptical may object. But the objection only carries weight against those who wish to reconcile a clear Biblical statement concerning the Earth as God’s footstool with Catholic teaching, central to which is the belief that the body of Christ really is in the Eucharist. And what parallelism between flesh and Earth!! We adore the same flesh which He had received from Mary, and that is what we eat. (A Guide to the Thought of St Augustine Eugene Portalie 1960 ch 14). Whether stated directly or indirectly, the passage emphasises the connection between Heaven and Earth, spirit and flesh, and we are enjoined to engage in the adoration of both. As St Ambrose reasoned: "Therefore by footstool the earth is understood, and by earth the body of Christ which we today also adore in mysteries and which the Apostles adored ... in the Lord Jesus." (Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto, III, 11, 79 (16, 828-829).
Roger Helmer asserts that ‘The Church should concentrate on what the Church does’. By which he means that the Church should go back to sprinkling holy water on an iniquitous and exploitative social order and proclaim the non-political message of a perfect spiritual world beyond the material terrain. Both worlds are connected. What most stands in need of explanation is not that Church is speaking on the spiritual significance of Earthly matters, whether one refers to the environment or social affairs, but why the Church came to vacate the material terrain in the first place, abandoning people to usurers and idolaters; and why the Church has remained silent for so long whilst those with the most worldly of motivations expropriated and exploited the Creation as they saw fit. The Church has remained silent whilst the Earth, as God’s footstool, has been desecrated. And the simple fact is that Helmer is merely engaging in a rather shabby and obvious piece of political bullying. The distinction between spirit and matter quickly resolves itself into a division between religion and politics: ‘the Church should be concerned with religion’. A Church that has no relevance at all to the concerns of everyday life will soon cease to be. It seems obvious to argue that creating a code of ethics with a view to modifying behaviour lies at the very heart of religious faith, but practising what one preaches seems beyond Helmer. He calls for a society based on Christian principles, yet says that people have had ‘enough of being harangued and taxed and blamed for climate change, they don’t believe it and they’re starting to say look guys we’ve had enough of this.’ Which begs the question of just what role Christian ethics, based on sacrifice, does have in Helmer’s Christian society.
Well, scientists and ecologists are also demanding a change in behaviour, thereby encroaching on traditional religious terrain. That’s the nature of climate change – it’s a universal and it pertains to the whole range of human knowledge. Attempts to establish and maintain disciplinary and professional boundaries are simply arbitrary.
He tells us that the Church lacks the scientific expertise to pronounce on climate change, he himself makes a series of positive statements with respect to the climate science, despite himself being a mathematician. He himself lacks scientific credentials with respect to climate change and global warming. So he cites other scientists, Fred Singer and a couple of others. Well, we can all do that. When one examines the usual names that get dropped by deniers, the battle lines become blurred. Take these quotes from leading climate change sceptics on global warming.
Dr Roy Spencer we are in a “warming trend [and its warming] by ever increasing amounts.”
Dr Pat Micheals “When someone says there’s no warming I squirm. it’s hard to look at all those records and entertain that”.
Dr S Fred Singer “How can you argue with thermometers? I don’t argue with thermometers”?
Dr John Christy “It is warming about 1.4 degrees C per decade right now”.
And these are the sceptics outside of the climate change consensus!! When it comes to statements on climate change, the view of the state reflects the consensus view amongst climate scientists. The likes of Helmer exploit the fact that science deals with uncertainty rather than certainty, and hence that views are always open to question and revision to deny such a thing as consensus. Well, that is sophistry. All scientific theses are subject to criticism and questioning, and that applies to human made climate change and global warming. It’s evidence that counts, and Helmer has nothing to offer here, other than the stock-in-trade of climate change deniers.
My point is that it’s not only Helmer’s grasp of science that is feeble, his understanding of theology is weedy, amounting to no more than an assertion of a crude division between spiritual concerns and material affairs. And, of course, that’s not theology at all, it’s politics, it’s issuing a keep out sign to those who wish to bring morality to bear in the ugly business of exploiting the planet and its people and resources.
Well, the growing intervention of the various religions and faith communities in social and environmental matters indicates that those days are coming to an end, and not before time. ‘All that is holy is profaned’, Karl Marx wrote of the rise of capitalism. Max Weber referred to the disenchantment of the world. We see the evidence of desecration all around us in the form of social injustice, war and environmental destruction.
The world stands in need of re-enchantment. If the Church, if the world’s religions in general, can come to play a proactive role in this re-enchantment, they may well come to recover their original purpose, bringing the spiritual perspective to bear upon worldly affairs and relations. I have argued that the Christian message does entail the creation of Heaven on Earth, ‘Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven’. The strict separation between spirit and matter that Helmer asserts would deny this. The corollary of Helmer’s view is that men and women of religious faith should have nothing to say as exploiters and usurers of in their many forms come to act in such a way as to create a Hell on Earth.
If this has to be taken to a higher theological court, then the word of the Lord becomes no more than what lawyers and sophists say it is. When it comes to understanding the relation between Creator and Creation, spirit and matter, I shall read the Bible and listen to the Pope and my local priest, and other men and women of spiritual understanding, consult my conscience, read the latest science, and pay no attention at all to the likes of Roger Helmer and Ian Plimer.
In his encyclical Mater et Magistra of 1961, Pope John XXIII reminded Catholics that: 'the laity must not suppose that they would be acting prudently to lessen their Christian commitment to this passing world. On the contrary, we insist that they must intensify it and increase it continually ... Let no one suppose that a life of activity in the world is incompatible with spiritual perfection.’ (Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra, 1961, No 254).
Maybe Helmer would take issue with the Pope here. My view is that we should let no-one, least of all those with political motivations and vested economic interests, suppress our pursuit of spiritual perfection within and through the material world, wherever that pursuit may end. The material world is God’s Creation. To argue that it lacks spiritual significance is to prepare the ground for desecration – the commercial exploitation and instrumentalisation of the world that seduces us with promises of progress but which in truth has produced the climate crisis and which promises eco-catastrophe in the future. We should certainly work to prevent the Creation from being used and abused by those for whom Nature is no more than a stock of resources available for exploitation. I hold the Creation to be sacred, containing within it nothing so disposable and so worthless that it can be subordinated to the pursuit of mammon. That’s a spiritual view with material implications. The word ‘mammon’ is a transliteration into New Testament Greek of the Aramaic mamona, denoting 'wealth' or 'profit'.
The truth is that Helmer is just another advocate of the economics of neo-liberalism, just another businessman out to exploit the planet and its people. His libertarianism is an anarchy of the rich and the powerful. This has nothing to do with founding society on Christian principles. The freedom he advocates is the freedom of the pike and the death of the minnow. In the Politics, Aristotle is at pains to distinguish liberty from licence. As liberty becomes licence, Aristotle argues, ‘all discipline is swept away and madness usurps its place’ (Bk viii 1987:332). This kind of libertarianism leads to the licence of individualism 'divorced from law and justice' (I.ii 1981:59/60). That pretty much sums Helmer and his libertarian ilk up.
First, foremost and last, Helmer’s concern is with the economics of greed and stupidity, the economics which mistakes licence for liberty. He is concerned most of all to insulate private business from public intervention, control and regulation; he puts selfish interest before the common good of all. He opines: ‘Politicians are proposing hugely economically damaging solutions. Every one … is paying something like 15% over the odds for electricity because of climate change programmes. That’s going to increase over the next ten or fifteen years if they have their way. We are going to find that our cars are more expensive, summer holidays are more expensive, our economy is seriously damaged, all based upon a scientific theory that is looking increasingly shaky.’ It’s a crude appeal to selfish interest, a private greed that trumps public good.
In science, it’s the quality of the evidence that counts. In politics, victory goes to those who can shout the biggest lies for the longest. Helmer reveals his true colours when he continues with his appeal to the politics of greed.
‘The Times newspaper published a front page headline .. with an opinion poll on this question of man made global warming and what that opinion poll said was that in Britain was that 41% of voters agree that human activity is causing climate change and 59% disagree, so public opinion has been moving steadily against the climate alarmist theory and there is now in this country and in America and in many other countries a clear majority of public opinion which has had enough of being harangued and taxed and blamed for climate change, they don’t believe it and they’re starting to say look guys we’ve had enough of this.’
Public opinion has squat to do with the truth or otherwise of any scientific theory. It took some two centuries before there was general acceptance of Galileo’s heliocentric conception. The world doesn’t become flat because a public opinion poll in a particular newspaper thinks it so. To bring public opinion in as the arbiter of truth reveals that Helmer’s concern is political perceptions of the science, not the science as such. He is working to shift public opinion in the direction of climate change denial. Well, the strategy appears to be working. As evidence for human induced climate change is firming up, popular scepticism is growing. It’s a requiem for the species.
Helmer is a libertarian, a deregulator.
In November 2005, Helmer made it public that he regularly breaks speed limits on motorway runs. “No matter how fast you are going, you get people passing you”. He admitted that he has been caught speeding with his Jaguar. Mary Williams OBE, Chief Executive of the national road safety charity Brake responded: "For an MEP to regularly speed on motorways is irresponsible and sets a bad example to the people he represents. Speeding is illegal and speeding drivers put lives at risk through their selfish, dangerous actions.” ("East Midlands Euro MP raps excessive speeds by Roger Helmer MEP". East Midlands Liberal Democrats. 2005-11-25. )
The economist Joseph Schumpeter made the argument for government economic intervention and regulation in these terms: it is because the car has brakes that it is able to go so fast. And able to keep going, one might add. Libertarians like Helmer speed and crash the car, and then turn and blame the brakes. Neo-liberals loathe regulation for the general interest. His antipathy to science of climate change is politically driven – he takes his stand on a clear libertarian repudiation of government intervention and regulation. With all the mental and moral blindness of the true ideologue, Helmer seems to have missed the massive public bailout of the private economy in recent years.
Helmer writes sneeringly and ignorantly of ‘the religion of climate alarmism’. The science of human made global heating is soundly based on research, testing and fact and remains open to contestation by contrary evidence. That point is worth restating given repeated denigration by climate change deniers who do no independent science of their own, merely cherry pick the data of others. But if there is a false religion here, it is the religion of the free market, Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ as God (and to be fair to Smith, he barely used the phrase ‘invisible hand’ and even when he did, it doesn’t mean what the advocates of free markets take it to mean. See Raj Patal The Value of Nothing 2009 ch 4; also Peter Critchley 2011 The Coming Ecological Revolution.)
Underlying the libertarian position is the belief that an unregulated economy will generate a 'spontaneous order'. The historical facts show clearly that the capital system rose in symbiotic relation with the centralised modern state. People were thrown off their common lands by force of legislative fiat. (P Deane The State and the Economic System 1989 OUP). Economic liberalism is not just a religion, it is a false religion and a bad religion. It is a religion of mammon. And it is systematically undermining the public realm, expropriating and despoiling the global commons and dissolving notions of the common good.
Helmer attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2010. He also used EU funds on a billboard campaign in his constituency to criticise climate change policy. It was confirmed that Helmer did not attend in any official capacity. Both the EU and the Conservative Party confirmed that they did not share Helmer’s views on climate change. This begs the question as to just who was funding Helmer’s attendance and why. (Leo Hickman (2010-12-08). "Conservative MEP spends £9,000 on climate sceptic poster campaign". London: guardian.co.uk.) Scientists from the University of Derby and the University of Northampton, both in his constituency, also made it clear that Helmer’s views are “out of step with the overwhelming scientific evidence on the subject of human induced climate change”. ("Climate-change sceptic MEP wrong on threat to planet, says city expert". thisisderbyshire.co.uk. 2010-12-09.) Helmer responded by saying that: “The Information Fund is there to allow all MEPs to communicate their campaigns and inform constituents about their work.” (Roger Helmer MEP (2010-12-15). "The Warmists Fight Back"; Roger Helmer MEP (2010-12-10). "The Guardian – a rebuttal").
The public need to be well informed concerning the activities of Helmer and his libertarian crowd. Helmer criticises EU expenditure, yet uses EU funds to promote his own particular views on climate science, not those of scientists in his constituency. The public realm is being systematically denigrated and destroyed by economic liberals like Helmer. Yet it is the public realm that is called upon to bail out the banks to the tune of billions. There is nothing new here. Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society (1976) gives empirical evidence from a range of countries to show the extent to which private business internalises gains and socialises costs. The taxpayer has forever picked up the tab for the failure of the private economy.
The libertarians present not reasoned argument but the assertion of free market principles as articles of faith. Far from enabling individual liberty, libertarianism is merely a rationalisation of the practices of irresponsible gamblers. The public realm is indulging an economic faith which in practice is destroying states, bankrupting economies and polluting the planet. I see no spirituality in any of this. On the contrary, it’s the crudest of materialism. And rank bad economics to boot.
There’s a good reason why economic libertarians subject Karl Marx to systematic abuse – Marx had their number and called them for what they are.
The state is too serious a business to be subjected to such buffoonery. A Ship of Fools can perhaps be allowed to drift before the wind for a good while; but it will still drift to its doom precisely because the fools refuse to believe it possible. This doom is the approaching revolution.
Marx EW Letters 1975
Without that revolution, these fools will take all of us down with them as they wreck the ecological foundations upon which civilisation is based. The climate change denial of these characters is based on narrow self-interest on their part, not sound science. These people are prepared to sacrifice the health and well-being of other people and of the planet, just to grub a few more pounds and pennies for themselves. A ship of fools? More fool us if we allow them licence at the expense of our liberty, indeed, as they proceed to destroy the world’s ecosystems, at the expense of our very life. Pursuing immediate, individual self-interest, failing to see the long term common good, will we sink, sooner or later.