Sacrificing Human Thriving on the Altar of Environmentalist Earth Religion

Environmentalism continues its radical shift from reasonable conservationism to environmentalist earth religion. This growing faith was most recently preached in an op-ed published by the New York Times that quite literally proselytizes for nature animism.

Robert Moor, a self-described “Thoreauvian” nature writer and the author of In Trees, describes moving from New York City to the forests of British Columbia. He has not had the sylvan experience for which he hoped. After about a week of smoky air caused by annually recurring forest fires, the once “bone deep atheist” experiences a “baptism by wildfire,” a “religious conversion” into a neo-pagan faith called “scientific animism.” From “Our Forests Are Demanding a Sacrifice“:

In these moments, I stop seeing the sky as a blank backdrop. I see it as a living thing, and an angry one. I see the spirit of the forest rising up, rageful and trickstery, to hurl down thunderbolts and sicken us while we sleep. Put differently, I feel myself drawn away from scientific atheism, and toward a creed that philosophers call “scientific animism.”

Animism, put very simply, is the belief that the natural world is inhabited by spirits who can either punish us or bestow favors. Scientific animism applies this ancient lens to modern science, showing how forces in the natural world (plants, rivers, entire planets) are self-organized, self-perpetuating and self-willed. In this view, nature is not an inert, passive backdrop to human progress. It actively responds to our actions — though not always in the way we would predict.

The environment is affected by all kinds of forces, including human activities. But forests don’t experience rage. Tree spirits don’t hurl thunderbolts. Nature is not “self-willed.” It doesn’t “actively respond” in a sentient sense to anything.

Moor worries that forests now release more carbon than they store, bringing us closer to our doom from climate change. He interprets it as intentional, a punishment of man. To back up his neo-paganistic belief, he embraces the mysticism of indigenous people, as environmentalists so often do these days:

This phenomenon jibes with the teachings of many Indigenous cultures, which hold that certain trees are inhabited by spirits who, if the tree is unceremoniously killed, will exact their revenge on you or your relatives. The kodama of Japan, the aos si of Ireland, the radande of Sweden, the yaksha of India, the jumbies of the Caribbean, the Iroko-Man of Nigeria, the kumaka akiri of the Amazon — all are variations on this theme.

Moor prefers the word “powers” over “spirits” to describe animated nature, and believes that trees are divine:

The world’s forests are one such divine power — a god so vast it can be seen from outer space, a god so powerful it can scorch the planet, a god so wily that even when it dies, it can turn to smoke and sneak into our homes, our lungs, up into the very vessels of our brains. Like all gods, the forest demands respect. It demands care. And, from time to time, it demands sacrifice.

Then comes the usual pitch to crush “carbon capitalism” (somehow the filthy environmental policies of communist countries like China, where the smell of coal soot is in the air, are never mentioned):

The prophets of scientific animism — ecologists and climate researchers — are in near-unanimous agreement that to save ourselves from ecological collapse, what is needed are not just small everyday acts of sacrifice, like forgoing a morning latte. We need to sacrifice something big. We need to replace the fossil fuels of coal and oil with wind and sun, and we need to transform a system based on maximizing profit into one aimed at balancing ecological, communal and personal well-being. In other words, we need to sacrifice carbon capitalism itself.

In other words, we need to slay human thriving on the altar of animated earth powers.

Surely all of this is just metaphorical, right? Nope:

Otherwise [without sacrificing carbon capitalism], the forests, and the other awesome powers that inhabit this wild planet, will continue to punish us. This is no mere metaphor. It is a literal, bodily truth. The choice is clear: Either we give up carbon capitalism to appease our earthly gods, or our world will continue to burn.

And now we see why environmentalism is fast becoming absolutist. Rational discourse has little persuasive power over a mystical faith that can easily perceive discussions of costs versus benefits as apostasy and compromise to be outright heresy. More worrying still, at its most fervent extreme, neo-paganistic faith could lead to violence in the name of placating the “awesome powers that inhabit this wild planet.”

What to do? Promoting constructive environmental policies alone will be insufficient. Reversing this rising nihilistic tide will require the revival of a healthy Judeo-Christian spirituality, immersed in love and embracing human thriving, a deeper, truer faith that ignites hope and meaning in the human heart.