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Anonymous Wrote:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/global_warming_ruled_a_religio.html
April 30, 2009
Global Warming Ruled a Religion by British Judge
Marc Sheppard
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.
“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.
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