Global Warming Ruled a Religion by British Judge
American Thinker ^ | April 30, 2009 | 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.


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.