The faith of the earth.

Now anyone who knows me will know I am not a greenie. Not because I hate the environment, rather that the people who run and are the activists of the green movement often seem to want to combine the worst of Malthusian drama, the instincts of control and distrust of society of the Communists and the fervour  language of religion.

Yes, I know you know someone who just cares about the environment and isn't like that. But enough are to allow me to segway to...

It was this last instinct that saw me reflect on this article 

Dying Green

Now people choosing to be buried in caskets made of coffee cups while dressed in mushroom suits is unusual but not wrong. To be honest, when I'm dead I don't mind how and where I'm buried - I'll be dead, right?

It's the implications that these people care so deeply that they want to be buried without releasing the toxins into the air, yet are wearing clothes almost certainly made overseas with caustic dyes and dangerous chemicals, driving cars made of electricity hungry aluminium and using polluting petrol/diesel/LPG to get around. The list goes on. 

But it's the language of penance towards the earth which intrigues me the most - this lady is talking about being buried in a suit of mushrooms she is currently training to eat her body after death.
 

Join usssssss ..... this is not creeeepy at alllllll....

 "I realise this is not the kind of relationship that we usually aspire to have with our food," says Lee.

"It's a step towards accepting the fact that someday I will die and decay. It's also a step towards taking responsibility for my own burden on the planet.”

Just.. wow. Ok- you feel guilty for living a life not subsiding from the land and contributing to pollution no matter what, and when you die you sin, I mean pollute, even more.

It feels like what David Thompson wrote on his blog (The Sound of Wringing) - they are better than you because they feel worse than you.

So you have a movement with an idea of consistent and original sin, I mean continual guilt for pollution and degradation in life and in death, and want to find atonement a better way to help the world and sin I mean pollute no more. They find those who don't accept the faith, sorry, The Science, Blessed be His Name, guilty and say they will be damned by God science and future generations.

I know I'm being heavy handed here - but listen next time you hear one of the leaders of the green movement speak next time and look at the language in use - is it that of a leader of a political party or a prophet of a faith? One very sure of themselves at that? For example from the carbon tax repeal - Christine Milne

“Have we got the courage and the leadership to do what is necessary to save life around the world? The Greens have, but I have to say the Parliament has failed on that,” she said.

And the rest. It's worth a read to get the tone.

The thing that worries me is that you can justify many things in the name of faith, and the green faith does not seem tolerant to those who leave or question it at all. It calls them 'deniers' - apart from the quick wink association with Holocaust denial, if you added 'of the true faith' to the end, would it sound wrong?