Right-Wing Media Compare Gore To Harold Camping

CNN's Dana Loesch: “Anyone Else See Any Difference Between Harold Camping And Al Gore? Neither Do I.” In a May 24 Twitter post, CNN contributor Dana Loesch wrote: “Anyone else see any difference between Harold Camping and Al Gore? Neither do I”:

[Twitter, 5/24/11]

WSJ's Taranto: “Camping Is Merely The Christian Al Gore.” In his May 23 Wall Street Journal column, James Taranto wrote: “Nonbelievers are no less susceptible to doomsday cults than believers are; Harold Camping is merely the Christian Al Gore.” From Taranto's column:

Something else bothers us about the media mockery of Harold Camping, as justifiable as it may be. Why are only religious doomsday cultists subjected to such ridicule? Reuters notes that “Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994.” Ha ha, you can't believe anything this guy says! But who jeered at the U.N.'s false prediction that there would be 50 million “climate refugees” by 2010? We did, but not Reuters.

Doomsday superstitions seem to fulfill a basic psychological need. On the surface, the thought that God or global warming will destroy the world within our lifetimes is horrifying. But all of us are doomed; within a matter of decades, every person alive will experience the end of his own world. A belief in the hereafter makes the thought of death less terrifying. But so does a disbelief in the here, after. If the world is to end with us--if there is no life for anyone after our death--we are not so insignificant after all.

To reject traditional religion is not, as the American Atheists might have it, to transform oneself into a perfectly rational being. Nonbelievers are no less susceptible to doomsday cults than believers are; Harold Camping is merely the Christian Al Gore. But because secular doomsday cultism has a scientific gloss, journalists like our friends at Reuters treat it as if it were real science. So, too, do some scientists. It may be that the decline of religion made this corruption of science inevitable. [The Wall Street Journal, 5/23/11]

Limbaugh: “The Global Warming People” Are “Almost Identical” To Rapture Believers. On the May 20 edition of his radio show, Rush Limbaugh described Camping's predictions about the rapture and stated: “This is a dead-ringer for the global warming movement. This is exactly how these people are portraying it -- end of the world, we're destroying the planet. Sounds a lot like the global warming warnings that we've gotten over the last 20 years.” He later stated that “even though the global warming people claim not to have a religion,” “these comparisons are fascinating -- global warming and these end-of-the-Earth guys. It's almost identical.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 5/20/11]

Right-Wing Media Have Previously Smeared The Scientific Consensus On Global Warming As A “Cult”

Wash. Times: “Belief In Global Warming” Is “A Form Of Cultism.” The Washington Times asserted in a December 4, 2009, editorial: “Belief in global warming had long had a tinge of theology about it, a form of cultism that adherents and defenders elevated to a holy crusade.” The editorial further stated: “The veil has been pierced, the myth revealed, the scales have fallen from the people's eyes. The pagan priests are fleeing the temple, their sacred idols are being pulled down, their holy works renounced. Their god, finally, is dead.” [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

Malkin: "[C]limate Change Cult" Enabled By Mainstream Media. Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin stated during the December 3, 2009, edition of Fox & Friends, "[M]ost of the mainstream media have been the official enablers of the climate change cult." Malkin further stated that Energy Secretary Steven Chu “compared Americans who challenged a lot of this cult mentality about global warming and climate change to unruly teenagers.” [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

IBD: Global Warming Science “Has Taken On All The Trappings Of A Cult.” Investor's Business Daily stated in a December 2, 2009, editorial that "[w]hat has been passed off as climate science has taken on all the trappings of a cult." The editorial also asserted: “As the high priests of what Czech President Vaclav Klaus has called a 'religion' prepare their pilgrimage to worship the earth goddess Gaia in Copenhagen, complete with humanity being sacrificed, the heresy of climate truth is finally being heard.” [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

Coulter: “The Global Warming Cultists Want Us All Dead.” Ann Coulter wrote on December 2, 2009, that the scientists at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were “cult members” who “plotted to get editors ousted and the publications discredited.” Coulter added, “Until now, the global warming cult's sole argument has been to demand that everyone shut up in response to the 'scientific consensus' that human activity was causing global warming.” Coulter further wrote:

Even if the Earth were warming -- which apparently it is not -- the idea that humans using energy-efficient lightbulbs would alter the temperature of the globe is approximately as plausible as the Aztecs' belief that they were required to wrench the beating heart out of living, breathing humans in order to keep the sun on its path.

Sadly, the “human sacrifice deniers” lost the argument to Aztec CRU scientists, who explained that there was a “scientific consensus” on the benefits of ritual murder.

But at least the Aztecs only slaughtered tens of thousands of humans in the name of “climate change.” The global warming cultists want us all dead. [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

American Spectator: "[T]he Cultist Genuflect Reverently Before Their Idol, Science." In a November 28, 2009, post on the American Spectator blog titled, “The Temple Cult of Scientism,” Robert Stacy McCain wrote: “The High Priests perform their statistical rituals and the cultists genuflect reverently before their idol, Science. And it's all very impressive until the truth is discovered.” [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

Andrea Peyser: "[T]he Scientific And Political Left ... Treat Global Warming As A Cult." In a November 30, 2009, column titled “Climate-cult con is hard to 'bear,'” Andrea Peyser wrote: “The international 'Climategate' scandal is now moving into its third week. And reaction from folks on the scientific and political left -- or is that redundant? -- who treat global warming as a cult in which naysayers must be crushed has been depressing: Total denial.” [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

Lowry: “Church Of Warmism” Is A “Doomsday Cult.” In a December 8, 2009, New York Post column, “Global warming's doomsday prophets,” Rich Lowry wrote:

The phrase “doomsday cult” entered our collective vocabulary after John Lofland published his 1966 study, “Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith.” Lofland wrote about the Unification Church. His subject could almost as easily have been the Church of Warmism.

Its college of cardinals has gathered in Copenhagen amid professions of an imminent global apocalypse that allow no room for doubt or deviation. “The clock has ticked down to zero,” declared UN climate chief Yvo de Boer. Yes, the end is nigh -- just as surely as when the Millerites gathered on Oct. 22, 1844, to witness the Second Coming, only to comfort themselves at the end of the night, “Well, maybe next year.” [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

James Hirsen: "[T]he Cult Leader Of Global Warming Theory Is Al Gore." Appearing on the December 6, 2009, edition of Fox News' America's News HQ, Newsmax's James Hirsen stated: "[W]e have to say the cult leader of global warming theory is Al Gore. He's become a Hollywood celebrity by virtue of the fact that he is -- his film won an Oscar. He's won a Grammy. He's won -- you know, he lives in a 20-room mansion outside of Nashville. He has an indoor swimming pool. He jets around preaching this global warming." [Media Matters, 12/9/09]

Michael Ledeen: CRU Emails Prove Global Warming “Was A Cult And Not Science.” During the December 4, 2009, edition of Fox News' Hannity, frequent Fox News guest Michael Ledeen referred to “the religious dimension to this so-called scientific theory,” asserting that "[i]t was never more than a hypothesis but it became an article of faith." He later stated of CRU emails cited in the debunked “Climategate” smear: "[W]hat it proves is that it was a cult and not science. Because science has to deal with all the evidence, whether you like it or whether you don't. Cults lock out evidence that they don't like. And they locked it out." [Media Matters, 12/9/09]