re: #323 ShanghaiEd

I was wondering, more specifically, why does the Religious Right seem to have been less successful taking on Global Warming, while they’ve made huge mileage from abortion and gay rights?

Well, I guess I could answer with another question: what makes you certain the Religious Right has not been successful in “taking on Global Warming”? To whit, the large and well funded Anti-AGW campaign is mostly centered in the US, just as with creationism.

More pointedly, though, is that Darwin and evolution strikes at the heart of the existential solution that many religious believers have come to accept: that somehow they are special in a way that other animals are not.

AGW does not do that, directly. AGW does rub up against American religion which embraces the idea that God put the natural resources here for our use (e.g., see the recent Sarah Palin videos from her speech in NY.) AGW and all environmental concerns broach that belief.

In the end it is the fear of death, I believe, that is the greatest driver in religious thought, and there Evolution has much more potential threat (than AGW) in disturbing beliefs.