Green is the new religion. “Greener than thou” is the new piety. And casting doubt on the belief that mankind is ruining the planet (our abiding sinfulness) is the new heresy.

Blogger Daily Plunge explains how it works.

Expanding on the points I made yesterday about character assassinations, I stumbled onto this blog post by Roger Pielke Jr, a professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Pielke is a liberal environmentalist who believes in the theory of anthropogenic global warming (a.k.a., human caused climate change); however, he’s made the mistake of correcting many of the alarmist talking points such as idea that there’s been a huge increase in weather-related damage due to global warming. Pielke documents how well respected liberal bloggers like RealClimate and Brad Delong are out to destroy anyone they disagree with on this issue. Read about it in his post “Giant Fish, Big Fish, and Minnows of the Liberal Blogosphere.”

Here’s how it works. The really giant fish — public intellectuals like Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman — confer authority on the big fish of the liberal blogosphere. They do so by applauding the work of the big fish and saying that they trust them. This is a useful exchange because the big fish amplify the writings of the giant fish in the blogosphere and do the dirty work of taking down their political opponents by playing some gutter politics that the giant fish would rather not be seen playing. This has the effect of establishing the big fish as people to be listened to, not because they are necessarily right about things, but because the giant fish listen to them and the giant fish set political agendas.

Anyone who disagrees with the talking points of the big fish are then targets of character attacks. There’s no debate. I have no problem with different opinions or lively debate. People are never going to see eye to eye all the time, but these character assassinations campaigns are just leading to massive groupthink. Many of the global warming alarmists have adopted theory as a religion. Believers of the theory like Pielke are treated like Galileo when he stated that the sun was at the center of the universe.

Funny how easily the left accuses the right of intolerance.