Environmentalism As Religion

The Chronicle compares:

If environmentalism is a substitute for religiona way of validating certain emotionsthen we might expect to find other secular surrogates for guilt and indignation. Our tendencies to sin, repent, and generally indulge in self-cruelty can be seen cropping up in our obsessions about health and fitness, for example. Struggling with our weight (diet and relapse) has risen above the other deadly sins to take a dominant position in our secular self-persecution.

Andrew Gelman tires of this "newest putdown," while Tim Harford attacks environmentalists "slow to realise that the fashionable eco-lifestyle is riddled with contradictions."