One Religion is Enough / Suzuki...ism

Some recent articles of interest; the first treating an "environmental" movement as a religion, and the last providing a vision for a pending Apocalypse.

John Howard: One Religion is Enough | Climate Etc.:

“I chose the…title largely in reaction to the sanctimonious tone employed by so many of those who advocate substantial and and costly responses to what they see as irrefutable evidence that the world’s climate faces catastrophe…To them the cause has become a substitute religion.” – John Howard

This begins an interesting post at Climate Etc. - one where Australia's former PM John Howard tackles a religion he first describes.

Suzuki positions himself with totems
image from Toronto Star

Conversely, Carol Goar's "Hard time to be an environmentalist", in the Toronto Star, figures environmentalist are being persecuted by big bad Stephen Harper (Canada's current Prime Minister):

...they may not have paid enough attention to communicating with Canadians. In their desire to stand together, they may have given legitimacy to zealots such as Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conversation Society.

But none of these factors is enough to account for a five percentage point drop in public trust.

The government has not followed through on its threat to strip environmental groups of their charitable status, although Revenue Canada is doing intensive audits of a few foundations. (One organization, Physicians for Global Survival, did lose its charitable status for excessive political activity last May, but that investigation began under the Liberals.)

What Harper and his colleagues have accomplished, however, is to send a chill through the environmental movement. David Suzuki, Canada’s most prominent environmentalist, resigned from the board of the charity he founded, fearing he had become a lightning rod for government censure.

Suzuki left his foundation after he appeared in the election platform hard copy produced by the Liberal Party (The Toronto Star's raison d'etre).  The one example Goar gives for Harper's alleged campaign was initiated by Liberals against one of  the suspect "Physicians"/"environmental"/con groups.

Pembina was another organization taking calls when the Liberal platform was released.

Paul Watson was not - I'm sure many think he's a kook, but I'm not aware of anybody who thinks he is a front for old American protectionist money, or one that gets paid in government contracts and grants to provide political support when required (policy changes and elections).

Suzuki was in the sorta news (Huffington Post) about the same time, in David Suzuki's Fukushima Warning Is Dire And Scary (VIDEO)

...if there's another earthquake of a seven or above that, that building will go and then all hell breaks loose.
"And the probability of a seven or above earthquake in the next three years is over 95 per cent."

Suzuki's warning that much of the world was doomed if an earthquake hit followed, by less than 2 weeks, reports that a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hits Japan near Fukushima - but the world didn't end, and Suzuki continues to do the opposite of ascend.