I Think of Demons

Roky Erickson, the 1960s Texas psychedelic rock pioneer, sang of seeing demons and space aliens, which visions were often the result of his taking too many…well, psychedelics. Many climate alarmists, on the other hand, don’t seem to need any mind-altering substances (save their own self-righteousness) to see demons everywhere.

At Spiked Online, Frank Furedi, in his latest entry in his outstanding series on “Really Bad Ideas,” takes on Demonology, an ugly form of argument that defines “scepticism as a form of moral transgression.” By placing policy differences within a frame of moral conflict, demonologists, whom Furedi also describes as “moral entrepreneurs,” claim the right to shut down debate. He describes the case of Gordon Mursell, the Bishop of Stafford, in England, who recently compared climate skeptics to an infamours sadistic criminal.

In a parish newsletter, the bishop said that people who refuse to join the fight against global warming are like Josef Fritzl, the insane criminal in Austria who locked his daughter and her children in a cellar for 24 years. For Mursell, being sceptical about the conventional wisdom on climate change is akin to the monstrous crime committed by Fritzl. He says: ‘You could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is.’

We’ve seen this before, of course, hurled our way at CEI. Yet it’s good to keep in mind one thing: When your opponents find a need to resort to such morally and intellectually bankrupt tactics and hyperbole, it speaks volumes about the strength of their case — or rather, lack of the same. The worst thing, though, is that, unlike Roky’s best songs, the climate demonologists are shrill and unpleasant to listen to.