Is Climate Change a Religion ? November 5, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , trackbackTim Nicholson, formerly the Director of Sustainability at the property firm Grainger plc is clearly a sincere and strong believer in the dangers posed by climate change, and when his former boss told him to get on a plane to bring his forgotten Blackberry over to Ireland, Nicholson rightly felt he was being treated with contempt. The boss sounds like an utter prat, and you have to wonder why he ever bothered to hire a director of sustainability in the first place.
He won a victory of sorts this week when a judge ruled that ‘a belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.’
Its good that he’s managed to get some satisfaction (and compensation) out of this situation, but I’m not sure that this is a victory to be welcomed.
Under The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, it is considered harrassment if an employer does something, because of an employee’s beliefs, which violates the employees dignity or creates an ‘ intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for ‘ the employee.
The judge also set out some criteria by which a ‘belief’ could be included under the regulations.
• The belief must be genuinely held.
• It must be a belief and not an opinion or view based on the present state of information available.
• It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life.
• It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.
• It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.
Humanism would fit, being a Jedi Knight would not.
There is no need for the belief to be, in any sense, true. Of course, if it did, then we would have the the courts trying to establish religious matters which, while probably entertaining for some, would be a disaster.
The notion that a belief in climate change should come into this category is a troublesome one.
What happens when someone has a perfectly genuinely held belief which doesn’t fit rational evidence – a belief which most of us would consider just plain wrong. Perhaps a medic believes that homeopathy works, and feels insulted if their colleagues don’t respect that?
As a result of this ruling, the climate change sceptics who think its ‘just a matter of belief’ will be vindicated.
Of course, the answer is that no employer should violate their employees dignity or create an intimidating environment for any reason. This is a dubious regulation, and the ruling helps noone.
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