Gag me with a spoon

From the Toronto Globe and Mail:

Eco-pilgrims gather to 'heed the Goracle'
Hundreds pack U of T hall in show of devotion to climate cause

They came in their hundreds to hear him speak, and even those left standing outside the crowded hall would not be deterred from lingering in the proximity of the Baptist prophet from Tennessee.

It wasn't any old-time religion that drew these believers to Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto, but a concept they feel is every bit as crucial to humanity -- global warming -- that made them want to get close to Al Gore, the impassioned former U.S. vice-president, as he delivered his now famous Inconvenient Truth about climate change.

Like many a bygone leader who happened along at a key moment in history, Mr. Gore -- who has been sounding the environmental warning bell for years -- has suddenly inspired the kind of faith and fervour in others that he insists will be needed to overcome such a monumental problem.

"From my perspective, it is a form of religion," said Bruce Crofts, 69, as he held a banner aloft for the East Toronto Climate Action Group amid a lively prelecture crowd outside the old hall.

"The religion for this group is doing something for the environment."

While he no longer espouses traditional religion, Mr. Crofts recalled how, as a Sunday school teacher decades ago, he included Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Kennedy as well as Jesus Christ in his lessons, as examples of great leaders who stepped forward when called upon by circumstance. In that sense, he feels Mr. Gore fits the bill.

"We don't have seats tonight, but we just felt it was important to show some support for this guy," Mr. Crofts said. "He's flown in the face of the Bush administration and a lot of negative politics in the U.S. in order to do this stuff."

And some of the people who attended?

There were vegans seeking new recruits, people calling for the closing of Ontario's coal-fired power plants, a Greenpeace mascot dressed as a polar bear -- even the UFO believers showed up.

"I know you won't believe this," one of them, a man named Victor Viggiani, said with a practised tongue, "but the extraterrestrial technology involved in this...it's free energy, man. Absolute free energy, and it'll be the end of fossil fuels."

Mr. Viggiani, a retired school principal, tried to get an information package to Mr. Gore when he arrived at a side door, but "the Secret Service were there; they saw my backpack and they pushed me away."

And a little bit more:

"It was not our intention to have a religious approach," ecoSanity group founder Glenn MacIntosh said, "but it was our understanding that it was that kind of movement that people were craving; that kind of spiritual connection in their gut."

So it isn't science that people are craving, just some nebulous "spiritual connection in their gut". Could this be the first sign that Global Warming might be jumping the shark at long last? And, just for chuckles I Googled Victor Viggiani's name and came up with 1,690 hits -- some wonderful links for UFO conspiracy theories. Definite AFDB territory.