A delightful post from Dr. Tim Ball over at Watts Up With That:
Is Al Gore the Latter Day Pardoner?
Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1342 - 1400) is among the giants of English literature, recognized for his perceptive and realistic stories about human nature. Like Shakespeare, his characters and stories are recognizable and relevant at any time in history and in any society. His most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, has a number of characters traveling on a pilgrimage and telling their story. He achieves what Paul Johnson described as, "a lethal combination of satire, irony, and sarcasm." Characters are recognizable even if their position, such as knights, no longer exist.
We are unfamiliar with the name Pardoner, but know the character. Johnson describes him as follows, "The Pardoner, a seller of indulgences, is a complete and shameless rogue; but Chaucer, not content with exposing his impudence, shows how good he was at his job and how powerfully he preached against sinfulness. The Pardoner had also been taught to use the figure of death to scare his hearers." So the Pardoner sold indulgences or pardons, hence his name, that absolved your sinful lifestyle and guaranteed going to Heaven. Who could resist a no lose offer?
A bit more -- setting the stage:
Environmentalism became the new religion in the 1960s, although the seeds were effectively planted when Darwinism replaced Creationism. Life became dependent on Gaia the planet, not God. This belief system claims humans are killing the planet with CO2.
David Graber, a research biologist with the National Park Service delineates the overall thesis.These are the larger sins we have to pay for that became focused in the false science of CO2. Pardon or absolution came as carbon credits. Ignore the fact that purveyors deliberately mix carbon (a solid) with CO2 (a gas) and reduce carbon to stop sinning. Better still but buy carbon credits and you can sin without conscience. Ignore the fact it doesn't reduce but will actually increase the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere. Indulgences and carbon credits were available to everyone, but in reality only the rich could afford to sin and buy their way into heaven or drive a powerful car without guilt."Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true. Somewhere along the line - at about a billion years ago - we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth."
Go and read the whole thing -- wonderful stuff...
