From The Conservative Woman

By Dr Shane Fudge

AMY Morin, a psychotherapist and author, argues that a cult is ‘a group that centres around a shared devotion to a person, belief, or ideology. These groups often require intense devotion and loyalty and use manipulation and control to enforce and maintain power’. 

If there was one thing that characterised the year 2020, it was not a global pandemic, it was not forced lockdowns and the loss of liberties and freedoms, but the stark unravelling of a hidden world and the realisation that nothing is as it seems. Governments lie, scientists misinform, and we must always look for an ulterior motive in everything.

Until 2020, I personally believed that climate science, while imperfect, was carried out by well-meaning people who sought objective truth, and that climate lobby groups acted in our best interests and were there to hold governments and corporations to account. I saw through the pandemic, and this realisation that the government could leverage such scale of deception changed for ever the way I looked at the world. 

In 2006, I graduated from the University of Glamorgan with a PhD in social policy. Breaking into the labour market can be difficult for new graduates. Going outside my intellectual comfort zone became the experience when I was successfully interviewed for a research fellowship in the University of Surrey’s Centre for Environmental Strategy. Created by Professor Roland Clift in 1992, this department was housed in the university’s School of Engineering as part of the shift into interdisciplinary research.  

Climate change, we are told, is a ‘wicked problem’ which requires collaborative thinking, i.e. involving as many different disciplines and stakeholders as possible.  

When I arrived, the Centre for Environmental Strategy was comprised of working alliances between the economics, sociology, psychology, the environmental sciences and the engineering departments. I was employed to work on a five-year project known as RESOLVE – Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment. It was led by Professor Tim Jackson and was aimed at capitalising on his extensive track record and burgeoning profile in the area of ‘sustainable consumption’.

The aim of RESOLVE was to explore various pathways in which the role of the citizen consumer might be integrated more directly into the UK government’s expanding environmental policy suite. Successive energy White Papers, particularly since 2003’s Our Energy future: Creating a Low Carbon Economy, had already signposted acquiescence with UN climate and sustainability goals. It was envisioned that RESOLVE would transcend supply side i.e. production facing measures to curtail fossil fuels, to shed light on the micro-economics of energy in housing, mobility, and the ‘embedded carbon’ in products, services, and individual purchasing choices.

I had relatively little knowledge of climate change when I started work at Surrey, but what immediately became apparent was the clear absence of any discussion on counter-narratives or dissenting views on the science of climate change itself. All research was based upon solving problems within this carefully constructed paradigm, one which largely referenced Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ iconic representation of rising carbon emissions since the 1960s, and 350.org’s argument that we are already well past the threshold of GHG emissions in our environment. One has only to consider the draconian measures of our current Net Zero policies to understand the longer-term implications of these arguments.

In the first few months of my tenure at Surrey, Channel 4 showed ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’. 

The immediate reaction of the majority of viewers was outrage that anyone should question ‘the science’. These views clearly aligned with the UNFCCC claim that 97 per cent of scientists agree that climate change exists and that it is manmade. 

In their book Cults, Baker, McLaughlin and Rojak have argued that such groups are characterised by a religious fervour which encourages a distinct ingroup-outgroup dynamic. Within my department, there were many who were keen to demonstrate their loyalty and prove their devotion to ‘the cause’ by virtue signalling their life choices to everyone else. Those who cycled, walked or used public transport for example, were often quick to criticise or look down on those who travelled to work by car.  In fact, I never mentioned to anyone that I drove into work! Those who flew were often mocked or guilt-tripped for their choices by some in the department. This rule was applied differently to those in higher positions and air miles were seen as an acceptable trade-off in ‘furthering the cause’, particularly if you held an esteemed position at the university.

Fitting Morin’s description of the ‘charismatic leader’, Professor Jackson seemed to be someone who could justifiably take a few liberties when flying all over the world to promote his book Prosperity without Growth. Most were prepared to overlook this as Professor Jackson was held in reverence by many, due to his knowledge and reputation in the field of sustainability (and particularly by the university for his research grant record and media profile). Indeed, Professor Jackson was seen as something of a rebel against the establishment.

Prosperity without Growth began life as a report written for the Sustainable Development Commission. It appeared ahead of a G7 Summit in 2009, and Professor Jackson was taken to task by the UK Treasury – required to defend its message of ‘de-growth’ by the economist Dieter Helm and some of his peers.

At COP15 in 2009, which I attended, Professor Jackson and a few renegade climate lobbyists did not talk at the main meeting but at the Klimaforum09, a ‘grassroots’ event that was supposed to represent the people. He spoke alongside such luminaries as Vandana Shiva, Naomi Klein and George Monbiot. While the intention of this event was to challenge the corporate culture of orthodox UN policy, the primary message remained the same: manmade climate change – the Anthropocene – remains the paradigm within which we all must think and act.

Perhaps the main difference is that these players were calling for more urgent changes than governments were prepared to engage in at that point. These activities offered Professor Jackson a remarkable level of kudos and credibility.   

Reflecting now on my experience at the University of Surrey, the words of US talk show hosts Brian Sussman come to mind. Speaking about his enforced exit from the mainstream media for challenging the climate narrative, he argued: ‘I was dealing with a cult, a bona fide religion with a central tenant and high priests who will stop at nothing to proselytize their doctrine on all humanity by any means and at all costs.’

The Mark Steyn v Michael Mann case in the US last year is a perfect demonstration of how the ideology of climate change legitimates itself through the dynamics of a cult membership, reinforces the bounded realities of ‘groupthink’, and works to discredit all dissenters and counter narratives. 

Universities provide a unique vantage point for understanding the pervasive influence of manmade climate change on our world. They are increasingly dependent on research funding rather than student numbers, and a vast amount of money has been made available for climate research over the last three decades.

This has meant that a whole culture has emerged around the manmade climate change agenda, suggesting that much of this research serves to reinforce ideological purposes rather than the true pursuit of scientific truth.