John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation has, in the aftermath of the somewhat hypted storm Irene written a "Supplicant´s Prayer to Earth" that should be read by all people worried about the purported effects of climate change/global warming:
Oh great and powerful Mother Earth, I humbly beseech you to forgive this wayward human occupant of your perfect natural paradise.
I fully accept responsibility for the sins that led your servants, the tropical winds of Hurricane Irene and the towering pine tree of Backyard Hood, to wreak havoc on my suburban Wake County home.
Only your divine intervention, Oh Green Goddess, could have broken my healthy tree so near the ground and propelled it, precisely aimed, at my bedroom. When it crashed into the house, cracking the rear wall and punching several holes in my roof, the sight and sound of your judgment was terrible to behold – as surely you intended it to be.
I know now, blessed Gaia, and that I have strayed far from the True Faith. I should have remembered that you are a jealous goddess, and that the weed of environmental crime bears bitter fruit.
In my arrogant belief that maximizing human happiness and well-being should be the goal of any sound regulatory process, I overlooked the equal natural rights of the snail darter, the paramecium, and the slime mold.
In my misplaced belief that people benefit from low-cost sources of energy to light their homes, run their machines, transport their families, and protect their communities, I overlooked the aesthetic value of the windmill, the aromatic value of biomass, and the psychic benefits of the photovoltaic cell.
In my foolish belief that climate change must be materially harmful to human beings and reversible at a reasonable cost to justify draconian “cap and balance” style regulation, I overlooked the social benefits of returning mankind to the servitude of unelected authoritarians – the bureaucrats who staff the regulatory agencies of their respective developed countries.
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I’ve learned my lesson, oh wise and beneficent Mother of Winds. No longer will I question the theological pronouncements of your cardinals in Berkeley and Brussels or the liturgy of your priesthood in Asheville and Chapel Hill. I am reformed – or perhaps counter-reformed is the right term. Anyway, I’m really sorry.
I throw myself upon your mercy. Please, please do not send my chestnut tree through my garage door, or my oak tree through my music-room window.
Read the entire Earth Prayer here
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