Birth of a new religion?

Sometimes I'll spot a trend of some sort and I'll think I'm one of the few people to see this trend, but then someone else will write about it. The latest observation is the emergence of a religious-style environmental movement, or depending on your point of view, an environmental-style religion.

I'm not talking about anything as concrete as, say, the Wiccan religion. Not yet at least. But there are some segments of the environmental movement which are developing some strong similarities to a religion. Some of these similarities include:

• A strong Puritanical streak. Humans are inherently impure or evil. These enviros see humanity as a figurative, or literal, cancer upon the Earth. Only those who "see the light" are worthy of being associated with, or ultimately of salvation.
  
• A strong resistance to modernity. Fundamentalist religion is not so much a zealous, literalist interpretation of holy texts as it is a resistance to modern culture, modern living, and modern traditions. It is a desire to return to some perceived "simpler time" when humanity was supposedly more conscious of his place and closer to god/nature than today.
  
• A profound ignorance and dislike of particular biological concepts. Just as most creationists and ID'ers know very little about the actual workings of genetics and evolution (despite what they may claim), so too do most "enviro-fundamentalists" know little about genetics as applied to technology and modification. Fear of and resistance to genetically-modified organisms (GMO's) is mostly founded on ignorance of the process involved in creating GMO's as well as how genes behave.
  
• Periodic doomsday or end-of-the-world predictions. Enviros have been tossing out doomsday-scenarios as fast as the media will lap them up. In recent years they've probably out-stripped the xtian end-timers in both the number and urgency of predictions. Abrupt climate change, global pandemics, Malthusian overpopulation, lethal pollution everywhere, out-of-control Frankenfoods rampaging down Main Street...one way or the other, humanity is apparently doomed, and it will be Any Day Now.
  
• An "us vs. them" mentality. Are you a capitalist, an entrepreneur, a Republican, a xtian, an SUV-owner, or simply someone not obsessed with saving the environment? Then you're part of the problem; you're one of them.
  
• Behaviors and beliefs which are considered not just bad, but sinful, as an affront to the object being worshipped (in this case, nature). Such behaviors include technological innovation (especially in the service of a corporation), capitalism (or anything involving obvious profit-making), being of another religion (particularly xtianity), polluting (or contributing to pollution), tampering with nature (e.g. genetic engineering), etc.
• Pop-culture phenomenons which, despite being based on junk science or outright fantasy, are taken almost as "gospel truth" the way xtians view such fiction like The DaVinci Code or the Left Behind series.
  

It is kind of exciting to watch all this play out: the birth of a new religion before our eyes. To be sure, environmentalism isn't a full-fledged religion yet. It is still, for the most part, lacking in such things as houses of worship, ceremonies, and common symbols. It does have, however, organized assemblies, various denominations, growing political involvement, and even a holiday. Like traditional religious denominations, enviro denominations are mostly united on the overall theme but differ on some of the details. For instance, some enviros are opposed to wind or hydroelectric power for various reasons, while others see these as essential alternatives to fossil fuels.

The enviro movement claims to be based on science, and to a degree it is. Where they depart from science, though, is in their misuse and abuse of science. Cherry-picked data, overreliance on and overconfidence in modelling and predictions, trotting out worst-case scenarios as what "will happen," and relying on emotional arguments. To be sure, they also accuse anyone who disagrees with them of doing the same, and in any "us vs. them" situation that is probably true. But the environmental movement, particularly its more radical elements, is much less science-based than they would like people to believe.

And indeed the point of this article isn't so much a condemnation of the entire movement as it is a comparison of its more radical fringe (the stereotypical "bitter enviro") with its supposed polar opposite in the Religious Right. Both of these groups have much more in common than a penchant for teeth-gnashing. They are, literally or figuratively, both religions, and both prone to the same type of dogmatic thinking and zealous beliefs found in religion.