Despite my whining about drought

Many gardeners see setbacks such as drought and gypsy moth invasions as part of an environmental disaster caused by the human race. Despite my repeated whining about this summer's drought, I tend not to buy apocalyptic prophesies of environmental doom.

I'm with the sceptics like Brendan O'Neill, Guardian columnist and editor of spiked, who writes:

Forget fundamentalist Christianity or Islam: environmentalism is by far the most influential death cult in existence today. It is inculcating in the masses the idea that the end of the world is nigh; that we shall we punished for our sins; that penance is our earthly duty; and that anyone who says or thinks otherwise is a "heretic" or a "denier" who should be held up to public ridicule.

The extent to which environmentalism echoes old religious values is striking. A key aspect of the monotheistic religions was their belief in an "end of days" scenario in which the world would go kaput and a new messiah would come to judge us harshly.

Many decades ago, this belief system had a deadening impact on people's lives. It encouraged fatalism, a conviction that mankind was not in control of his destiny. Our role was simply to be always on our best behaviour and await our fate at the end of time.

Today, it is environmentalists who make shrill warnings about the end of the world.

You can read the full article here. See also Bjørn Lomborg's article on making the world a better place in the here and now. Lomborg is author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and the forthcoming Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming.