A UK public company dismissed Mr Nicholson from his position as an environmental policy officer. But Mr Nicholson, who doesn’t fly, eat much meat or buy foreign food and spends a lot of time worrying about his waste, wasn’t taking this sitting down. He sued and at a preliminary hearing successfully argued that he can bring an action under the UK’s Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 on the basis that his conviction that climate change is the world's most important environmental problem was a “philosophical belief” under the legislation.
It’s being hailed as a victory for a “green martyr”, a label which reveals another worm at the heart of the environmentalist bud. However, any green group claiming this as a victory is mistaken.
In the kind of delicious irony that the law occasionally produces, Mr Nicholson had to argue against the company’s submissions that his conviction was based on fact and science and therefore did not amount to a philosophical belief.
Mr Nicholson’s argument is consistent with believers of a religious stripe. You can’t use science or logic to criticise my position because it’s a belief. You see, belief has faith at its centre and faith is impervious to empirical ammunition.
Mr Nicholson, who sounds like my kind of bloke, hopes the decision sets a precedent that will support anyone who shares his views on climate change and the environment. But it looks like he didn’t read to the end of the regulations. The UK Equality Act of 1996 which amended the regulations to ensure that they were not confined to religious beliefs, also amended the definition of belief to include lack of belief. So, the law equally will protect from discrimination those who do not believe in climate change.
Mind you, if the funsters holding a conference at the University of the West of England have their way it won’t matter because unbelievers will be in the loony bin. Oh to have been a fly on the wall. Oh to have experienced the trio of Glastonbury based poets, Strange Sisters (do check them out, you won't be disappointed), who “attempt through … poetry to take you on a journey through fears, resistances and courage to the visions of hope that will sustain us”, all the while enjoying my locally produced or Fairtrade tucker. Resistances? What about courages? Who cares? At least I can draw comfort from the fact that my journey will sustain them.
If ever there’s a movement that’s captured the intellectual low ground, it’s one which resorts to faith for protection and attacks opponents with charges of psychological disorder.
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