The Corner

Sacrificing Human Thriving on the Altar of Environmentalist Earth Religion

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A firefighter walks amid charred trees amid drought conditions following a heatwave and water shortages across much of France, in Lanton, Gironde, France, July 28, 2026.

Yves Herman/Reuters

Environmentalism continues its radical shift from reasonable conservationism to environmentalist earth religion. This growing faith was most recently preached in an op-ed published by the New York Times that quite literally proselytizes for nature animism.

Robert Moor, a self-described “Thoreauvian” nature writer and the author of In Trees, describes moving from New York City to the forests of British Columbia. He has not had the sylvan experience for which he hoped. After about a week of smoky air caused by annually recurring forest fires, the once “bone deep atheist” experiences a “baptism by wildfire,” a “religious conversion” into a neo-pagan faith called “scientific animism.” From “Our Forests Are Demanding a Sacrifice”:

Wesley J. Smith

About the Author

Wesley J. Smith

Wesley J. Smith is an author and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism.

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