AFP / Antonio Scorza

Check out Al Gore's opinion piece in the New York Times.

Global political paralysis has thus far stymied work not only on climate, but on trade and other pressing issues that require coordinated international action. The reasons for this are primarily economic. The globalization of the economy, coupled with the outsourcing of jobs from industrial countries, has simultaneously heightened fears of further job losses in the industrial world and encouraged rising expectations in emerging economies. The result? Heightened opposition, in both the industrial and developing worlds, to any constraints on the use of carbon-based fuels, which remain our principal source of energy.

He points to one of the most important reasons for inaction that remains most often unsaid. Because it is obvious? Or because it would eventually demand a change of the whole system?

The decisive victory of democratic capitalism over communism in the 1990s led to a period of philosophical dominance for market economics worldwide and the illusion of a unipolar world. It also led, in the United States, to a hubristic “bubble” of market fundamentalism that encouraged opponents of regulatory constraints to mount an aggressive effort to shift the internal boundary between the democracy sphere and the market sphere. Over time, markets would most efficiently solve most problems, they argued. Laws and regulations interfering with the operations of the market carried a faint odor of the discredited statist adversary we had just defeated. This period of market triumphalism coincided with confirmation by scientists that earlier fears about global warming had been grossly understated. But by then, the political context in which this debate took form was tilted heavily toward the views of market fundamentalists, who fought to weaken existing constraints and scoffed at the possibility that global constraints would be needed to halt the dangerous dumping of global-warming pollution into the atmosphere. Over the years, as the science has become clearer and clearer, some industries and companies whose business plans are dependent on unrestrained pollution of the atmospheric commons have become ever more entrenched.

Meanwhile, the World Watch Institute has  published an article on the media's reporting of climate change. It concludes that

unless climate change reporting improves through morein-depth, international coverage, the necessary shift to low-carbon, resilient economies will not likely occur until the worst damages become as apparent as flood water rising to our windows. By then, it may be too late.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Imag

An English High Court judge, Justice Michael Burton, has just ruled that green beliefs deserve the same protection in the workplace as religious convictions, reports the Economist in its weekly online column green.view, quoting Mr Burton:

“A belief in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperatives is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.”

The plaintiff in this case was Tim Nicholson, a former “head of sustainability” for a residential-property firm. He was laid off in 2008 and sued the company for unfair dismissal on the grounds of his eco-minded beliefs. Under Britain's six-year-old Religion and Belief Regulations it is unlawful to discriminate against a person on the grounds of their religious or philosophical beliefs.

Some now fear the consequences this ruling might have, writes Time.com, quoting an employment specialistthat the decision will

"result in a tidal wave of philosophical-related litigation to employment tribunals."

Nor surprisingly, this ruling is seen as the beginning of a witch hunt by not only one of the innumerable blogs with a, let's say, denialist attitude towards man-made climate change:

So when can we expect "denier" to be replaced by "infidel"?

Well, Justice Burton seems to be a judge who likes to be precise. Two years ago, he reprimed Al Gore and his film "An Inconvenient Truth" for nine scientific errors, in a much publicised case brough to court by a British climate change denier. Not that Justice Burton had a problem with the central thesis that climate change was happening and that it was being driven by emissions from humans. Quite the contrary. But nine statements in the film, the judge said, were not supported by mainstream scientific consensus.

This time he has laid out some tests to prevent frivolous claims:

the belief must be genuinely held; it must be held for a long period of time; it must relate to something of grave importance to humanity; it must reach a certain level of cogency and seriousness; and it must not trample on existing ideas of human rights. By way of example, he said belief in the supremacy of the Jedi knights of “Star Wars” fame would be excluded, but he conceded that allegiance to the doctrines of Marxism or communism might not.

Question is, on which side will the deniers end up? Could those five points hold for them as they hold for the plaintiff?