Adapted from a photo by Remy Steinegger
An English property developer has challenged his sacking as unlawful, and claims his belief in global warming is a religious belief they are illegally discriminating against. Tim Nicholson, former head of “sustainability” at Grainger PLC, claims he was fired because “his views on the environment are so strong that they led to clashes with other senior staff”, and a judge has agreed to hear the case at an employment tribunal.
I’m not sure if the religious argument was Nicholson’s idea or his barrister’s, but it seems odd that a global warming believer would want to describe their commitment to the idea as religious belief rather than scientific fact. Perhaps more perversely it is left to opposing counsel John Bowers QC, barrister to a company whose chief executive “once flew a member of staff to Ireland to deliver his Blackberry that he had left in London”, to claim that belief in climate change is scientific, and not philosophical:
A philosophical belief must be one based on a philosophy of life, not a scientific belief, not a political belief or opinion, not a lifestyle choice, not an environmental belief and not an assertion of disputed facts.
George Gaynor ‘Climate change beliefs “like religion”‘, Oxford Mail (8/10/09)
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }