IT isn’t often that a Fairfax environment writer comes up with the funniest line of the week. Congratulations are due to Tom Arup for composing this gem: “The Anglican Church has told the Abbott government to change its approach to climate change, urging it to respect and base its policy on scientific evidence.”

The comic power in that paragraph is equal to several kilotons of the finest plutonium. Here we have an organisation founded on belief and faith now demanding that selected scientific opinions inform government policy. These same people think they can talk to the planet’s inventor just by putting their hands together.

The government should invite the Anglican Church to set an example by basing its own policies on scientific evidence. Services might be a little shorter — as in, there wouldn’t be any. Arup’s piece continued:

“Perth bishop Tom Wilmot, a church leader on environmental issues, told Fairfax Media that the environment was such an important issue it should not be left just to politicians and economists to discuss it.”

The Anglicans have “a church leader on environmental issues” now? There’s your explanation for declining attendances. (Incidentally, why does Fairfax, and the ABC for that matter, so frequently defer to religious leaders on various government policies, yet never asks them about, say, abortion?) Enviropreacher Wilmot, a big fan of the carbon tax, went on to explain his Jesus-based theory of climate change mitigation:

‘‘My own theology is such that Christ isn’t just the redeemer of people, but the redeemer of the world. We say in the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday in church, ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done in Earth as it is in heaven’. Well, I take that literally.’’

So there’s a carbon tax in the afterlife, then. Who knew that angels had such enormous carbon footprints?

Still, it’s probably only fair that Christianity moves into the science market. The climate change movement has been pushing into the religious sphere for decades. In fact, it’s sometimes difficult to tell where the religion ends and the science begins.

Consider the background of our more prominent holy warmists.

Al Gore attended the Vanderbilt University Divinity School for a time, in order to explore “spiritual issues”. Bill McKibben, another American climate change believer, is a Jesus fan whose work has been published in Billy Graham’s Christianity Today magazine. Former environment minister Peter Garrett is said to have become a Christian following the example of Midnight Oil manager Gary Morris, who in turn was led to the faith by, again, Billy Graham.

American evangelists have a lot to answer for. Given their inspiration, is it any surprise that so many in the climate change panic movement come across as Christian zealots? Perhaps they are drawn to the issue for its end-of-days theme, which neatly meshes with fundamentalist religious forecasts. It isn’t exactly fashionable these days to proclaim from a Biblical view the Earth’s imminent destruction, but turn it into a climate warning and suddenly you’ve got an audience.

And then there’s Kevin Rudd, the original churchy la femme himself, whose ostentatious Christianity — remember all those Sunday morning churchside press conferences? — was a natural accompaniment to his celebrated 2007 warming sermon: “Climate change is the great moral challenge of our generation.”

Testify, Kevin! Of course, a few years later Rudd vowed to scrap the carbon tax, probably because it was introduced by that nonbeliever Julia Gillard. Only Jesus-endorsed emissions reduction schemes are permitted.

When people speak of the need to separate church and state, they commonly imagine matters such as religious education or traditional prayers in parliament. The significant faith component in climate change alarmism puts it, too, in the religious category. State schools are absolutely lousy with climate change prayers, which are far better at terrifying children than any Old Testament horror stories.

A genuinely non-religious education system would ban all climate change talk from our classrooms. Keep it in church, where it belongs.

Enough with all this Jesus-bashing. Let me say one thing in favour of our Christian climate change chums. They may be meddling puritan busybodies intent on imposing their blighted world view on the rest of us, but at least they’re not as boring as activist atheists.

DON'T ASK US, WE'RE SENATORS

media_camera New senators Ricky Muir, Jacqui Lambie, Zhenya Wang, Glenn Lazarus and Janet Rice during their introduction into how the Senate runs in the Senate Chamber of Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage

THE federal senate functions as a house of review, standing above the short-term interests of the lowly house of representatives. That is why senators serve longer terms than their lower house colleagues — it removes them from the day-to-day political ruck and allows them to properly consider the grave policy issues brought before them. It’s such a great system that it really should apply in all other areas of Australian life. For example, imagine how helpful the new senate might be in offering a thoughtful second opinion on car repair …

Customer: “Um, hi. The garage down the road said my Camry needs four new brake rotors, but I think it just needs replacement pads. What do you guys reckon?”

Jacqui Lambie: “Let’s put cats in it! They’re cute as heck!”

Glenn Lazarus: “Hello, Clive? Someone here is asking about brakes. Yep. OK. I’ll tell him. Cheers. Mate, no new brakes until all Palmer United Party senators get 23 additional staffers and their own drive-through McDonald’s.”

Lee Rhiannon: “All these considerations insistently demand the union of the Soviet Republics into one federated state capable of guaranteeing external security, economic prosperity internally, and the free national development of peoples. The will of the peoples of the Soviet Republics recently assembled in Congress, where they decided unanimously ...”

Customer: “What?”

Lee Rhiannon: “Sorry. Force of habit. This Camry you speak of, comrade. Is it a hybrid?”

Customer: “No, it’s a V6.”

Lee Rhiannon: “Then our discussion is over.”

Ricky Muir : “Reckon you could probably get away with a pad change and machining the disc surfaces, mate. Lot cheaper than a total rotor swap. Oh, hang on — here’s a text from Clive. OK, scratch all that. What I really meant was increase staffing levels and give us a Macca’s.”

Stephen Conroy: “What am I still doing here? What earthly use am I?”

Customer: “This is going nowhere. Doesn’t anyone in this joint speak any sense? Hey — you over there, the bloke with about $50 of product in your hair.”

Scott Ludlam and Nick Xenophon: “Yes?”

Customer: “Oh, forget it. This is ridiculous. You all belong in an asylum.”

Sarah Hanson-Young: “Seeking asylum is a universal human right! The racist policies of the Abbott government are demonising refugees by cruelly denying them the justice of drowning at sea. I call on the United Nations to …”

Customer: (door slam)