NOTE: Since WUWT has the broadest reach of any climate blog and is essentially a “publication of record”, I have been asked to carry this opinion piece by the Heartland Institute. I have not received any compensation directly or indirectly for publishing this rebuttal. – Anthony Watts
By Joseph L. Bast, Director, Heartland Institute
On May 3, Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor and “special adviser” to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, wrote a commentary condemning global warming “deniers” that appeared on a Catholic website called Pewsitter. Since he takes aim specifically at The Heartland Institute, a reply seems to be in order.
Sachs wrote about an event convened by Pope Francis on global warming and sustainability at the Vatican in Rome the prior week. Observing that only alarmists and advocates of population control – most notably, Jeffrey Sachs – were on the program, I decided Heartland should send some real scientists and other experts to Rome to provide a different opinion. Our delegation to Rome consisted of the following individuals, all of them willing to travel a great distance on short notice and participate without honoraria:
- E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
- Hal Doiron, former NASA Skylab and Space Shuttle engineer
- Richard Keen, Ph.D., meteorology instructor at the University of Colorado
- Christopher Monckton, chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI)
- Marc Morano, executive editor and chief correspondent, ClimateDepot.com
- Tom Sheahen, Ph.D., vice chairman of the Board of Directors of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
- Elizabeth Yore, J.D., former general counsel at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Virginia
Jim Lakely and Keely Drukala, Heartland’s director and deputy director of communications, respectively, traveled to Rome as well and managed the complicated and last-minute logistics of the trip.
We created a webpage at https://www.heartland.org/Vatican-Environment-Workshop where we posted news releases and opinion-editorials expressing our concern that the pope was being misinformed and offering links to more reliable scientific research and commentary on Christian views toward the environment. Following the event and safe return home of our delegation, we posted all the presentations and video from the event on the website.
Our presence generated extensive worldwide press attention. We were able to reach millions of people with our simple message that “climate change is not a crisis.”
The Vatican and United Nations seemed shocked that anyone would criticize their bias or the lack of scientific credentials of their speakers. Peter Raven, a speaker at the summit, devoted several minutes of his remarks to commenting on our presence, and now Sachs’ essay appears to be part of the UN’s effort at damage control.
Sachs did not attend our press conference or any of the presentations our experts made the following day. To our knowledge, none of the persons scheduled to speak at the “summit” chose to attend our public events. Nevertheless, Sachs writes: “the libertarian Heartland Institute, supported over the years by the Koch brothers, mounted a fruitless protest outside of St Peter’s Square.”
The Heartland Institute has received just $25,000 from a single organization, a charitable foundation, affiliated with “the Koch brothers” during the past 15 years. Our annual budget is approximately $7 million. Even that small gift was earmarked for our work on health care reform, not global warming. Why does Sachs mention “the Koch brothers” unless his intention is to smear an independent organization by falsely implying a much larger or somehow improper level of support from some singularly unpopular billionaires?
Our press conference and seminar were not a “protest.” We weren’t on the street waving signs or shouting slogans. Our speakers were highly qualified and their writing and speaking relating to the pope and the Catholic Church were respectful and focused narrowly on the science, economics, and politics of climate change.
The dishonesty in Sachs’ reference to The Heartland Institute would be startling, coming from a person of Sachs’ stature, if this sort of misrepresentation of facts weren’t so common in the debate over climate change. President Barack Obama sets the tone, comparing global warming realists to members of the “flat earth society” and rather ominously calling on his supporters to “hold climate change deniers’ feet to the fire.”
In fact, those who say global warming is a man-made crisis gave up arguing the science and economics behind their campaign long ago. They now rely only on exaggeration, lies, and ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees with them.
Sachs is correct about one thing: The Heartland Institute is indeed a libertarian organization. We are devoted to discovering, developing, and promoting free-market solutions to social and economic issues. We make it very clear on our website and in interviews that it was this perspective that led us to examine the science behind the global warming scare. That examination led us to become (in the words of The Economist) “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting skepticism of man-made climate change.”
Sachs says some “free-market conservatives … have followed their ideology to the point of denying well-established science.” He seems blind to the possibilities that the science is not “well-established” or that his fellow socialists and “progressives” have themselves fallen prey to this malady. What else explains their refusal to admit there has been no warming for more than 18 years, that real data show no increase in extreme weather events, and that the benefits of using fossil fuels outweigh the costs, by orders of magnitude, even including the vastly inflated costs attributed to climate change that might occur centuries from now?
Sachs has had a long and distinguished career as an academic and in various government agencies, but on this issue he is letting his liberal ideology cloud his judgment. His short essay reveals a disturbing lack of knowledge about climate science and compassion toward the billions of people in the world who will be harmed by the UN’s plans to make energy more expensive and less reliable.
Sachs ends his essay with a call to people of all faiths to “fulfill our moral responsibilities to humanity and to the future of Earth.” That responsibility starts with truth-telling. Sachs and his colleagues on the left haven’t reached the starting line yet.
# # #
Is there a spelling error in the penultimate para – “his ILliberal ideology”?
Years ago when I worked for a small firm, the president during weekly meetings would invariably ask, “What do we need to do to become the penultimate company?” (apparently thinking ‘penultimate’ meant ‘first place’).
I always answered, “We’re already there. Can I go home now?”
He never ever got it 🙂
Maybe your firm was last and the president wanted to move up?
Chuckle, chuckle.
Reminds me of the hackneyed use of “epicentre”. Even more of a centre than “centre”.
Well to a geophysicist the hypocenter is where a fault first ruptures — almost always below the earth’s surface — and the epicenter is the radial projection onto the surface. But yes, your point is well taken: the layman uses epicenter to squeeze every last drop of emphasis out of their usually barren point … rather like ‘very unique.’
‘Ground zero’ also gets brutally abused as a replacement for ‘center.’
“Portland is ground zero for lumbersexual lattes.”
Tim is the penult of penultimate.
Um, is the penult of penumbra.
Pen is the penult of penult.
From Pewsitter:
Global Warming Encyclical: Shouldn’t the Vatican promote a Catholic agenda rather than a global political agenda driven by the UN and the Obama Administration?
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/1733-an-unholy-alliance
When Jeffrey Sachs, the papal environmental advisor, was asked by a reporter about his radical 20-year history of supporting population control through abortion and other reproductive rights service, Sachs cleverly avoided the answer by stating, “It really isn’t the essential issue here; that’s a topic for a different day.”
He sounds like Nancy Pelosi, when she said, “we have to pass the Obamacare, so that you can find out what is in it.”
“Sachs cleverly avoided the answer by stating, “It really isn’t the essential issue here; that’s a topic for a different day.” ”
So, Heartland could say, vis a vis getting money for a non-climate change topic from the Koch brothers: ““It really isn’t the essential issue here; that’s a topic for a different day.”
For the first time in history, the Vatican is now lead by a Jesuit, a group which is militantly Catholic; which spends most of its energies sucking up to the movers and leaders of the world; a group which believes in “liberation theology” (read – communist), and a group which would embrace anything which will destabilize any “protestant” or free society. This is their M.O. since their inception. The Black Pope now controls the White Pope. The previous popes would always keep the Jesuits on a short leash, using the Society to do its dirty work, but the Franciscans must be at a low ebb to have allowed this wolf in the door, and a resignation of a sitting pope, to boot!
INET/Institute for New Economic Thinking
C0-Founders:
Jim Balsillie, BlackBerry and founder of The Centre for International Governance Innovation/CIGI, Canada.
William Janeway
George Soros
Advisory Board includes:
Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute
http://www.ineteconomics.org/about/leadership
CBC NEWS/World, Aug.9, 2010
“UN climate panel includes RIM’s Balsillie”
“Balsillie is one of the 21 members on the new UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability that will come up with a new blueprint for sustainable growth.”
The UN Panel also included Susan Rice, U.S.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-climate-panel-includes-rim-s-balsillie-1.929025?ref=rss
Catholic Herald, U.K., Dec.10, 2010
“WikiLeaks: Vatican promised to lobby for climate change agreement”
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2010/12/10/wikileaks-vatican-promised-to-lobby-for-climate-change-agreement
Paul767
May 8, 2015 at 11:18 am
“For the first time in history, the Vatican is now lead by a Jesuit, a group which is militantly Catholic;”
The Jesuits are militantly Jesuit. It is not clear that they are Catholic or even religious.
I posted this on another thread, maybe more appropriate here.
HAH!! On Aussie MSM, channel 7, a “ticker tape” newsbite at the bottom of the screen says “Pope made honorary globetrotter”!!!
Is he subbing in for Curly??
Nah. Meadowlark Lemon.
RayG
May 7, 2015 at 6:49 pm
Nah. Meadowlark Lemon.
I LOLed.
M Simon
May 8, 2015 at 1:24 am
RayG
May 7, 2015 at 6:49 pm
Nah. Meadowlark Lemon.
I LOLed.
———————————-
Me too.
Thank you to all those fighting this good fight. We are brothers and sisters and I am proud to stand with all of you.
Ditto in spades. And much thanks to Anthony for posting. The efforts of the many Davids against the insidious juggernauts – the UN, IPCC, and various political machines are paying off. We know David wins in the end saving this canary in this mine. Unfortunately, there will be more canaries to save – another topic…
Rarely, sir, do I find an individual who mixes even more metaphors than I do, but I stand in awe:-) Put the blender on puree!
Bast’s has indeed provided a proper and measured reply. Sachs’ ears will burn as they should, regardless of his likely silence on the issue.
I would only say that qualifying Jeffrey Sachs (or anyone on the American political “left”) as liberal is a significant misuse of the term. The term was stolen under the cover of widespread ignorance and its misappropriation brings ridicule to everyone involved. There is nothing whatsoever liberal about the Democratic party. Not a thing. There is not even a hint of comprehension of the meaning of the word “liberal” in its socio-political agenda. The label “liberal” has effectively been kidnapped and has for long being tortured to say and justify anything. For the sake of sanity, it must be rescued.
Words change meaning over time, Brute. While it’s true that “liberal”, in many ways, now means the opposite of what it once meant, there’s nothing that can be done about it now, except perhaps wait for the pendulum to swing back the other way.
“Federalist” and “anti-federalist” have switched their meanings since they were first used in the late 1800s, due to the fact that people misunderstood “the Federalist Papers” as being WRITTEN BY Federalists, when in actuality they were ADDRESSED TO the (oppositional) Federalists. You see, a Federalist was one who supported the FEDERATION (under the Articles of Confederation, the original founding document of the United States, several years before the Constitution was ratified) of US states, which was basically nothing more than the UN, loosely binding the INDEPENDENT States together for a common purpose (mutual defense) but otherwise leaving them sovereignty over their own lands. The Anti-Federalists wanted to abolish the Articles of Confederation and institute a much stronger central government. Of course, the Anti-Federalists won, but in doing so, will be forever remembered (falsely) as “Federalists”.
“Organic” USED TO MEAN “contains carbon”. But with the cooperation of a US government that has now usurped even the power to define words, it means food that is grown without man-made fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, and otherwise according to USDA “organic” standards, and any food producer that uses the word “organic”, in its original (and still truthful) sense, on its product packaging, can be fined millions of dollars.
They have a lot to lose. No wonder they’re to bellicose!
“Sachs ends his essay with a call to people of all faiths to “fulfill our moral responsibilities to humanity and to the future of Earth.” That responsibility starts with truth-telling. Sachs and his colleagues on the left haven’t reached the starting line yet.”
Well said Joseph. It is very sad that so many otherwise intelligent people have allowed their genuine concern for the environment to blind them to the fact that the CAGW theory has been hijacked by totalitarian left-wing elements to bring about their own control over the people of the world.
I for one will be DELIGHTED from one point of view if the Pope endorses AGW Alarmism
It will ensure that AGW is seen for what it really is, a belief system rather than a matter of Science.
The many parallels with Galileo almost four hundred years ago are very striking. He was too found guilty of disagreeing with the then consensus & barely escaped with his life. The Church, MY Church, has only just admitted its error.
I am very upset that the Vatican should be so mislead as to, once again, step away from matters of Faith & Morals which is where its self-declared interest & supposed competence lies & meddle where it clearly knows nothing.
Amen to that last statement! But of course, here in the USA we Catholics are used to seeing the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issue political pronouncements on almost a weekly basis, not one of which they have the slightest competency to make. This Pope (assuming the encyclical actually says what we all anticipate it will say) appears to have thrown over, or never to have understood, the distinction between our duty to be stewards of Creation and the making of prudential judgments by secular governments. I don’t believe he’s as intellectually incompetent as the latter alternative would require, so I must conclude that he is exceeding his competency by choice, not negligence.
Modern Environmentalism is an original sin religion that has a lot in common with historical Catholicism.
“We lived in Eden until man ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Because of man’s arrogance and greed we have been cast out of paradise. Now, we are can mitigate our guilt only by granting status and power to the righteous among us.”
Sound familiar? This is one of the oldest routes to power that there is.
Galileo got in trouble because of his temperment and for publicly embarassing the Pope, who was a friend of his, not because of what he taught.
He was however upset that he could only teach it as a theory, suppositionly not as true. He couldn’t prove heliocentury with the equipment he had and, surprise, he was WRONG. Turns out he believed like Copurnicus that the planets went around in perfect circular orbits, and even riduculed those who suggested ellipses, which is the actual case.
oops, maybe HELIOCENTRICITY would have been the better word.
Anyways, the Catholic Church isn’t anti-science, that’s why there are so many priest-scientists making big discoveries, like LeMaitre figuring out the Big Bang (and correcting Einstein no less) and why so many craters on the moon are named after Jesuits, the same order Pope Francis belongs to, and Pope Francis has a diploma in chemistry.
Anyways, the Catholic Church isn’t anti-science,
=====================
How much CO2 has been produced burning heretics at the stake?
Vatican’s chief exorcist warns that practicing yoga is ‘satanic’
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049612_Vatican_exorcist_yoga_Harry_Potter.html#ixzz3ZYN7BdUv
Jim, it is refreshing to hear some truth on the Galileo story! It is so rare to hear from anyone who has any idea of what the actual history is! In adition to your points, the ‘persecution’ of Galileo was almost laughable. House arrest at his friend’s estate. Tough life he must have had there…
Jeff in Calgary May 8, 2015 at 10:50 am
Nope. Galileo’s daughter sacrificed her life to care for the old man. He was denied all communication with the outside world. Ouch! Through various deceptions, he did manage to send his last manuscript to friends.
John, many, MANY, people confuse belief with reality. It continues to amaze me.
January 2011
British Court Rules AGW a Religion
A British court ruling by Mr Justice Michael Burton stated that “a belief in man-made climate change… is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations Act.” This signals that discrimination on the basis of green views is as unacceptable as sexism, racism or religious prejudice.
Now anyone who shows open contempt for a colleague who does these things in the name of upholding “sustainable office practices” or caring for the environment can be deemed prejudicial, and “green” workers can take their bosses to court if they feel they have been discriminated against because of their environmental convictions.
The ruling was a response to the treatment of Tim Nicholson. A former head of sustainability at Grainger, one of the UK’s largest property companies, Nicholson won his case that he should be able to take his former employer to a tribunal, arguing that his views on climate change were met with contempt and eventually dismissal at work. Nicholson says he was made redundant because of his “philosophical belief about climate change and the environment.”
This has set a precedent on how environmental views are regarded in English law: not as a political outlook which can be held up to scrutiny and debate like any other political outlook, but as faith, as gospel, and anyone who contests it might face retribution.
Because that is what Nicholson’s “philosophical belief” amounts to. As Dinah Rose, QC for Nicholson, explained, it is a belief “that mankind is headed towards catastrophic climate change and that, as a result, we are under a duty to do all that we can to live our lives so as to mitigate or avoid that catastrophe for future generations.”
Nicholson is demanding that opposition to his green antics should be regarded as a form of bigotry, he also believes that his convictions should be beyond reprehension.
Nicholson was affronted by Grainger’s chief executive’s decision to fly a staff member to Ireland to deliver his Blackberry, which he had left behind in London. He was also angry about not being able to set up a company-wide “carbon management system” because colleagues failed to provide the necessary data.
Nicholson’s case is about seeking state protection for environmentalist views. And because that is all they really are – views – they should be up for contestation and critique.
Environmentalism does resemble a religion. It has turned into a moralistic campaign where “carbon sinners” must be punished through taxes and fines or be rendered social outcasts. Any objection to the “absolute truth” of an impending climate catastrophe is treated as heresy. The greens’ ritualistic behaviour resembles religious rituals, with carbon offsetting as the modern form of penance and the endless rules on what food is ethical and how to separate household waste looking like a secular version of kosher laws.
But the rise of environmentalism has little in common with how older religions emerged and how they developed, or with the meaning and sense of community they can provide. And while religion at least offers the hope of redemption or some form of transcendence, and a belief in the power of man to shape his world, environmentalism is an inherently pessimistic worldview which says we should forsake our ambitions in the name of protecting the planet.
By first demanding that green views be put on a par with religion in the eyes of the law and by then suggesting that green views should be elevated above religion because they are “underpinned by science,” Nicholson not only debased religious belief but also expressed an ignorant attitude towards the scientific process. Science emerged through an intellectual struggle to free humanity from the tyranny of sacred dogma, and science depends on an open-minded and open-ended attitude towards experimentation and the testing out of ideas.
Nicholson’s efforts to stamp out opposition to those who “believe in anthropogenic climate change” is an expression of dogmatic thinking. In his new role as head of the healthcare section of the 10:10 climate change campaign, he will at last be in a safe haven, free to spread the green gospel without a colleague batting an eyelid. It is a shame Nicholson is not satisfied with preaching to the converted; the ruling on his case may make it harder for any workplace to conduct a proper discussion around how to deal with environmental issues, or to choose to ignore them altogether.
They are going to have trouble with that in Garland, Texas.
Sasha,
I see it slightly differently , but have no knowledge of this judgment / ruling and am going entirely from what you say about it-
If the ruling was based on viewing AGW as a ‘belief’ and on a par with religious beliefs then it seems to me that in essence it :
(a) protects the believer (AGW in this case) from any form of discrimination, abuse or bad treatment as a result of their belief, and
(b) treats AGW as a ‘belief’ system as are all religions rather than proven or provable fact, and
(c) allows an employer to set clear rules to prevent any expression of that belief system in the workplace (christians have legally been prevented from this and from wearing / displaying symbols such as a crucifix in the workplace where an employer bans this), and
(d) as a corollary must protect and provide relief for sceptics (non-believers) from all and any discrimination or abuse by believers as a result of their scepticism / non-belief
That last point, or so it seems to me, opens a whole can of worms for the AGW believers in the UK who set out to discriminate against or in any way abuse or belittle sceptics / non believers as the ruling leaves it open to argue successfully in court that they are protected in the same way that agnostics and atheists are protected ……..
I may be wrong, but that is my quick take on it.
CAN I HAVE AN AMEN!!!!!
Good response to a fringe group of environmental zealots who fail to see that fossil fuels have allowed Man to deal with Weather of all types, and Man is not going to give them up just to stop miniscule changes in Weather, with any such changes being more likely than not to be beneficial.
Sinagoguery.
this is the same clown that used to write for Discover Mag…..that’s all you need to know
Survey is a hoot….only 1000 people and he claims what?
“”an overwhelming majority of respondents (78%) said that, “if nothing is done to reduce global warming,” the future consequences for the US would be “somewhat serious” or “very serious.””
using his same metric……87% say it hasn’t hurt them
Nicely said.
Have a lawyer send a letter to Sachs legally informing him of the extent of Koch donations and threaten a suit for libel if he ever lies about it again or seems to condone the truth of that falsehood if said by someone in his presence.
Eugene WR Gallun
In fact send such letters to all the liars out there. Copies are cheap.
I wonder if the Pope realizes that he is exhaling that which these absurdists wish to demonize?
How Do They Make the Pope Smoke?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/49429/how-do-they-make-pope-smoke
First thing I thought of was your picture from the other day of the lady with the “flower-top bra”.
With the ballots of the election and wet or dry straw.
The Pope is against smoking. Especially if it is medicinal.
Let Sachs debate ‘mano a mano’ on the science with a scientist focused on the observationally based understanding of the Earth Atmosphere System (EAS),
Then we can see his basis for his alarm on climate.
John
Sorry, ‘mano a mano’ would be more like Oreskes vs Figueres.
Jeffrey doesn’t have the Sachs.
Max Photon on May 7, 2015 at 4:50 pm
– – – – – – – – –
Max Photon,
Hey, you are getting pithy with that comment. Sounds like a line of our a Mickey Spillane book. I love his books.
John
I thought mano a mano was hand to hand?
Thanks, Joseph L. Bast.
Well-written reply. I’m happy to see those donations were put to good use and that the Heartland Institute is putting up a good fight.
It is sad that such a debate has degenerated into name calling. Don’t think for a moment that this fight is over. There is too much at stake and too many $’s in the offing for those on the bandwagon to give up. It does have aspects of totalitarianism as Ray mentions. I mean Christiana Figueres just the other day told Australia to move away from coal adding “there is no space for coal”. It is as if in their blindness to do good they are willing to do evil to those that depend on cheap fuel resources. They just don’t get it and will never while the funds are there. It is a long hard fight we face.
Robert A. Heinlein wrote this in 1939, seems to apply to AGW supporters.
“There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority. “
A writer of genius. I read everything of his long ago as a precocious kid, forgot nearly every word but internalized much of what he wrote. When I feel uneasy about what I am doing it is likely that I am violating those “rules”. Lately I ponder this from “”Stranger in a Strange Land”:
“There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk “his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor” on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.”
And one of the great tragedies of our age is that, by not considering philosophy a subject worth teaching (or else by delegating it’s teaching to fools, usually fools with a political agenda) we continue raising generation after generation of students who enter University (if they make it even that far) with an academic mind. That is because it is enormously convenient for teachers from kindergarten through twelfth grade to teach obedience to authority in the erroneous belief that they are teaching students proper discipline. And all too often, even teachers seeking to teach simple “facts” on the basis of their “authority” in the classroom are plain old wrong.
The ubiquity of internet-connected cell phones is making something of an impact here. My son (being an obnoxious, undisciplined rejector of authority) would sit in the classes of his less competent teachers in high school and when they said something that was pure bullshit, he would look it up on the internet on the spot, raise his hand, and correct the teacher. This did not make him popular with those teachers, of course, because it clearly demonstrated their lack of authority, which even in academia is earned, not granted by fiat.
I spend a fair amount of my time teaching philosophy along with physics, and usually start my physics classes off by telling students to their faces that they should not believe what I am going to teach them just because I am the professor and hence the supposed “authority” they are learning from. I point out that the course’s lab, even though it at best spot-checks the highly idealized science, should be the place where they come to trust what I tell them.
Then I point out that besides, everything I’m going to teach them is wrong (this is typically first year introductory classical physics) because the world, when one does careful experiments, turns out to be relativistic and quantum mechanical, and because even things as “certain” in our everyday experience as Universal Gravitation are not fully understood in a completely consistent framework of physics. But that what we learn will be a darned good approximation that is more than sufficient to gain substantial insight into all sorts of everyday phenomena.
This doesn’t suddenly fix the problem — I have no idea how to fix the real problem, given that religions are based entirely on teaching unprovable absurdity (by Authority, of course) so that 80 to 90% of the world’s children are taught under a system of explicit threat and punishment by both their parents and their parents’ religious Authoritative scripture and clergy to believe things that make no sense from the age of 2 or 3, and then sent to schools where teacher incompetence is routinely disguised by granting them the status of Authority unchallengable by any student save at risk of punishment. To me it is amazing that the human mind is sufficiently resiliant that even after two decades of behavioral conditioning and threats, it can still often be set free by a single scientific experience, by a single proper exposure to a way of knowing things that make sense and that don’t rely on Authority to do so.
rgb
“religions are based entirely on teaching unprovable absurdity” – rgb
Beware the teacher that supports his contention with superlatives, for he is likely to ENTIRELY overstate his position to the point of ABSURDITY. I won’t presume to speak to the pretext for all the world’s religions as you do, and therefore horribly overstate my expertise. I am, however, comfortable speaking for the origin of Christianity, and for it I will take notable exception to your statement.
The central message of Christianity is love. Love God. Love your fellow man. Yes, yes, I know, you are saying love is absurd and unprovable, as I am sure your son’s love is for you. Hopefully you somehow still manage to have a meaningful relationship despite it being based upon something absurd and unprovable. But let’s look beyond the irrational things in Christianity like faith, hope, and love to which you don’t subscribe and see if we can’t find somethings more concrete and practical.
Don’t kill. Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat on your spouse. Your life will be better if you don’t do these things. Hey now, surely that registers fairly high on the provable and not-so-absurd scale of things, right? Surely some empirical tests could be devised to test those out. From the Proverbs to the parables, from managing stress to dealing with grief, there are a lot of pearls of wisdom within the bible that will benefit those who listen regardless of their level of faith. Surely a loveless, faithless, hopeless, prove-it-to-me physicist can find something practical in all that which means Christianity is not ENTIRELY based upon unprovable absurdity.
All passive-aggressiveness aside (sorry, that seems to be the weapon of choice in this venue), the truth about faith is that it cannot be compelled upon anyone, and Christianity especially so. While a parent may take their child to church and hope to open their eyes to the possibility of faith, nobody can compel it upon another as you suggest. There are many children who fail to adopt faith despite their parent’s best efforts, and others whose parents never try to take them but they find their faith on their own. It is a product of free will, as it should be.
I am truly sorry that you have no faith, and pray my sarcastic remarks about your lack of hope and love are off the mark too. But you would do well to consider that some of the best things in this world are indeed unprovable and rationally absurd.
rgbatduke,
I agree with your prioritization of teaching philosophy in conjunction with any teaching.
I think the fix to the problem you stated is simply the formation of a culture where explicit knowledge of the history of philosophy is needed for basic use in applied reason. That cultural formation just takes focus and dedication to become the general culture. Let’s do it!
John
The Vatican’s focus is on what sorts of populism compatible with their doctrine can increase their membership, not arbitrating scientific debates. Hence actual scientific debate is rather beside the point and not likely to be appreciated.
To an extent I agree with you. However I believe they are well meaning and want to do good and are simply ill-informed. It has moved from a scientific debate to a moral imperative and the facts don’t matter. The only hope wrt the Vatican’s involvement is that there will be substantial push back on theological grounds. As far as the UN goes, they got their photo op and will milk it for all its worth.
“[snip -policy violation -mod]”
Well you certainly put us in our place!
Did you have some facts to share or were you just here to attack?
Pippen Fool’s been sippin’ the koolade again. He got so excited that he even posted on the wrong story.
Yeah Pippen, these libertarians have got to go. Freedom got us into all this mess and we need the UN to lead us out of the wilderness. When the iron curtain fell down, we rejoiced before we discovered that, although a lot of people came out who wanted a taste of this magic freedom stuff, totalitarian subverts also poured out and took up positions in the UN, world universities, environmental organizations, other NGOs and agencies of government to rise up patiently over time….to do the only thing they had been trained to do. The naive sycophant groupies of these wonderful global kumbaya movements, and the ready welcoming agencies like the UN and Greenpeas are cotton candy to those cunning devils spawned by nations of chess players. It was a surprise for the ideologues that whose strategies, honed over four generations, wasn’t needed. They were already in demand. There were hundreds of millions of folks, like yourself clasping their hands and learning to play the mandolin.
Um, you do know that China and Russia (as well as India) are among the most skeptical nations on Earth, right? China (IMO) is openly laughing at the entire world for being taken in by what is obviously a “movement” designed and supported by the very energy companies that are supposed to be the bad guys in league with general industrialists who want to keep the third world from ever being free and prosperous so that they can continue to be cheap labor for the first world. Cheap energy is the ticket out of poverty for two to three billion of the poorest people on Earth, the majority of whom live in China or India. Cheap energy reduces the profits of every oil company, coal company, and power company on Earth, as they make marginal profits proportional to the retail cost of their products — higher prices directly equal higher profits for a longer time and for less work. Russia these days is one of the countries that fairly regularly publishes refutations of some of the assertions of global warming — it’s not an academic kiss of death there AFAIK. India just doesn’t care. I think they’d rather burn Thorium than coal (China probably would as well) but neither country is going to leave another generation in eighteenth century poverty while the US and Europe continue to feast on modern technology and universal access to electricity, running water, sewage, refrigeration, a reliable and safe food supply, good health care, and prospects for our children.
I think you are diametrically mistaken about this being a totalitarian idea. At the moment, the more totalitarian countries are simply rejecting it. If you want to understand it, follow the money. Or wait four or five more years. If those years pass without substantial warming, or with some cooling, you can just wait for the U.S. Congress to follow the money under threat of subpeona and prosecution. Or, more likely not, since many congressional beaks get wet in the trough of money poured into the many corporate and research pockets open to receive it to “save the world from deniers”.
rgb
“Um, you do know that China and Russia (as well as India) are among the most skeptical nations on Earth, right?” – rgb
Countries like China and Russia already have state control and bureaucratic systems in place to ensure their ruling class has everything they want, and therefore have no need for interference from schemes like AGW. In fact, it might run interference with what they want to do.
Western democracies however won’t knowingly give power and freedom away, so a scheme like AGW and the wealth redistribution and power control over energy production is one way for statists to worm their way into such governments.
This was the most interesting “thought” on this post, and it’s deleted? As Pippen said, “What a joke”.
So what is the policy violation? Calling out an creationist “scientist” that has a PhD but has never done any scientific work? Really, that’s who you are protecting now, just because they work for Heartland?? Pretty sorry. Or are you that scared of Heartland? That’s interesting.
Pippen, since you are here blowing smoke without staying on topic,i surmise that you are here to disrupt,nothing more.
@PK:
It is crystal clear that it is you who is terrified of Heartland. Because you are the one who is always bringing them up. You cannot refute what they say, so you try to denigrate them with your pathetic and baseless ad hominem comments.
The fact is that Heartland is destroying your climate alarmist narrative. You don’t like that — we get that.
Tough.
Scared of Heartland? Because of a silly conference in DC with no real scientists but the average age of the speakers is past retirement? Because of a monthly cut and paste letter from Lordy Mockton based on the cherry picked record that he favors? I think not.
Oh, and dbs, this was updated just last September: https://www.heartland.org/ideas/smokers-rights
Just in case you think Heartland has switched to the higher road.
Yers, PK, you are scared of Heartland. Terrified, really.
If they didn’t matter, you wouldn’t waste your time attacking them. Would you? No.
Heartland is a pro-American organization. It understands that there are UN forces at work that are trying to destroy our great country.
You have a clear choice here: either support the US of A, or support the UN. It’s a crystal clear decision. While I would hope and pray that you will make the right choice, I’m not optimistic. There is a real likelihood that you’re anti-American. We will see about that. Won’t we, PK?
Wow. The UN vs the old US of A. And don’t forget the Iranians. And the Russians too. And the Canadians, them too. They all want our to steal our English system of measurements (which the English don’t use any more) because they realize that with that they can dumb down the population because they cant figure out how many inches are in a mile, like most americans can’t.
But we aren’t paranoid, are we, dbs. No.
Pippen Kool
May 7, 2015 at 7:22 pm
Schizophrenics depend on tobacco. And they deserve a place at the table if only by proxy (me).
Joe, I’m sure you know that “libertarian” has become a derogatory appellation. That part is the scariest of all.
I know, right? And all they do is look after books!
They work at the Liberia?
I thought those were liberians.
No, Liberians own all those big ships. You must mean libarians.
Surely you mean ‘libertines?’
Surely you mean ‘libertines?’
I’m down with that. And up with it as well.
The Pope laments the state of the world’s poor. Yet he embraces the UN and their crusade against cheap energy…access to cheap energy is the only road to helping the poor. Very good article. Sachs and his ilk are the ones who need to look in the mirror, but sadly they will not.
It is easy to be confused with the seductive promise of aiding the poor. Oh, how I resent the UN, the AGW pile of lies. They are so pretty.
Mother Teresa a Saint of the Church liked seeing poor people stay poor. They were easier to convert.
The Church is nothing like what people imagine.
M Simon, what is the basis for your claim the she liked seeing the poor remain poor.
David A,
Mother Theresa was not a nice person. Read the following to get past the catholic propaganda about her:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2008/05/mother-teresa/
I met Mother Teresa.
I found her to be direct, honest, potent, insightful, and VERY austere. It is true that Mother Teresa liked keeping the children in the community of their birth. She did not see how the children would benefit from being taken from their homes and thrust into a world of materialism and excess, when the objective was to save their souls and their lives.. She said that. She never believed that you had to be a wealthy person to have value.
It is much worse to have a poverty of heart and possess spite that to have no money.
Many people are poor. Worse, a few people would libel a good person for their own fleeting pleasure.
I wonder what good things her critics have done for the poor? They must have been fantastic, beyond reproach. I’d love to know.
Here is a link to Mother Teresa’s Beatification site.
http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/teresa/Sainthood.asp
http://www.catholicplanet.com/articles/article115.htm
Here is a quote from her regarding the poor.
Understanding the poor: Rich people, well-to-do people, very often don’t really know who the poor are; and that is why they can’t forgive, for knowledge can only lead to love, and love to service. And so, if they are not touched by them, it’s because they do not know them… The other day I dreamed I was at the gates of heaven. And St. Peter said, “Go back to earth. There are no slums up here”… Nakedness is not only for a piece of cloth, but nakedness is a loss of dignity, human dignity: The loss of what is beautiful, what is pure, what is chaste, what is virgin. Loss, homelessness is not only for a house made of bricks – homelessness is being that people are completely forgotten, rejected, left alone, as if they are nobody to nobody.
When asked what would happen if there were no more poor, Mother Teresa replied “I would be out of a job.” She did not want people to remain poor. She probably did want people to be humble, because then they are more likely to do good.
The Vatican views on scientific matters are almost entirely captured by European academia. Don’t hold your breath.
Why don’t they refer to the NYC Ballet as Koch Bros. funded?
When the “Koch Bros.” became an item on climate blogs a few years ago I took a time-out and investigated.
The Koch companies employ many people and contribute in many ways to the communities where they are. This is a big organization and the many on the receiving end know what is going on.
The Koch Foundations have provided millions of dollars to arts, medicine, and other social needs. Maybe I should say many millions of dollars – I doubt anyone knows how much but I followed many links to things supported.
The piddling $25,000 given to Heartland seems like pennies found under a car seat by comparison.
That Jeffrey Sachs should bring up this small donation in light of the many millions I mention above is indicative of his lost (?) sense of perspective. He wrote for the magazine Scientific American, and is one of the reasons that magazine no longer comes to my house on a monthly basis.
Absolutely.
The science magazines that used to publish my father are now jokes. National Geographic, the worst of the lot.
And meanwhile, NDP, with its green platform, won provincial election in Alberta.
Go figure….
I am speechless.
Catastrophic.
First thing they’re doing is halting the push for Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway.
Watch how quickly Alberta can fall with a far left nutjob crowd running the show.
Alberta voters must think that the NDP can get the pipelines through when the Conservatives couldn’t. NDP is in bed with those who opposed the pipelines.
Left and right are relative. From where you sit, Ronald Reagan probably looks far left. (me ducks under desk for cover)</juvenile>
The ndp are so far left, they have to travel right for 3 hours to even get Stalin in sight.
Sachs from Earth Institute @ Columbia University has just brought us more CRED …
swell
We should understand that this position on the science of climate change by Pope Francis is being driven by his scientific advisers, The Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/2014/sustainable.html
These so called climate change “experts” of the Catholic Church that Pope Francis is relying on to provide him with guidance so that he can morally advise Catholics and the world, regarding good decisions for the poor and being good stewards of this planet have catastrophically failed him.
It is that group, The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, that has been corrupted and fails to use the scientific method as they fall in line with the ideology(s) of the UN.
Faith in the predictive power of falsified global climate models has no place in the world of science.
Observational data based on the real world benefits of increasing CO2 are overwhelming and increasing.
Potential, speculative negatives are rapidly decreasing.
Catholics and non Catholics should know that the Pope is just as capable as the rest of us on making mistakes. This is one of them. The Popes “infallibility” that Catholics believe in, would never apply to science or climate change.
Actually, this is the final declaration from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Climate Change workshop last week that has the objectionable statements:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/04/28/final_declaration_on_workshop_on_climate_change/1140356
For example:
“The world should take note that the climate summit in Paris later this year (COP21) may be the last effective opportunity to negotiate arrangements that keep human- 2 induced warming below 2-degrees C, and aim to stay well below 2-degree C for safety, yet the current trajectory may well reach a devastating 4-degrees C or higher”
So now the Vatican is into the “tipping point” business but at least were smart enough not to put a specific time frame on it.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences has as councilors, atheists and non-believers. They are advisers, complete with their biases and politics.
True believers have never been misled by “observational data”. Actually, that’s not fully true; the Church no longer maintains that the world is flat (Prof. Lewandowsky should comment on it with his usual clarity), but it takes time to admit that a change is needed. Is there anything like an IQ for an organization?
Sachs’ greatest contribution to humankind was to turn the former USSR over to predatory oligarchs who bled the country dry, until Putin booty his boney derriere out of Russia.
Sadly, this pope is a sucker for socialist causes. He ought to stick to morals and religion.
“Koch Brothers!,” the cry of desperation.
Why should anyone be ashamed of accepting grant money from a Koch charitable foundation?
The Charles Koch Foundation provides research and education grants to nearly 250 U.S. colleges and universities.
The David H. Koch Charitable Foundation has pledged or contributed over $1.2 billion to cancer research, medical centers, educational institutions, arts and cultural institutions, public policy organizations, and Richard Muller. (BTW, David Koch is a chemical engineer with a masters degree from MIT.)
Koch Industries employs close to 60,000 Americans in well-paying jobs producing household products, construction materials, pollution control equipment, fertilizer, refined petroleum products, and much more.
Meanwhile, Tom Steyer, billionaire big spender promoting climate legislation, is a profiteer who produces nothing of value for anyone but himself and his investors.
Apparently, the Kochs are bad because they promote a smaller, less intrusive federal bureaucracy. Steyer’s good because he promotes a more intrusive, centralized welfare state.
Will the useful idiots who promote more centralized control over their lives ever notice that the more powerful the government, the more profitable its corruption?
nutso fasst,
You are exactly right. The Koch brothers are a self-made American success story. The Left hates that (unless the successfull entrepreneurs are leftists).
Good for the Kochs! Almost anyone would trade places with them. It is only green-eyed, liberal jealousy that triggers the criticism. The rest of us admire their accomplishments.
The family business was started by Fred C. Koch, the father of the Koch brothers. The present day Koch brothers have no accomplishments, only their $$$$. They are certainly not entrepreneurs.
Except that Fred Koch made his initial fortune by selling critical oil extraction technology to Stalin after he failed in business in the United States. Yup, that’s right, your self-made American success story made his wealth from selling valuable made-in-American technology know how to a socialist dictator. If you don’t believe me, you can read about it in The American Conservative – you can’t accuse them of bias: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/koch-brothers-the-real-thing/
Not true, Trafamadore. Read the biography of them published last year, I think by a left-sympathiser. I heard him interviewed at length on NPR. The Koch brothers have turned a small enterprise into a much larger one.
Not true, Trafalmadore. The brothers have vastly increased the fortune they were left. Their biographer was interviewed last year on NPR. It’s in their archives. He isn’t a political sympathizer of the Kochs.
Chris,
We can smell your green-eyed jealousy.
Someone else smarter than you made a pile of money.
Ooh, that stings. And the Kochs are Conservative, to boot!
You’re stupid & poor. Sad. But amusing to the rest of us.☺
dbstealey,
It’s such a pity that you run away from the very points you make when painted into a corner. It’s neither sporting or effective, but I’ve seen you do it so many times here that I am no longer surprised.
And for someone who calls out others for resorting to insults, you then call me stupid and poor. Smart people don’t stoop to personal attacks, they defend their point with facts – so what does that say about you? Wow, my ego has taken a real blow at being criticized by you, being (I’m sure) the enormously successful businessman that you are.
The Koch Brothers’ grandpa, Henry, worked as a printer’s apprentice in the Netherlands before emigrating to the US to work for newspapers in Chicago and Grand Rapids, MI. He saved enough money to buy a small newspaper in Quanah, Texas, which he ran successfully.
Thanks to Henry’s success, son Fred was able to attend Rice Institute and earn a degree in chemical engineering from MIT. He later became chief engineer with the Medway Oil & Storage Company before joining an MIT classmate, P.C. Keith, at Keith-Winkler Engineering in Wichita, Kansas. When Keith left the company, Koch became a partner and the business was renamed Winkler-Koch.
In 1927, Henry Koch developed a more efficient cracking process for making gasoline, allowing his small company to compete with ‘big oil’. The big oil companies immediately filed 44 lawsuits in an attempt to put Koch out of business. Koch won 43 of those suits. The 44th was overturned when it was revealed that the big oil companies had bribed the judge.
The lawsuits took their toll, however, effectively putting Winkler-Koch out of the US oil business. Koch took his expertise overseas, building cracking installations in Russia, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Having regained his fortune, Koch returned to the US in 1940 and formed the Wood River Oil and Refining Company. Business operations were turned over to Charles Koch in 1966. The company was renamed Koch Industries after Henry’s death in 1967.
What’s your success story, Chris?
I may have found where Chris gets his views of reality:
http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries-how-stalin-funded-the-tea-party-movement/
Note that when Freddie K. was building refineries overseas, readers of the NY Times were being told that Stalin’s Russia was a model for the rest of the world. And while Stalin’s liquidation of the Kulaks and collectivization of their farms caused an estimated 7 million deaths, Freddie was bringing $500K of Soviet cash into the U.S. And Freddie’s efficient refineries may have made it possible for Stalin’s army to whup Hitler. Bad Freddie, bad!
There may be some truth to both sides of the Koch story. The question is whether accepting Koch donations to fund research taints the research any more than accepting funds from other organizations or a government with an overriding agenda. Using Muller as example, the answer is clearly NO. The only “outside” funding Muller took that had conditions attached was $100K from the Energy Foundation after that organization had received $500K from Tom Steyer.
Whether the $188,587 taxpayer funding Muller took from the U.S. Energy Department had any conditions, stated or implied, is open to question.
@ dbstealy,
You might want to cut back on those 4:00am comments, leave that saying crazy/stupid stuff to me, I’ll do it in prime time.
Just looking at some of the foreign news reports on this event the fact that the Vatican was challenged has made major headlines… It explains the onslaught of damage control propaganda..
Just maybe some of the faithful across the pond will wake up to the bowl of cr@p they have been fed by the UN.
Publication of Record
Yes, Anthony, I think you have earned the appelation “Publication of Record”.
higher standards of journalism than most print media
editorial independence
attention to accuracy
renowned internationally
My standard is groklaw.net. In some respects, I think Wattsupwiththat exceeds the standard set by Groklaw.
It is not a problem that Wattsupwiththat cleaves to the skeptical viewpoint. Many/most “newspapers of record” reflect a certain political viewpoint. Absolute neutrality isn’t even possible. What is necessary is integrity and honesty. I don’t think you could sustain a case that Anthony lacks either.
Congratulations, Anthony, for a job very well done.
Thank you. Many others agree with you.
Excellent, excellent.
But I do dislike the reference to “exaggerated costs” centuries from now. The alarmists are not “exaggerating,” they are 180 degrees wrong. As to warming and “the pause” of 18 years, it is hard to see a signal if you realize that the planet entered the 20th century still warming up from the “Little Ice Age.”
More importantly, as a biologist, I am concerned at the attack on beneficial things. We need to use the term “climate optimum” a lot more often here, and accuse our opponents of trying to harm everything alive–because THAT is the crux of the issue.
—
I hope Pewsitter has the integrity to publish your reply, but that has not been our general experience. We have long noticed that it is not about tho science, but politics. Why are alarmists willing to do so much biological damage for political power.
The best I can tell is PewSitter is some kind of news aggregator: it doesn’t publish anything. The closest I can find is this–05/04/2015 Notorious UN advisor Jeffrey Sachs defends Pope Francis’ ‘momoral case’ from self-interested Conservatives!–which redirects to the same commentary Anthony links to: http://www.pewsitter.com/view_news2_id_202942.php
Note to self: Close Italics. From the name of the link “Notorious UN advisor Jeffery Sachs” it doesn’t seem that they are promoting it.
Because they seek a tyrannical form of government to rule the masses and reduce their numbers, especially the poorest who cannot fight back.
Joe Bast and Anthony,
You guys are heros of truth and I am so happy you made the effort and sent a delegation.
There are many Catholics who are deeply offended that the church has been seduced by fake science, to lend moral credibility to this latest push to tax carbon etc. I know many who are quite besides themselves.
What you did is important. You made a presence and that made the difference. Had you not been there, then there would have not been any skeptics there and the proceedings would seem to have the unanimous imprimatur of the entire scientific community of the WORLD.
Now there is a visible stain on the shining armor of the AGW juggernaut.
There are many theologians and bishops who see the green movement for what it is, heresy and the undoing of mankind, and the making of the UN as a God-like organism.
These people within the Church can point this this small contingent and say that there is no unanimous voice and that the subject demands review and caution. Without you, they have only their philosophical objections.
The church does not object to science. In fact, it is a champion of the discipline of scientific inquiry. It is suffering the sheer weight of politics and those politics are shrouded in the cloak of deception of social good.
I believe this one act of defiance from these good men and woman, is the alarm bell that the orthodox theologians can rally around.
Only you could have done it.
Now Jeffery Sachs, by mentioning your presence, has breathed life into our protest. That is the deeper magic.
For me, I thank you so much.
BRAVO!
Some Catholics are complaining also: An Unholy Alliance
H/T to Free Republic.
many many catholics are seriously disturbed by attending to the green god.
Sachs is just a pretentious profit of cliamte doom dressed up as an academic.
It is honorable to reply to his low class smears even if it might be waste of time in the short run.
Jeffrey Sachs is a failure. His only redeeming qualities are a pretense to free(ish) markets and the fact that he’s willing to take on Krugtron the
invincibleincompetent.That title, “pewsitter”, is quite funny but funnier would be “Godbotherer”
[Sachs] seems blind to the possibilities that the science is not “well-established” or that his fellow socialists and “progressives” have themselves fallen prey to this malady.
————
Fallen prey? They are perps, not victims.
Wow! Pure projection Mr guest blogger. You described AGW skeptics perfectly.
I’m too nice a guy to be thrown into the “eternal damnation” bin.
Try me.
I guess it does show that Catholicism is compatible with other Religions.
It isn’t compatible with Pantheism which is what children are being taught in many schools around the world, including (maybe even especially) Catholic ones. Mikhail Gorbachev, Maurice Strong and Stephen Rockefeller proudly take responsibility for the Earth Charter, written in hopes that it will replace the Ten Commandments and lead to global governance where everyone can practice their own religion as long as it is by the16 principles of the Charter. It doesn’t mention God.
except islam
Seems like this Sachs old boy is a latter-day Soviet without a Soviet. Thus, he goes to the Vatican, attempts to remake a very conservative ideological union (they call themselves a “Church”) and is met with little change, perhaps chump change, i.e. lip service. Kissy kissy
But you *have* taken money from Heartland, haven’t you Anthony? You can’t even be honest about that…
Doesn’t seem to be honest about anything.
It’s amazing much made up garbage gets published here.
Did you just question Anthony’s honesty ??
You mean you don’t?!?
I thought I made my meaning clear, what part of it didn’t you understand ?
SH, what is your point? Do you think that taxpayer-funded alarmist scientists are tarred by the brush of the taxes paid by illegal drug dealers?? What about the slimy characters who give money to Greenpeace, WWF etc. Surely you think the scientists who are funded by them cannot be trusted either? If you don’t, then you are a hypocrite to ask Anthony about getting funds from a legal institution, whatever its political persuasion.
It seems that Mr Watts get’s funding from the heritage foundation, according to SH. The rest of your comment is nonsense.
Siberian Husky, Lee grable and u.k.(us),
When you state your true names, your financing and your affiliations then – and only then – you will obtain a moral right to question the honesty and integrity of our host.
For now, your unsubstantiated smears in response to the above article are merely the noise of you and your ilk being flushed away to the sewerage treatment works.
Richard
I’ve read this blog for some time Richard. So far, it’s blatant propaganda, and inane garbage. My so called smears are clearly substantiated by the body of posts and comments right here on this blog. If you, and the rest of the ghosts here can’t see that, then that’s on you.
Do you ever wonder why this blog is ignored outside the septic echo chamber?
Lee grable
You add to your unsubstantiated smears. But that pleases me because your noises are the gurgles as you are flushed through the U-bend.
And the only thing I “wonder” about falsehoods is why the likes of you make them.
Richard
Richard, Mr Watts spent the last of his integrity when he reneged on his promise to honor Muellers findings.
So, why is this blog ignored outside the septic echo chamber?
Lee grable
You write
That is yet another unsubstantiated smear!
“Reneged”? “promise”? “Muellers findings”?
And it is ‘goal post moving’. I wrote
Troll, put up or shut up.
Richard
@ Lee garble” It seems that Mr Watts get’s funding from the heritage foundation, according to SH. The rest of your comment is nonsense.”
So is that all you can say? “according to SH”? Are you and him the same guy? If not, your statement is nothing but conjecture.
Lee grable
I answered your red herring which you now repeat asking
This blog is NOT “ignored outside the septic echo chamber”: as I said, that is a falsehood. Indeed, this thread is because the Heartland Institute asked this blog to publish a statement.
Your posts demonstrate you know your assertion is a falsehood because you say you have taken sufficient interest in this blog to read it “for some time” and you are posting to it. Why do that if you and/or your employers think “this blog ignored outside the septic echo chamber”?
Furthermore, your posts are direct evidence that this blog is NOT an “echo chamber”.
If you are employed to do your trolling then your employers are entitled to their money back.
Richard
So I guess the idea that these Warmists really are a bunch of religious fanatics is correct.
how special/convenient? Pope Francis’s well-premature Holy Year/Jubilee/Year of Mercy will begin in December. perhaps he will announce it at the UN Climate Convention in Paris?
7 May: WaPo: Michael E. Miller: Pope Francis will send ‘missionaries of mercy’ to absolve women of abortion ‘sin’
On Tuesday, Archbishop Fisichella was back in the news, but this time firmly in line with his boss. During a news conference at the Vatican, Fisichella announced that Pope Francis would be empowering his priests to pardon women for having abortions. Moreover, the Vatican would be sending these “missionaries of mercy” all across the world as part of the Pope’s Jubilee, or ***Holy Year, of Mercy, which begins in December.
Francis has spoken sharply about abortion, calling it “a sin against God.” But his year of mercy is aimed at bringing back estranged Catholics by emphasizing outreach, even for those who have committed grave sins in the eyes of the church…
The announcement is in line with a number of controversial moves from the Argentine pope. Since his election in 2013, Francis has pushed the church to become more tolerant. He reportedly met with a transgender man at the Vatican, seemed to endorse family planning by saying Catholics don’t need to breed “like rabbits,” indicated that divorced individuals could take communion, and has met with victims of clergy sex abuse.
Most shocking of all, he expressed an openness towards embracing gays and lesbians…
The pope’s sometimes seemingly off-the-cuff statements have made him the most popular pontiff in a generation…
***Normally, Holy Years occur once every quarter century. The last one was in 2000 under Pope John Paul II. In March, however, Pope Francis announced plans to hold a special jubilee ten years early. It is only the third special jubilee in church history…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/07/pope-francis-will-send-missionaries-of-mercy-to-absolve-women-of-abortion-sin/
MSM reported in January that Pope Francis was ‘truly sorry’ for offending large Catholic families by saying that there was no need to breed ‘like rabbits’, but it would seem he is getting closer to the CAGW depopulation advocates by the day.
6 May: Vice: Writers, Scientists, and Climate Experts Discuss How to Save the World from Climate Change
#1: HAVE FEWER KIDS
by Alan Weisman, writer
…Overpopulation isn’t just another environmental problem: It’s the one that underlies all others. Without so many humans using so much more stuff with each new generation, expelling waste and CO2 that don’t go away, there wouldn’t even be environmental problems—nor an Anthropocene.
Fortunately, it’s the easiest (and cheapest) problem to solve, both technically and socially—and without resorting to anything so drastic as China’s reviled one-child policy. And doing so will bring unexpected economic dividends, ease injustice, and counter climate change faster than anything else we know…
(Alan Weisman is the author of The World Without Us and Countdown)
#3 MAKE PEOPLE BETTER
Ken Caldeira, climate scientist
#4 FREE THE ENERGY MARKET
Naomi Oreskes, climate historian
Instating a carbon tax, eliminating subsidies, and eliminating environmental exemptions: These measures alone would go a long way toward creating a true free market that would enable renewables to compete on more equal footing…etc
http://www.vice.com/read/sos-0000653-v22n5
Naomi Oreskes is apparently ignorant of how much subsidy “green” energy gets, and is under some delusion that conventional energy gets big subsidies. And a carbon tax is antithetical to equal footing in a free market he gives lip service to.
behind paywall tho some will be able to access it free. by Maurice Newman, chairman of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s business advisory council, to coincide with the visit to Australia by Christiana Figueres. ouch!
The UN is using climate change as a tool not an issue
The Australian – 14 hours ago
The UN is using climate change as a tool not an issue … of cheap energy and is set to overtake China as the world’s leading importer of coal.
the above article as described by the CAGW-infested Fairfax Media:
8 May: Brisbane Times: Lisa Cox: Climate change a UN-led ruse, says Tony Abbott’s business adviser Maurice Newman
Climate change is a hoax led by the United Nations so that it can end democracy and impose authoritarian rule, according to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s chief business adviser.
Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council, has written in The Australian that scientific modelling showing the link between humans and climate change is wrong and the real agenda is a world takeover for the UN.
***The column was written to coincide with an Australian visit by the head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres…
Mr Newman continued that global warming was a “hook” to install a new world order.
“Figueres is on record saying democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, she says, is the best model,” he said.
“This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN.”
He then urges the Abbott government to oppose a regime that was against “capitalism and freedom” by resisting the next global climate treaty in Paris, which countries hope to reach in December.
Mr Newman adds that, like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Abbott should resist the UN’s calls for coal to stay in the ground…
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-change-a-unled-ruse-says-tony-abbotts-business-adviser-maurice-newman-20150508-ggwuzt.touch.html?skin=smart-phone
Only alarmists and advocates of population control are on that panel? Why should the Roman Catholic church be swayed by population control? I thought the Roman Catholic church was against population control. What’s up with this population control stuff?
I believe that Heartland should make similar appearances at future CAGW confabs – for example, at the upcoming climate summit in Paris.
Good idea!
I hadn’t seen the Vatican presentations until a few hours ago. Both the press conference day and the presentation day were really uplifting. Truth is.
Thank you Heartland and Thank you to all the participants.
A good rebuttal
Interesting how the Marxists always hate religion until they happen upon something useful to advance their statist, anti-human agenda. An Alarmist Pope!
Since the matter gets into politics to this point, let’s think about this for a moment:
American? Nope.
Republican? Nope.
Retired? Nope.
Privately funded? Nope.
Academic? Check.
Pro-democracy? Check.
Pro-human rights? Check.
Pro-rule of law? Check.
Pro-intergovernmental collaboration? Check.
Socialist country origin? Check.
Atheist? Check.
Quasi-green? Check.
Quasi-left? Check.
Libertarian? Well now. All right, seems like the better option. Do I need to say more?
What????
Sorry meant to clarify better option ‘for me’.
Lets see if I can put this in terms the pope should understand. The global circulation models projecting doom if CO2 levels keep rising are being worshiped as graven images.
big smile, thanks
probably this is a good place to ask.
I’m not very good at understanding the physics and have a problem understanding why the atmosphere is “thinner” at altitude.
If I waft my hand about I feel it brushing against something which I think is little bits of things that are there, with the reality of space between them. I imagine that there are molecules bouncing about against each other and generally being pulled towards the center of the Earth by gravity until they bump into something that they cannot get past. I do not understand why the molecules are further apart at altitude and not pulled to a constant density by gravity.
Dear Zemlik
measures depth (positive down). This means that if you go a small distance 
down in any fluid the pressure increases by a small amount 
where 
is the fluid density and 
is the gravitational acceleration. This is the differential foundation of both Archimedes’ Principle and Pascal’s Principle, two important laws of fluids near the surface of the Earth.
is a small change in pressure applied to a chunk of the fluid of volume 
. Increasing the pressure decreases the volume by a small amount 
(the minus sign means decreases). The 
is a characteristic (near) constant of the material in question called the “bulk modulus”.
Ultimately you are asking about how and why fluids are compressible, combined with asking about something called Archimedes’ Principle — why and how things float or are supported by a surrounding fluid in a gravitational field. You can read about it in reasonable detail in many physics textbooks. So here are the two things you need to know to understand it:
A) The pressure in a fluid varies with depth like:
where
B) The equation:
describes how the volume of a chunk of the fluid changes when one changes the pressure. In this equation,
If you put these two equations together, then you must conclude that as you descend into any fluid:
a) the pressure increases;
b) the volume occupied by a given amount of the fluid (counted in terms of say a given number of molecules) decreases;
c) which means that the density increases.
You can see some of the algebra involved for air in my online (free) physics textbook here:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Class/intro_physics_1_review.php
(see the chapter on Fluids, near the beginning, although I don’t look directly at density per se).
Note that different fluids have strikingly different compressibilities (as determined by their bulk modulus). Air is quite compressible — you can pump lots and lots of air into a scuba tank, increasing the density of the air in the tank by a factor of around a hundred and making the tank weigh more and more even though it still only contains “air”– scuba divers have to compensate for this with weights or they would start to float (no longer be negative-neutral in buoyancy) as they breathe, consuming the air in their tanks and breathing it out into the water. Water, on the other hand, is highly incompressible, so that water at the bottom of the deep ocean some ten kilometers down where the pressure is order of 1000 atmospheres is only about 5% denser than water at the surface.
Hope this helps. You can think of it this way. Imagine that you have a very long spring that is not tightly coiled in equilibrium that has a certain mass per unit length of the spring wire. If you set it up vertically, it will compress in such a way that at any given height the compression supports the weight of all of the spring above that height. At the top of the spring, it is basically uncompressed. But at the bottom of the spring, the coils are squeezed together enough so that the restoring force supports the weight of all of the spring above that point. The coils there are closer together, so the density (mass per unit length) is greater there than at the top of the uncompressed spring. This is actually a remarkably good analogy for what happens in the atmosphere with a very light but very long and somewhat weak spring, and you can think of the ocean as being a much heavier but much, much stronger spring (one so strong that it doesn’t compress much to support the entire weight to the surface, even though that weight is substantial).
rgb
Oh, and I forgot to post this link:
in the article is what I (and many physics books) call 
. Note that you can convert the equation above to one for the density directly by multiplying and dividing by the mass in volume 
:
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_modulus
as well. The
where there is no minus sign now because decreasing the volume as one increases the pressure increases the density
rgb
thank you for your considered response.
I think what I am struggling with is what happens at the top of the atmosphere.
If I remove everything from a flask and then put in 2 molecules of CO2 I image that the 2 molecules will end up on the bottom of the flask because of gravity ?
In which event at the top of the atmosphere what molecules that are there should be drawn down by gravity to establish a happy density ( like water in a lake ).
zemlik,
Have you ever gone swimming in a pool? If you go deep into the pool you will notice your ears paining a bit. This is due to increased pressure as you go deeper into the pool.
The atmosphere is a fluid like water in the pool. As you go deeper, the pressure increases.
Since the atmosphere is a gas and has weight (still a fluid as well) increased pressure causes the air molecule to gather closer together. Rgbatduke posted some very relevant equations and they are correct, but they use calculus, which may muddle you up.
Thank you Heartland. Your clear annunciation of a scientific counter-point to the UN eco-marxist delusion of the moment may provide the adherents of political correctness with a urgently required enema in reality. Political correctness has spawned a runaway institutional totalitarianism. Catholic alignment is nothing new with such phenomenon.
Your presence was more than a impediment. It was a clarion call and a sign to the wider landscape that rejection of religiously imbued UN eco-marxist precautionism, hell bent on global governance, is in fact as evil and scientifically fraudulent as it sounds.
“climate change is not a crisis.”
If it starts getting colder it will be.
youbetcha!
Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals.
“The Earth Institute has been deeply and centrally involved for more than a decade with the global challenge of man-made climate change, and member institutions of the Earth Institute – including the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, for longer than that.”
Members of the external advisory board include George Soros and Rajendra Pachauri, former IPCC chairman. Soros has funded Sachs via his Open Society Institute. Pachauri is/was also a member of the Earth Institute’s Commission on Education for International Development Professionals and on the board of their International Research Institute for Climate and Society. Pachauri and Sachs are/were also co-chairs of the Indian Commission on Sustainable Development.
In 2009, Sachs addressed the annual conference of the Party of European Socialists:
He described the “profound honour “ of addressing the Party of European Socialists and said they were heirs and leaders of the most successful economic and political system in the world, Social Democracy. Social equity, environmental sustainability and fiscal re-distribution were the successful elements, in marked contrast to the US whose taxes were too low and where the poor were ignored.
He asked for PES leadership “for the sake of the world” on social principles, financial regulation and solidarity with the poor. In advance of Copenhagen, he claimed that millions were suffering because of drought caused by western induced climate change and a carbon levy was needed.
He singled out the US as the biggest emitter of CO2 per capita and said it must spend more to save the planet. He promoted the UN Millennium Development Goals and the global target of 0.7% of GDP to fund development. He wants a carbon tax and a financial transactions tax, a global health fund, a global education fund and a global climate fund.
In fact he wants everything that the UN, the OECD, Socialist International, George Soros, Rajendra Pachauri, Lord Nicholas Stern, Barack Obama, environmental NGO’s, the Democrats and some Republicans want. He asked the PES to make
Members of the external advisory board include George Soros and Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC chairman.
He described the “profound honour “ of addressing the Party of European Socialists and said they were heirs and leaders of the most successful economic and political system in the world, Social Democracy. Social equity, environmental sustainability and fiscal re-distribution were the successful elements, in marked contrast to the US whose taxes were too low.
He wants a carbon tax and a financial transactions tax, a global health fund, a global education fund and a global climate fund.
In fact he wants everything that the UN, the OECD, Socialist International, George Soros, Rajendra Pachauri, Lord Nicholas Stern, Barack Obama, environmental NGO’s, the Democrats and some Republicans want.
He asked the PES to make common cause with Progressives in the US and let them share their wisdom and thanked them for their leadership.
Is there anything Sachs didn’t get wrong? Socialism is responsible for the world’s worst environmental disasters. It has precluded the market forces that might have lifted so many out of crushing poverty. The “social equity” of socialism is always at the lowest common denominator, tearing down those who build up.
I’m confused 🙁
“The Heartland Institute is sending a team of climate scientists to Rome next week to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science…..”
https://www.heartland.org/press-releases/2015/04/24/heartland-institute-heads-rome-advise-pope-francis-climate-policy
The legitimate question asked here in the Village was who these might be. Now we have the answer, but the description of these persons has (of necessity) morphed before our eyes to “real scientists and other Experts”
What part about the team being sent on short notice and without honoraria did you not understand?
I didn’t see questions about short notice nor honoraria in VI’s post, only a question about the scientific credentials of the team as it relates to climate science.
Who exactly are these ‘Climate Scientists’ sent to Rome??
Chris, not only are the “scientific credentials” of the team a red herring on your part, but you “saw” what you wanted to see. Typical troll tactics.
“I’m confused.”
Hey Idiot… you’re confusing us as well, because you actually made a true statement (and we’re wondering- is that really you?)
The Cathedral is fighting back on two fronts now – Climate Change ‘Denial’ and Gamergate. But the Dark Renaissance is gaining momentum.
“>>> Why does Sachs mention “the Koch brothers” unless his intention is to smear an independent organization by falsely implying a much larger or somehow improper level of support from some singularly unpopular billionaires? <<<"
Unpopular billionaires? Koch Bros. are certainly popular with me. In my books the "unpopular billionaires" are Soros, Steyer and anybody else who gives money to Greenpeace.
Yes, money is magic, isn’t it? Think about it.
“Right-wing” money is evil and can influence people who think one way to think another.
“Left-wing” money is pure and only does good.
And “government money” is the absolute purest of the pure, as it, by its very nature, is the people’s money, and the people are never wrong.
Any comments/ideas on the conservative win in England? One would think that they actually may clamp down on the alarmists left in the conservative camp?
No one here or elsewhere (ie skeptics) seems to have have done any effective work to convince the Conservatives in England that AGW is a total scam. D Cameroon seems to be quite an intelligent fellow who could easily be convinced just showing him the satellite/ice data. Obviously no one has showed it to him.
yes, although I’m sure Nigel is convinced AGW is a scam, he didn’t win. 12% of the vote and one voice in Westminster meanwhile the Limpdems are filling the HoL.
Eliza –
Will be interesting to see. Cameron himself is not a conviction politician, he merely uses principles as an advertising ploy for himself. He’s a marketing man after all. That’s his trade. He happens to be conservative but I don’t think he’s what you’d call a conservative in the USA meaning of the word.
He does seem to have back-tracked a bit on his 2010 promise to make his administration the greenest ever – “vote blue, go green” he’d say – but his government has relied for 5 years upon a coalition with the LIbDems, for whom renewable energy and carbon taxes are an article of faith, and any suggestion that the CAGW thing might be wrong wouldn’t have gone down very well. And he did quite rapidly rid himself of an excellent and practical Minister for Environment – Owen Paterson – who began to depart from the script. But this election means that he can rule without the LibDems who were slaughtered at the polls yesterday, most of their leaders being defeated, including the miserable Energy Secretary, ‘Windmill Ed’ Davey.
I think it’s possible Cameron will come out in opposition to CAGW, but only when he’s reasonably sure that’s going to be the winning side, and then he’d be happy to wear his Damascene conversion as a badge of honour. He won’t be leading us over the top of the trenches anytime soon, that’s for sure. Anyway, he’ll be preoccupied for the next year or so with fiddling the EU referendum so that we stay in (whilst all the time presenting himself as standing up for the UK in the debate) – and openly expressing doubts about the CAGW ‘consensus’ won’t suit his purpose.
There’s a new thread devoted to the UK election. Maybe we should go there..
I was initially concerned with including E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D. of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation which while their suspension of science is limited to creationism, any suspension of science due to personal faith based beliefs is not a good rebuttal to AGW and it’s attendant prophesy of Doom.
Then I realized the whole idea of the opinion of Pope Francis being any way relevant to global warming issues completely exposes that AGW is is not primarily a scientific endeavor. If your science work products needs the Pope to endorse it then your scientific approach is deeply flawed.
I recently watched a debate between Craig a creationist and Krauss a physicist. The moderator who was clueless as to what moderating a debate means interjected the idea that religion and science could work more closely together and there is no need for a hard line of separation. Krauss almost had a conniption fit at the thought. I was expecting the moderator to next propose the coming together of religion and government. A complete idiot.
Like the idiocy of a society that needs a Pope weighing in to validate scientific findings.
Yeah, as a physicist I have conniption fits too. But really, there is no need for a hard line of separation. All that the world needs is to stop engaging in wishful thinking, stop believing in magic, and start applying the same, logical, defensible standard of plausible truth — to believe the most what they can doubt the least, given the entire consistent network of evidence supported beliefs that have survived the doubt test — to all propositions.
That’s why Craig is wrong. It isn’t that he “couldn’t” be right. Hell, I “could” be a power unit in The Matrix. The visible Universe “could” be a giant simulation in a massive multiplayer online role playing game (and students at MIT, ever resourceful, have tried to think up ways to test whether or not this is true). That’s pretty much what people of any religion believe — that this isn’t the “real” world, this is a transient material plane that is either open illusion (e.g. Hindu) or else a bounded creation (Abrahamic) that we pass through en route to a permanent reality “elsewhere”, with our promotion contingent on “winning” the game in the meantime by doing useful things like believing the right things!
But religious people never quite understand that they are perfect rational and skeptical of every world religion past present or future but one — their own. To paraphrase scripture, they need to work on the splinter in their own eye before they can see that in their brother’s.
A lot of stuff presented on this blog is just as religious. Some “deniers” really are deniers — they don’t understand the facts or the physics or the evidence and — most importantly — they aren’t willing to entertain the possibility that they could be wrong. It is that humility that truly differentiates a scientist from a believer. To physicists it comes pretty naturally, because the story of physics is the story of enormous, paradigm-shifting empirically supported revolutions where entire functional systems are uprooted and replaced just because they aren’t quite consistent with some observations even though they work really well with a whole world of other observations. In all of the hard sciences this is true to at least some extent. It should be true in all academic disciplines including the non-sciences; even the arts are subject to the need for some sort of “validation” to separate the mud-marks made by my dog on my back door window as she taps to be let back in from my grandson’s very similar finger painting from the work of an abstract impressionist that at first glance shares a number of features with the two.
rgb
“But religious people never quite understand that they are perfect rational and skeptical of every world religion past present or future but one — their own. To paraphrase scripture, they need to work on the splinter in their own eye before they can see that in their brother’s.”
I do wonder when you’ll begin to take your own advice.
Faith and reason are perfectly compatible. The notion that scientists can’t be religious and vise versa is absurd and defies 1000’s of examples otherwise. Just let it go.
Proof that CO2 has no significant effect on climate and identification of the two factors that do (95% correlation since before 1900) are disclosed at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
Is Pope Francis astute enough to recognize that Climatism has become the leading sect of Environmentalism and a de facto religious movement? In which case, could he be attempting to head off the Enviros at the pass and bring them into the fold as Catholics? The Enviros would certainly feel at home with the persecutors of Copernicus, Galileo, and Bruno.
Or is Pope Francis just being played for a sucker by the Enviros, who see him as nothing but a pathetic relic?
/Mr Lynn
LE Joiner.
The Church did not persecute Copernicus, who was a cleric of the catholic Church. They endorsed Copernican heliocentricity published in 1585 with Pope Paul III’s blessing. They did so up until 1633 when Galileo, morphed into a theologian & claimed that the Book of Joshua was wrong (which it isn’t). When asked if he could prove that the sun is fixed and the planets revolved around the fixed sun in circular orbits, Galileo admitted he could not prove it….because he 1) was wrong, and 2) did not have the technology. The sun is not fixed, and the orbits are elliptical. Despite Galileo’s incompetence at proving Copernican heliocentricity, the Church never condemned it. As for Bruni, secular authorities burned him, and had he was a larger than life bullsh1tting fabricating liar of epic proportions, a hero to morons.
You don’t know a shred of history. Then you make wise cracks using your ignorance as a shield. Some shield! Time to open a book.
Paul Westhaver: You are right; my knowledge of history is in need of improvement. But the Church has had the reputation for centuries of resistance to, and persecution of, science. Instead of answering my questions, you deflected them.
Oh, and if Joshua was right, the Earth stopped turning and the Sun stood still for a day. True?
/Mr Lynn
Ignoramuses and antagonists of the church has advanced that the church “had the reputation for centuries of resistance to, and persecution of, science.” Just like you are repeating now, utterly ignorant of science, the history of science and the church, and the history of the church. Rarely have I encountered someone so willing to be publicly ignorant of a subject and intractable obstinate about proving his hostile ignorance.
Gregor Mendel, a Catholic Monk invented the field of genetics.
Fr Georges Henri Lemaitre PhD, a priest, invented the Big Bang.
Roger Bacon, a Catholic monk is attributed with inventing the modern scientific method in his Opus Majus.
etc etc… the list is long…and you should know that.
You are a bore.
My goodness! I guess my innocent (if mischievous) questions struck a nerve! Do you think the current Pope has any clue about climatology? Did he receive the embassy from the Heritage Foundation with open arms, and cancel his plan to jump on the UN “climate change” train?
I’ll let others decide which one of us is the bore.
/Mr Lynn
P. Westhaver: “[The Church] endorsed Copernican heliocentricity published in 1585 with Pope Paul III’s blessing.”
Copernicus died in 1543. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was published shortly before his death.
A second edition was published in 1566, but I find no reference to an endorsement or blessing by Pope Paul III.
From Glasgow University discussion of De Revolutionibus first edition:
“Interestingly, although apparently contradicting the Bible, De Revolutionibus avoided serious censorship until 1616, seventy three years after first publication, when it was placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books.”
re the banning of the book by Copernicus, I believe, but have to check, that it was banned from 1616 until 1622…Somebody revised 9 sentences an then it was no longer banned around 1622 ish.
Nutso fast,
You are corerct about the date. I mistyped it. Thanks. (key point was that it was prior to Galileo’s publication in 1632)
Copernicus initially wrote Pope Paul III explaining why his was hesitating in publishing the Book which was published only in part. His reasoning for contacting the Pope was based on concern that he would be mis understood and he was reassuring the Pope that his theory was not meant to contradict doctrine This was during tumultuous times when protestant puritans were discarding everything (including science) that did not come from scripture.
http://www.historyguide.org/earlymod/dedication.html
This is a link to the translation of the letter from Copernicus to Pope Paul III I believe a copy of the letter and a book is held by a family in Europe.. I forget where off hand.
The Pope instructed Bishop Giese of Culm to collect the documents for publication and Rheitcus did so for Copernicus and eventually published them to Pope Paul III in 1542 in part.
The Book by Copernicus was not originally banned from publication. It was only after Galileo published his work, pointing to Copernicus and using both works to show an error in Joshua. The exact part of Joshua says [that the sun passes in its path across the sky] while Galileo said that the sun was fixed. Since Galileo was unable to prove his theory, yet many of the ecclesiastical scholars accepted heliocentrism, they refused to condemn it. Rather they simply “shelved it”. Publishing in the vernacular Galileo said that scripture may be wrong and the public were scandalized. Galileo had at that point violated his contract and also failed to prove his work, while assuming theological teaching authority.
The Church has, does, and will in the future, ban books. Some are just plain wrong. Google does it, Facebook does it….. every entity practices censorship. No surprise there.
Aware of the science and scripture Cardinal Bellermine wrote to Foscarini: during the second trial…
“I say that if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not revolve round the earth, but the earth round the sun, then it will be necessary, very carefully, to proceed to the explanation of the passages of Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we should rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce that to be false which is demonstrated.”
Mr. Watts, many thanks for posting this! It is much appreciated.
Regards,
Daniel
Joe, it was a mistake to accuse Sachs of “dishonesty” and “lies”. The factual mistakes could be entirely due to carelessness, and you should charitably assume this.
No. That assumption is proved false by the fact that Sachs worked up a press release, printed a press release and staged a photo-op championing these words, these lies – but refused to even listen to the opposition’s point! – to promote his deliberate CAGW anti-people, pro-wealth, pro-power and money, pro-global government agenda propaganda. Whose deliberate goal is to kill people and make worse their lives.
the science is not “well-established”
This link has some local addressing in it.
“… fulfill our moral responsibilities to humanity and to the future of Earth.” A totally empty phrase that could have been used by Hitler or Lenin. On the other side I feel that I am fulfilling my “moral responsibilities to humanity and to the future of the earth” by opposing the unsubstantiated claims contained in AGW. On the third side it is similar to the Baltimore mob’s cry for justice when they wouldn’t recognize justice if they tripped over it in the street.
UNEP, Dec.2, 2014, Waterloo, ON
“CIGI and UNEP To Explore Ways To Support a Sustainable, Green Economy”
Check out where the action is taking place to support the “green” global economy. It isn’t as far away as one would think that this is taking place.
http://www.unep.org/inquiry/News/BlogsArticles/CIGIandUNEPtoexplorewaystosupportasustain/tabid/794627/Default.aspx
mod: OK with me. Regards – Hans
The rolling stones, adressing the pope:
I want you back again
I want your love again
I know you find it hard to reason with me
But this time it’s different, darling you’ll see
You gotta tell me you’re coming back to me
You gotta tell me you’re coming back to me
You gotta tell me you’re coming back to me
You gotta tell me you’re coming back to me
____
Tell me. About religion. Hans