Josh writes: Papal thoughts on the environment have been posted all over the place – here at WUWT, over on Dot Earth, and an excellent Twitter dissection here by JunkScience’s Steve Milloy. You can also read the whole thing in Italian here.
Cartoons by Josh
Francis obviously got Josh’s previous memo.
Energy poverty is anreal problem. For a quick 2 min video on this from the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, see http://eelegal.org/?p=3936. One would hope the Pope would care deeply about [these poor] too.
A real problem. Care about these poor too. (I hate auto correct.)
Probably hit the n key going for the space bar.
OK. I am good with this cartoon. The fact is, I do believe that Francis does care about the poor albeit misguidedly re: the use of oil. Contrast that with the UN’s ultimate plan to exterminate the poor brown people from the face of the earth by mass sterilization, making food more expensive, making poor nations cut food supply deals tied to massive birth control regulations, etc….The UN is ghastly and this Pope is witless on anthropogenic global warming.
Wait for it….wait for it. I’m praying for the Al Gore effect to follow the Pope wherever he goes, since he has signed on to that agenda. May he never know a warm day until he repents. May it always rain on his parade. Etc.
Ernest Bush
Well, prayed for — but most likely “the Pope Francis effect” will be to create increasing numbers of poor wherever he travels. He will sweep in and instantly counties will begin to starve.
Eugene WR Gallun
According to the Daily Mail, the encyclical is not as anodyne a document as the previous article here would have us believe.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3125613/Pope-Francis-encyclical-climate-change-LEAKED-four-days-early-Italian-magazine-leading-Vatican-say-draft-version-condemn-heinous-act.html
Pointman
Many of the comments are hilarious.
As the 18 years of pause tells us – mother nature is a sceptic.
In the old parlance of the church “God is a sceptic”, and the pope is asserting that humans are omnipotent and god does not control the climate.
Fortunately, I’m not religious, because if I were, I’d be expecting god to show just how much (s)he controls the climate not the pope.
Scottish Sceptic,
I believe He is, though He’s being gentle about it.
Personally, I think we are all going to get reminded with the diminished output of the sun, the collapsing magnetic fields of the sun and the earth, the magnetic poles departing their premises headed for a meeting near the equator, etc. The effects of all that are not going to be mild no matter what our fabulous government tells us.
Ernest,
I should have said, “so far.”
I believe it is impossible to determine by inspection whether the climate or anything else was decreed by God to happen that way, or merely observed to happen that way and pronounced “good” as seems to be my reading of Genesis.
After all, I can say at dawn, “Let the sun appear!” and when it appears I can proclaim “and I saw that it was good.”
Nothing of that implies I caused the sun to appear or that it would have failed without my pronouncement.
On a more philosophical note, I suspect that the creation, if “perfect”, does not need to be touched EVER once set in motion. If it becomes necessary to touch it and bend it, then it wasn’t set in motion correctly. My somewhat unorthodox interpretation is that “Let there be light” was pretty much the extent of actual “creation” and everything after that is “happening” and God watches it, pronouncing some of it good and some of it not so good. A side effect of that belief is responsibility, I can, and must, shape my future because it has not been determined.
I would have thought that G/god would by definition be “it” as a sex is meaningless to a single entity. Perhaps using “s/h/it” would better represent the one and universal creators/controllers/myths.
Richard of NZ says “I would have thought that…”
You would have thought but alas, you didn’t.
“G/god would by definition be it as a sex is meaningless to a single entity.”
Many definitions exist. Thank you for adding to the clutter.
How do we best help the poor? By affordable energy. Affordable energy comes from coal and hydro power.
Burning coal makes CO2 which is the main source for plant food, not “Carbon pollution”.
What then is this “Carbon Pollution”?
A sinister, evil collusion?
CO2, it is clean,
Makes for growth, makes it green,
A transfer of wealth, a solution.
http://lenbilen.com/2014/02/22/co2-the-life-giving-gas-not-carbon-pollution-a-limerick-and-explanation/
When we order perishable produce over the internet or phone, it arrives packed in ‘dry ice’, aka carbon dioxide. So if carbon dioxide is a poison, how come it is shipped in the same container as food?
Yeah, I was at a science-themed baby shower where the hostess put dry ice directly into the punch bowl for a nifty steam effect…guests drank it all evening and were fine…we thought it amusing that in addition to celebrating another mouth to feed on the planet, we were finding creative ways to use party decorations to enlarge our carbon foot print.
lenbilen — Have always liked that little poem — Eugene WR Gallun
If God were like Elvis Presley, then all religious leaders are like Elvis impersonators.
They look and act like the real Elvis in public. In private, who knows.
They have never met the real Elvis.
The real Elvis does not know them nor does he care to.
Religion is a construct of Man.
God is what he is. God is not religious.
I like that.
Something else I heard once along the same lines,”God never made a denomination. He made a family.”
(MODS! Feel free to trim this next part if you think it will only “stir the pot” or derail the thread. I won’t object.)
Something else I heard along those lines, “‘Religion’ is man-made forms of worship. There is a lot of ‘religion’ in Christianity but true Christianity is not a religion. It is what God did for Man in Christ.”
“Religion is a construct of Man.” who in turn is a construct of God, or at least observed by God to be “good” (sometimes, or some people). Big deal. You are stating the obvious.
Now suppose I meet God, and choose to describe that event. It will likely happen that some people believe me. Have I just instantiated a religion? Probably. So what?
In the excitement over the Pope’s encyclical and upcoming Paris, people are not talking about how CO2 mitigation efforts, if successful, would put civilization onto an unsustainable path.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/mitigation-is-bad-for-us-and-the-planet/
realizing this is primarily about climate I share my observations. some theoretical guy told me he thought everything was to do with shape and I kind of agreed afterall why do all the best people become artists ?
But then I have been thinking that it all might be about music.
Zemlik,
I’d go with music, but only mostly that before about 1980.
I would tend to agree, after beafheart/warhole/velvet where do you go ?
I suppose rap was an invention but I knew mcclaren so I know punk was a con
zemlik
As a poet, if I disregard reality, I would say it is all about words.
Protagoras said, “Man is the measure of all things” — certainly words that, if you are in any of the arts, you live by.
Unfortunately there is an even older axiom most recently re-expressed as — “Reality bites”. Our cave dweller ancestors, living at a time when they were not yet at the top of the food chain were, undoubtedly, very familiar with it in practice.
Civilization allows us the ability to live our lives in fantasy — or believe craziness if you prefer. It cushions us against reality. Eventually civilization is overwhelmed by its parasitic “artists” and reality takes a big bite out of civilization.
I am starting to think you should not be allowed to vote unless you have a degree in some form of hard science.
Eugene WR Gallun
my most favoured possession is a bit of flint but I think some guy fashioned it all of those years ago.
Thank you.
I have wondered about a pithy response to the idiotic sophmoric slogan I used to see: “Question Reality!”
“Reality bites,” fills the bill.
I find the translation of the leaked document to be extremely disturbing. The Catholic Church has a long history of misguided policies that have brought great harm by confusing belief with fact. The document ignores that industrialization has brought billions of people out of poverty, while the policies of the Catholic Church have cast billions of people into poverty. Barefoot and pregnant is the end result of the Church’s teachings, while the Vatican drips with gold.
Someone needs to tell His Popeyness that the most cost-effective means of reducing poverty is Family Planning.
That’s a claim oft repeated, but never proven.
Allowing family planning does not reduce poverty. When women create for themselves a quality education, take individual power over their own lives, and bust through the door to any and all jobs is its own family planning. No permission from popes need be proposed. If women want to end their own poverty, revolution is required, and is often painful, if not bloody at the start of it. But it CAN NOT be just handed to them on a silver platter from men in power. It takes ones own bootstraps and willingness to suffer for a greater cause.
It’s the other way around. Affluence and education result in fewer children and later child-bearing.
capitalism- otherwise known as the free market as opposed to the government controlled manipulated – tends to result in population reduction as the new car or home stereo tends to supersede reproduction interests and larger families. People are capable of their own family planning and don’t need eugenicists bent on extermination to pretend to be helping them.
In heavily agrarian economies, large families are not a burden. Many hands make light work in the fields. It is in urban environments where you have to buy your food rather than grow it that more mouths mean a lower standard of living.
Even historically “overpopulating” and ideologically fecund societies are experiencing birthrate crashes. The only UN Pop. Survey sheet ever close to accurate, the Low Fertility Band, now projects peak population in the ’40s and decline thereafter. Contemplate the consequences of underpopulation, and global aging. We’d better stock up on androids.
Amen. Maybe they’re hankering after a bit of climate-related witch burning again?
Seriously?? That’s the papal crest??? OMG that is funny!! Someone so needs to turn that crest into an animated figure and have it run around all excited about the sky falling down.
that is my area of expertise as it happens but I require payment these days.
Payment? Boy did you end up on the wrong side in this little tussle …
Pointman
I’m not sure what the intention of your remark is, I’ve got enough stuff to do for myself.
I take the Pope and his views exactly as seriously as anyone else who claims to be a representative of God on earth.
The poor he apparently supports, do not care what this person says. They are more interested in finding food for the day.
As Archie Bunker said, “Who the hell cares what he rides around on”.
Stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands, that humans pollute the water, soil, air; all these are sins. Because a crime against nature is a crime against ourselves and a sin against God.
==============================
So, here we have it. Draining a swamp or logging a forest becomes a crime against nature, a crime against humanity, a sin against God. This is the worst kind of absolutism applied to environmentalism. Any change to the natural environment becomes a sin against God, leaving no place for humanity.
So let’s hear this environmentalist Pope refer to Mankind as a cancer upon the Earth.
That would logically follow this papal missive.
pollute the water, soil, air; all these are sins.
==================
There is not an organism on earth that doesn’t pollute its environment to some degree. many do it on purpose, for example, to eliminate competition from other species. Penicillin and many other antibiotics for example, are the result of Nature’s use of chemical weapons between species. What humans have outlawed as inhumane, God’s own creation routinely practices on a global scale.
And how about pain and suffering? What sort of a God would have people die through months of agony with incurable cancer, with the Catholic Church teaching that it is a sin to end this suffering prematurely?
What sort of an institution would cover up the many many cases of rape and buggery of young boys by priests, while at the same time denying priests the right to marriage? The Church creates the problem, then preaches against the sin it helps foster.
The same Church that denies women the same rights as men. Pope Francis has stated:”with regards to the ordination of women, the church has spoken and says no…That door is closed.”
“Pope Francis and women’s ordination”, http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/pope-francis-and-womens-ordination
curious how the view is actually condemned in the new testament – parable of the coins?
then again preservationists who call themselves environmentalists are already confused about most everything.
They are all popes. They all pose as channels to divine truth. Idolize me and your crops will grow. We don’t need no steeenkin’ data. We are the truth.
I wonder if they’ve translated it into Hindi or Mandarin yet? Not that it will make a difference.
My guess is that many believers including H Clinton, Many democrats, nearly all the GOP candidates even those who believed, are now skeptical and of course are not able to say it, but one gets the feeling from their LACK of statements on the issue ect is a giveaway. Its apparent even on the BBC, Pope’s news seems to be very low key/little interest. Basically mainstream is beginning to get it.
Media has found a bigger problem than the end of the Earth in 100 years; and that is the fight for homosexual marriage.
THey were not happy making assclowns out of themselves with Global Warming; they always had the nagging feeling they could up the ante some more.
That gives me an idea. Demand all wind turbine blades to be painted in rainbow.
Every time I hear a group or individual talk about overpopulation being a problem in one breath, it seems in the next breath they are saying they are trying to save millions of lives. These concepts are incompatible.
Who is advising the Pope? He is not a scientist – nor a meteorologist. Has he taken the time to look at both sides of the issue – or is he even aware that there is another side to this issue? Is he just taking the word of others – who are just following consensus science – or is he involved in trying to reshape the world into the socialists’ image?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Andr%C3%A9s_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Maradiaga
“In a May 2002 interview with the Italian-Catholic publication 30 Giorni, claimed that in order to divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, Jews influenced the media to exploit the current controversy regarding sexual abuse by Catholic priests.”
Now there’s a good Catholic for you.
2.0 Contemporary history of child sex abuse
2.1 Roman Catholic cases
2.2 Public and political issues
2.3 Lawsuits
3.0 Prevalence
3.1 Australia
3.2 Austria
3.3 Belgium
3.4 Canada
3.5 Ireland
3.6 Norway
3.7 Poland
3.8 United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases
He has a hammer–altruism–and he sees nails everywhere, in self-serving economic activities. But they aren’t nails and his pounding on them will make things worse. He may even fracture his wrist.
Posted at Bishop’s:
As someone pointed out above, it will be fascinating to see how alarmists play this:
a) Will the Pope be soundly panned for opining on this because of his lack of chops as a climate scientist and the absence of peer review of his message?
b) Will alarmists eagerly embrace the Papal blessing as one more arrow in the ‘multiple lines of evidence’ quiver?
Here is yet another no-cost statement at the real expense of science and fact checking. There would be no sex crime accountability and management change unless it was forced on them by others and even then it took time and excuse making. No force no change is the way things work.
No, let us not speak of moral turpitude such as priestly pedophilia, but in its stead let us speak of the weather
Always safer to talk about the weather than the real problems of the world, especially the grubby poor.
Couldn’t find the Ivor Novella performance.
Pointman
Worth noting that he dooes know science, that doesn’t mean that he is correct in this case.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/jesuits-science-and-a-pope-with-a-chemistry-degree-a-productive-pairing/
Like every other fascist/communist leader on the planet, his policies are going to split his organization into factions that are pitted against one another. He could singlehandedly be the one who fragments the Catholic Church and his support of the Global Warming agenda might well be the catalyst.
Nice Pope cartoon, Josh. Listen, I have this great idea about a climate cartoon that works on the word profit…
Profits of doom 😉
The most fun I ever had on a PC was playing the game Doom over a phone modem with a friend of mine.
I don’t know how much profit the company made off the game. As with “climate models”, it was a computer generated reality. And, as with “climate models”, no matter how much mayhem was on the screen, nobody really got hurt.
For all of the Catholic bashers, the Catholic Church, for all of its many problems, is still one of the few religions which, at least during my life time, does not and has not preached that it is the only way to God. What many do not understand is that most of its pronouncements and rules are not dogma and have no claim to infallibility and are considered by many in the Church to be just as subject to error as any other human edicts. There are, indeed, very few pronouncements which are dogma of the Church and therefore considered infallible. The clue is when the pope says “We”, that would be him and the Holy Ghost, as in inspired teaching.
Why does God need to talk through the Pope? Surely the God that created the Universe can speak directly to each and every person without the need for some middle-man to interpret the “true” meaning.
Surely He can and probably does if we are listening. You might like the gnostic gospel of Thomas.
Ok, so I need the help of someone who’s catholic and read the pronouncement. The paraphrases that I’ve read seem wildly at odds of what I thought the church stood for. Anti abortion; anti birth control; don’t interfere with God’s work/will….
I know it’s metaphorical but I keep wondering how that conversation between God and the Holy see went:
“Uh Francis, you see, I got off on my headcount …. about 6 billion… can you help me with that?”
Pope Francis has more recently stated that “with regards to the ordination of women, the church has spoken and says no…That door is closed.”[5]
Doesn’t this suggest that the Pope considers the word of the Church to be above the word of God. Otherwise, why pay the slightest attention to what the church has said? Why not simply listen to God on the question of ordination of women?
Why didn’t the Pope simply say “God tells me not to ordain women”? Doesn’t the Catholic Church teach that this is Divine Law, the will of God? That God’s will is that only men may be priests?
A teaching of the Church, not dogma of the Church.
Do nuns kiddie fiddle?
I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest they do.
Do priests kiddie fiddle?
Is the Pope a catholic?
“….has not preached that it is the only way to God.”
So the Roman Catholic church doesn’t subscribe to the first two of the Ten Commandments?
David,
There is a big difference between believing in something and condemning others for not believing or possibly not even knowing about it.
David Chappell says “So the Roman Catholic church doesn’t subscribe to the first two of the Ten Commandments”
Incorrect. It may seem like a nit, but the commandment is to not have any of your gods before God, but you can have as many as you like after God. These lesser godlets, also known as saints, are many. You can do what you like with them so long as you keep in mind who is the Supreme Being and that these others are less supreme.
On an individual basis you might sin by placing one of these godlets above/before God, but there is no harm in saying they exist.
Instructive that, like any political document these days the pope’s encyclical had to be leaked to the breathlessly waiting media. One thing I don’t find anywhere is an estimate of the size of the vatican’s carbon footprint. Before I’ll pay attention to this old parasite on climate I’d like to know that and what he personally plans to do about it.
@JimGI: including pronouncements about women priests, same-sex marriage and birth control?…
You forgot “no meat on Fridays and limbo for unbaptised babies” both of which were pronouncements, but not dogma, of the Church which were later changed. Unfortunately the Church is run by human beings who make mistakes. But as I said, unlike many other religions, they do not condemn people of other, or even no faith.
Jim G1
Your statement: “…unlike many other religions, they do not condemn people of other, or even no faith…” needs qualification – the Catholic church may not be condemning now, but they used to (inquisition).
Unfortunately, the more politically liberal Christians are consumed with guilt and tend towards the “let’s feed them fish” mindset rather than the scriptural “teach them to fish/become fishers of men” teachings. Rather than accepting grace, they try to gain forgiveness by pious actions, and of course that has no bearing on salvation. The world’s religiously and politically powerful have created a perpetual underclass that has no hope, only the hope in mankind thru government handouts and is content to trade sustenance for a vote. This is 180 degrees out from true Christianity.
I don’t believe this pope is misguided, I believe that he’s just dumb. The brilliance of John Paul II was his ability to balance the material needs of Catholics with the spiritual strictures of the faith, and present them as a guide to living. This current guy is just a bunch of progressive dribble wrapped up in robes, and wearing a funny hat.
I know….John Paul IIs brilliance and political savoir faire and media astuteness followed by Benedict XVI’s sheer intellectual depth really doesn’t leave much room for a guy who is either dull or misguided. I have been waiting for him to say something, anything profound, but he just keeps on blabbing the same ole liberation theology rhetoric from days gone by…. face in palms…
Nobody expects the Climate Inquisition!
Oh?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/21/nobody-expects-the-climate-inquisition-2/
At least we have confirmed that CAGW is a religious tenent.
If the Pope’s call for a new global political authority is heeded, it won’t matter what else he said. The poor will be abused along with everyone else. Pope Benedict also called for a global authority — a kind of super-UN — with the power to enforce climate and immigration regulations on all countries. Did they think that idea through? I know these men are highly educated, but to put your trust in a powerful, global, secular entity defies common sense and would likely spell doom for religious freedom.
All practices that pollute our water and air, or allow the topsoil to be stripped away are bad for all of us. Anyone here who would mock those who want to have clean air and water is an idiot of the lowest order. The question is not whether pollution is bad but rather, what constitutes pollution. Cee Oh Two is not pollution…until it lies in the bottom of a caldera and kills all living organisms that breath oxygen. At reasonably high levels it is good for plants and hence good for all things that eat plants or eat plant eaters.
Reasoning challenged folk who think it is their right to light a fireplace in a city of a million and one other fireplaces because no one should be able tell them what to do will be unable to breath the result when the other million fireplaces light up on the same night. Emission controls on cars are a good thing. The air in California is far better than it was 40 or 50 years ago even when we consider that the number of people and cars has more than quadrupled. Real pollution is bad and should be regulated and mitigated, whatever the source.
Some who come here to WUWT seem to have trouble with the concept of conservation of our natural environment and want to use militant libertarianism to foul, not just their own nest, but the neighborhood and the community and the region in which they live. We need to strike some kind of reasonable balance between the efficient and beneficial use of our natural resources and the folks on both extremes who either want to lock up all resources in the name of protecting Gaia and those who want to pillage the land at the cost of clean water, air and the visual blight left behind when no restoration is required of the nature rapists. It is for reasonable folks to establish those boundaries that allow for good usage of both renewable resources like crops, whether trees or corn stalks and non-renewable resources like coal or natural gas.
pbh
Yep, global warming and demon possession are real, and this senile old imbecile can cure both.
Buddha Bowl popcorn ready.
Funny thing. When the Pope visits a “poor” country, or any country for the matter, the “poor” are shoveling out garbage cans filled with cash to the Vatican Bank boys.
Ah. So that is why the Pope “Remembers” the “poor”!
Ha ha
Your white sheet is showing.
Gerry Shuller says “Your white sheet is showing.”
What were you doing in my bedroom???
masInt says “When the Pope visits a poor country, … the poor are shoveling out garbage cans filled with cash to the Vatican Bank boys.”
That seems a bit unlikely. The poor have no cash to shovel. That is why they are called poor.
You could more properly say they are shoveling “mites” as in the widow’s mite.
In the “Pope’s Leaked Encyclical: Pope identifies climate deniers as a problem” frame from Steve malloy at JunkScience…. I love this tidbit… “or blind faith in technical solutions”…… just another case of the pot calling the kettle black, I guess… sort of ironic that the Pope jabs at those with “blind faith in tech solutions” because religion is sort of “blind faith” at its core when the questions get hard.
I keep thinking of the origins of religion tied to the worship and personifcation of the sun and stars then fast forward to today. Absolutely blows my mind.
https://twitter.com/JunkScience/status/610553419930173440
Thanks for the twitter link, that was interesting.
“Brother sun, sister moon…” etc is in homage to St. Francis, patron saint of animals and ecology. This was exactly how St. Francis spoke in his preaching. It has nothing to do with “Gaia”.
The Romans switched their gods of travel, medicine, crops, you-name-it, for saints.
And the process then goes on to include praying to the saints, carrying icons of the saints, and making statues of the saints. It is still Roman polytheism. It is in total opposition to all doctrine in the Old and New Testaments. It breaks the second commandment, and further, John says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
So go fish because I would rather die than be under this Jesuit horse manure.
And this innocent hat tip to Saint Francis of Assissi is not so innocent when it is linked with a regulatory environmental system.
https://twitter.com/JunkScience/status/610546811854569472
If I were Pope, I would downsize the Vatican to three people. There would be the Pope, his cook and his butler.
John
Sorry John, we can’t get rid of the Swiss Guard, they would be very angry, and probably go back to Zurich and put a hold on all the Vatican’s cash accounts.
Your butler leaks, Your Holiness.
[cross posted from another WUWT article on the leaked encyclical]
The Church, whose Pope this is, has faith based dogma as its raison d’être.
The IPCC centric climate change consensus, whose science this Pope cites, is subjectivity created to serve a socio-economic-political ideology.
Both are completely irrelevant to valid fundamental science which is logically applied reasoning confirmed by objectively corroborated observations of reality.
John
I notice the pope says he’s not in favor of carbon credits. Would the vatican have to pay? I wonder what the vatican’s carbon footprint is? This guy’s al gore in a funny looking bonnet!
It would be truly impressive to see one (even a single one) of these pope guys go after church/pries child abuse. Then they might have some credibility.
Chip Javert says “Then they [pope guys] might have some credibility.”
I think you overestimate his desire to have credibility with non-followers and underestimate his credibility with his followers.
The Pope endorsing consensus driven, settled science will have Galileo spinning in his grave
Well, the apparent no-cost enviro move does make a nice diversion from the Irish vote and other disasters for the church. What is the cost of being flat wrong 50 years from now and the ridicule of skeptics?