Maurizio Morabito originally observed that the Pope’s climate encyclical was a “damp squib”.
For the most part it is harmless, but it does confront carbon credits and a “ploy”, albeit Pope Francis believes that some “radical changes” are needed. He is against materialism and consumption- nothing new there. Reading it, one can’t be certain he is advocating for reduced population or reducing CO2 specifically. Hence the “damp squib” label. He is relying on “conventional” UN science, as do most political leaders.
This from section 171 is an interesting quote:
171. The strategy of buying and selling “carbon credits” can lead to a new form of speculation which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.
Ploy, indeed.
h/t to Paul Westhaver
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Recognizes bought absolution.
==========
Goodness me, the Pope advising against a form of indulgences.
The main theme of the encyclical is that people matter as people not commodities.
There is a lot about not deifying the market.
This is just a practical example.
The market is a practical, natural, and moral construct in a world with finitely available and accessible resources. The Pope’s admonishment is of excess that deprives people of basic, not luxury, needs in order to validate their humanity. Any policy that rejects intrinsic value (e.g. pro-choice or selective-child) serves to debase human life… and reveals that their advocates possess ulterior motives.
Capitalism only works if it is conducted under ethical principles. We haven’t seen a lot of that lately. Unfortunately some of the worst abuses of the markets are perpetrated by large corporations. For example, “crony capitalism” and systematic attempts to suppress competition.
When the former Soviet Union broke up, capitalism inherited the Marxist idea that it was inherently corrupt, and it continues under that understanding. For example http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/
Nonsense. If the Pope cared about people he would embrace capitalism. The trajectory of the world economy is of economy of use. Increasing economy of use is highly correlated with wealth as is a cleaner environment, longer lifespan and a whole host of other relevant measures of human well-being. The encyclical as it now stands is in direct contradiction of the way the world works.
This Pope is an old lefty, liberal. What do you expect?
Steven Hales observation is correct:
I fear the Popes’ concerns are those of a political diplomat rather than a pragmatist. His experience, coupled with his background exposure to the invasive concepts of “Liberation Theology”, make him the last person I’d depend on for a realistic understanding of “Climate Change” and Economics!
If one “Sincerely” desires to help the poor, the only way to assure success is a “Free Market”, Capitalistic approach which has been the sole leader, in the rise of the impoverished to mainstream, wherever allowed!
Totally agree the pope should stick to muttering in Latin every sunday.
And the Pope should spend a little more time focused on fixing the perverse pedophile club known as the priesthood, which exploits vulnerable boys and is turning Catholicism into an immense pile of filth.
Let the free market run the economy and let God handle the climate.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
I have been reading the encyclical and trying to get bullets for those of you who will not be reading it.
It is a a confusing mish-mash of left-center economics, 1970s vintage anti-pollution, anti-consumerism, biblical scholarship, and UN-esque faux science, albeit tempered somewhat.
I think the Vatican is undermining the UN by taking a higher moral position wrt to pollution &waste, de-emphasizing the carbon exchange, avoiding the population control trap, all while OPENING THE DOOR TO FURTHER CONVERSATION. With further conversation, we can influence the remedies, as clearly we have done (Thanks Heartland et al), but also create scrutiny of the underlying bad science.
It is a very confusing letter, as is much of what Francis utters.
The take away, on balance, is good for we skeptics of the UN and their agenda.
I will continue to reading the 191 pages for the section relating to the climate discussion.
BBL
Being that confusing (perhaps on purpose), individuals and organizations can view in it whatever they want to see, and will. So it serves no good purpose except to increase the noise.
BFL…So much for “settled science.” There is going to be a lot of noise here on in and it in not under the exclusive control of the UN, in terms of remedies. That is better than yesterday.
You have to pass it to find out what’s in it.
[Rather] like the TPP Trans Pacific Partnership agreement that is reputed to have Global Warming and immigration stuff scattered through it, but you can’t read it until it is done.
The sad part is, the very progressive green movement that has blamed christianity(specially catholicism) in western world for 99% of everything that is “wrong” in the world(including free market), came desperate in force asking for help with the Pope of the Catholic Church for much needed hot air(seems that the Dalai Lama, Hollywood and middle east caliphates weren´t too much help).
And now THEY will cherry pick this document (which is NOT a eco-green-lunacy mantra by all accounts, but I think it is a half hearted piece of climastrology along with good intended humanism with naively added spirituality over left leaning economic criticism) but even in this blog it is not read before being destroyed along with its authors and group origin. It will be miss-cited, like every temperature chart they have manipulated, to create more politically correct hyperbole and silence dissent, no matter the cost.
The green hipocrytes don´t care for people, they don´t care about science, they couldn´t care less about the world or life on it, they only care to subdue whomever they deem morally inferior and justify becoming filthy green rich by doing it.
Someone should check what stocks went up with this announcement (or if nothing happened) as a hint for what is to come for Paris 2015). MSM is already in full force about announcing the enciclical as an ICCCP endorsement.
To the trenches people! We are not alone.
If we are wrong the world will end in Thermagedon, but I bet 50$ it won´t in the next 100-1000 years.
As the titular head of the 19th wealthiest country on the planet where nearly 100% of its wealth is property and investments in the economies of other countries, as Vatican City produces only hot air and not enough of that to fuel a single heat engine, it behooves him to tread carefully with any measures that would cause a total disruption of any part of the global economy. And to give Francis credit (because even though I think the organization that he heads is largely corrupt and based on philosophical premises incompatible with reason, I do think he personally is a pretty good man, both compassionate and nobody’s fool, trying to “do the right thing”) I think he is also fully aware of the impact of the current measures being taken to combat “CAGW” on the third world and would rather see voluntary conservation and gentle steps rather than any sort of global environmental fascism.
Unfortunately, Francis isn’t equipped to judge the science on any basis but the loudness of the noise, and his whole worldview is based on Authority, not evidence. So when the world’s Authorities tell him CAGW is real and inevitable (and for that matter, present him with the “evidence” of the climate models without pointing out their many, many warts) we don’t see him assessing it with the skeptical mind of a scientist. How can the Pope maintain a skeptical mind? It is completely incompatible with religious ontology.
rgb
But the warts of CAGW were presented to him. His “goodness” is corrupted by his blindness to the evils of human nature when given authority.
rgbatduke,
We often disagree, but for today I set those disagreements aside and will focus on what you wrote wrt climate.
you said:
“I think he is also fully aware of the impact of the current measures being taken to combat “CAGW” on the third world and would rather see voluntary conservation and gentle steps rather than any sort of global environmental fascism.”
YES! France does advocate the use of “sustainable” energy systems whatever that means, and the use of solar power, buying in with the false economics of solar energy, but it seems he is taking a caring posture wrt humanity, rather than revolutionary schemes of empowering the UN. (the UN will try to exploit this encyclical notwithstanding)
also you ask :
“How can the Pope maintain a skeptical mind?”
I think it is up to us to heighten the gaps between the UN agenda and that of the Vatican, (the gap is huge) and instruct everyone about the pause in warming, and the faulty science, as WUWT is untirelessly doing. The Pope et al will follow the opinion of the scientific thought leaders.
YES! France does advocate the use of “sustainable” energy systems whatever that means, and the use of solar power, buying in with the false economics of solar energy,
Can anything with false economies be sustainable?
I do not know what “sustainable” means. I am sure it means something different to everyone that uses it.
This Paul, is where Francis disappoints. He does not recognize the greatest evil extant in the land today.
===========
Kim, I can’t speak for him, but I do wonder why he does not see the miasma of the green religion in words like “sustainable” as you and I do. I just don’t know. Naivety? Ignorance? Machiavellian genius?
He’s succumbed to the Narrative extant, but Nature rules.
Uh, rules, God willing.
============
Well said, Paul. We do indeed, and one day it would be great fun to have a truly extended debate on Ontology and General Semantics (basically, what it is best to believe, the basis of epistemology and worldviews). But in the meantime, I don’t disagree with what you say either. It could have been much worse — Francis could have made burning anything “a sin” by fiat if he felt strongly enough about it or was overwhelmed by the warmist arguments, and he came far short of that and displayed a reasonable cynicism towards the obvious economic exploitation and public trough associated with carbon credits.
Outside of that, I personally think it is very reasonable for the world to stop burning irreplaceable coal and oil for energy, not so much because I buy into CAGW as a probable outcome of continuing (I don’t) but because there are a lot of other excellent reasons to do so. I just don’t think that we can accomplish that without working out the engineering and manufacturing and sometimes scientific/technical kinks of the alternatives so that they are ultimately cheaper in real dollars than coal/oil/gas/whatever without any specific subsidies or artificial costs imposed on the production or consumption end of things by law or policy. People buy solar rooftop power if and when it makes economic sense, not necessarily because they can get taxpayers in general to subsidize a quarter of the cost. In a decade, solar power will make a lot of sense as part of the energy supply in much of the world without any sort of subsidy, and a breakthrough in certain technologies could shorten that by a factor of 2. Heck, it makes sense now in a lot of places, without subsidy and with a 10 year plus amortization on the borrowed money. Get that down to 7 years, and you’ll see houses being built with rooftop solar as a standard feature just because people would pay more for a house with lifetime “free” air conditioning and electricity built into the cost of the house.
But my own money is on fusion and LFTR — fusion because it solves the problem of energy production for the world basically for all time and removes all barriers to eliminating world poverty as a first step towards world peace. If you like to pray and think that prayer in some way influences reality, that’s a great thing to pray for. LFTR because it is in principle immune to meltdown, in principle burns up the bulk of the radioactive waste as it goes, and in principle is no more a risk as far as proliferation is concerned than regular fission (if not less so). Oh, and there is a LOT of thorium in the Earth’s crust — North Carolina alone has deposits sufficient to fuel the entire US for thousands of years.
The one sad thing is that nobody managed to articulate to the pope the benefits (so far) of the increased CO_2 in the atmosphere whatever its origin. Roughly a billion people dine on that CO_2 every day based on greenhouse studies of growth in CO_2-enriched atmospheres. Most of the world’s population also receives the direct benefits of the civilization that the burning coal produces — improved life span, wealth, health care, food supply, sanitation. It is all well and good to try to gently redirect our collective energies into getting off of the coal wagon before we’ve burned all of the readily available coal and it is positively wise to invest considerable amounts in research into economically viable alternatives, but not to prematurely force the issue at the expense of the world’s poorest people, or, for that matter, at the expense of the richest or those in between. And not because of carefully promoted fear of a catastrophe that is not well supported by the actual data from the evolving climate as opposed to predictions of computer models that nobody sane would even expect to work a priori.
BTW, we both probably agree that it is wisest and most compassionate to love the sinner and hate the sin, so please understand that our energetic disagreement on matters religious does not mean that I hold you in any sort of lowered regard. I’m the grandson and uncle of methodist ministers, and I disagree with them too — for what are in my opinion and quite defensibly the very best of epistemological reasons. I’m certain that whichever of us is in error (and it could be both, as there are many, many alternative mythology-based belief systems and “the truth” might not even be in any mythology at all) is in error in the very best of faith.
rgb
rgbatduke,
Like they say, A house divided cannot stand. Also on this matter we indeed agree. I also agree with the general effort to get off fossil fuel when the technology is ready for prime time. I am (was) a nuclear engineer when I was younger and spent my days minding the emergency core cooling system at a nuclear plant. I had many choices for a career but voted for nuclear with my feet. Heavy water non-enriched uranium. CANDU
The timing was terrible with a moratorium on nukes everywhere due to effective activism.
I am holding out hope for liquid salt thorium reactors for the future. But my knowledge is not too current.
The people hurt by this encyclical will indeed be the poor. When Francis et al realize this, they will back track. I see an escape hatch in the paragraph cited above. The Carbon Credit scheme is a PLOY.
rgbatduke
Plus several shedloads.
I’ll buy what you have written generally, although lacking enough knowledge on fusion (‘around the corner for thirty years’ fusion?) ; and LFTR – had to Duckduckgo it; to agree with you from any knowledge.
Thanks for your always enlightening comments/letters.
Auto
rgb, most people aren’t equipped to judge any scientific notion on any basis but the loudness of the scientists involved. Indeed, most people are no better equipped for most things they intersect with in life. Be it auto mechanics, or cooking up French sauces. If you’re of a mind to favor Bertrand Russell, this comes down to his notions of Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description.
Notionally, Science seeks to replace Description with Acquaintance by a codified and formal means. But as a practical matter, who can replicate every scientific experiment written about in journals for the sake of being acquainted with everything that intersects their life? As a practical matter, this leads to people pounding the table about the legitimacy of Knowledge by Description every time an article is Peer Reviewed and published in a Credible Journal.
But again this is not limited to religious domains or the modern practice of Science. Electricians routinely rely on Knowledge by Description for choosing the gauge of wire to install based on the stated amperage needs of a given circuit and a table of wire sizes. But the electrician doesn’t stick around to see if it’s valid or not. He has no idea if the wire gauge chosen led to a fire in the future. And he certainly doesn’t discipline himself by installing progressively smaller wires until fires start breaking out; he simply trusts the Description he was given for his industry.
And yet we don’t heckle electricians for worshipping his Holy Eminence, the Pope of Volta or believing the Current trends in Electricology. Because we too believe the Description. We Trust that some Authority has legitimately dealt with and published on these matters responsibly and from their own Acquaintance. And I daresay that we cannot, in life, rely solely on Acquaintance. Simply imagine a jury trial in which every accusation was vacated unless there was a continuous recording of the crime, from the perp’s violation through the collar by the police, and of his entire existence up and until he was presented before the jury in the courtroom.
However, we can declare that it is not Science if there is no Acquaintance involved. But then this disposes of the idea that any theory at all is Science; for there is no Acquaintance possible until after it is tested. And, of course, most Scientists do not replicate all the experiments on which their own work relies. They too rely on Acquaintance heavily in their employment. And yet we do not broad brush every individual — even yourself — as a froth-mouthed, religious ignorant for relying on Knowledge by Acquaintance in various spheres of their life.
I am more than just fond of Russell, I am a second generation disciple of Russell — my mentor in philosophy at Duke was George Roberts, one of Russell’s students and the organizer of the last big Russell meeting that the philosophers of the age attended close to the end of his life. His “Problems in Philosophy” was a brilliant summary, and one that narrowly missed having the insight that later came to Richard Cox, E. T. Jaynes, Claude Shannon — probably because in 1912 he still was in the grip of an education that taught Platonic forms and axiomatic reasoning with axioms as self-evident truth rather than arbitrary propositions, although he and Whitehead made significant contributions over time to the downfall of that sort of reasoning system, the failure of Hilbert’s Grand Plan to axiomatize mathematics as a complete formal system even of the latter sort.
The question we all face is this: We cannot know absolute truth about a world seen through the imperfect veil of our senses and understood with the finite and often broken reasoning power of our biological brains. All we can do as we seek to build a worldview/ontology is to build one that is in some mathematically defensible sense the best one to believe in, given the data of our (collective and individual) experience and evidence and our ability to iteratively refine or optimize our predictive model of it. There is just such a defensibly best model, or paradigm, for sorting out good beliefs from bad ones from ones that are “neutral” — possibly true but basically unknown if not unknowable, especially when the latter beliefs are special cases drawn from a near-infinite field of equally undecidable alternatives.
It is this (reduced to as close to a one-line sound bite as I’ve been able to reduce it):
Obviously this is a moving target as it must be, as many of our best beliefs at any given time are likely mistaken and historically have been. Given this fundamental epistemological rule, the Scientific Method is basically one of several optimization strategies for testing and improving our network of least-doubtable beliefs and sorting them out by how little we can doubt them.
It also nicely embraces both positivism and falsificationism by getting rid of the troublesome end limits or epistemological constraints they try to impose concerning “meaning”. Since there is no real hope of an absolute knowledge of any truth beyond the ongoing empirical truth of your own sensory/sentient existence of “something”, all other knowledge is conditional and inferential (empirical) or conditional and formal (mathematical/logical) with a fairly strict barrier in between — formal conclusions on top of any given set of assumptions have no necessary force in the description of the inferred real world as all one gets is a scheme for determining the posterior probability of the assumptions using observed agreement with the real world. It automatically embraces the simple fact that lack of evidence is not evidence of lack at the same time that lack of evidence is a sound basis for systematically reducing a best-guess probability of lack, especially when supported by other consistent evidence supported best beliefs such that the observation would imply a contradiction with them.
That’s why we don’t much believe in pink unicorns. It isn’t just that we’ve never observed one in the wild because they could just be rare or live someplace we haven’t looked yet (see “Black Swans”). It is that we don’t have any of the other evidence that might support such a belief. A fossil of an early unicorn in the evolutionary tree of the horse. Unexpressed horn genes that sometimes are expressed in horses. Reliable reports of historical observations as opposed to reports in outright fiction or probablye myth (so that they might have existed once but gone extinct or only survive on a small island we haven’t visited yet). Evidence of “magic” that would allow pink unicorns to vanish whenever we look for/at them. A good evolutionary reason for a unicorn to have a single horn in a hornless, antlerless family tree. If we discovered pink unicorns tomorrow, their existence would raise more questions with our existing beliefs than they answer regarding unicorns per se. This is not the case with black swans — we already fully understand that swans exist, swan color is mutatable, and that just as Grosse Pointe, Michigan is full of black squirrels that breed true surrounded by a general population of grey squirrels, the same is entirely possible for swans.
The problem with this “maximally skeptical” basis for ontology-building is that it leaves little comfortable room for believing something without a strong, empirical, verifiable, consistent basis for the belief. You can “like” the idea of a magnetic monopole or orbital epicycles or Roman Paganism, but you cannot just promote any of these ideas to probable truth to best belief just because the ideas are appealing or consistent with (do not overtly contradict) other beliefs. The logical fallacies of plain old symbolic logic become conditional improbabilities in evidence supported belief systems — it isn’t that you can’t think up an explanation for why a masked man standing outside a jeweler’s broken window with a brick in his hand and his pockets full of jewels couldn’t be there legitimately, it is that there are so many more ways this situation could have arisen the obvious way — the guy is a thief who broke the window and is stealing the jewels. Unless or until there is evidence suggesting otherwise, this is evidence for the obvious interpretation as we expect exceptions to this explanation to require a lot of special circumstances and hence to be increasingly improbable. Jaynes (and Cox) both have lovely examples and explanations for his their writings.
rgb
Two thoughts. First, “faith” is not supposed to be based in reason, but in basic truths. When “faith” changes with the winds of time, it ceases to be faith and becomes a popularity contest. The organization that he heads has chosen to move with the winds of time, thus he has left his faith behind.
The second thought is based on the question “How can the Pope maintain a skeptical mind.” No one is expected to maintain a skeptical mind. I don’t have a “skeptical” mind and I doubt if you do. The requirement is to maintain an “open” mind. And if the Pope is to “hear” the words of God, which is supposedly what he does, he requires an open mind as well.
When dealing with any subject, including climate, an open mind is required since, after all, all science is but theory, nothing settled. Though some theories are quite well supported by data, they are still theories, even though they can be used as if the were certainties for the most part.
Ah, yes, but…
OK then, how exactly do you assess what is a “basic truth” and what is not?
That’s the rub.
“Truth” refers to a particular relationship between a map — a mental construct, as it were — and the “territory” of the real world. The real world is truth, but our knowledge of truth is indirect and inferred on the basis of observation, because we are not given a “table of basic truths concerning the real world”.
Here’s a parable I was taught by George Roberts. Suppose that you are Adam, and that you were just created and are lying around in the Garden of Eden and have not yet opened your eyes! What, precisely, could you tell a priori about the world you will see the instant that you do? We will assume for the sake of of this imperfect argument that you have a built in logical unit and some sort of symbolic language that can process any argument perfectly so that you are essentially super-intelligent in logic and reason, but that referents in your dictionary have absolutely no context and are for all practical purposes empty symbols.
The correct, and I hope fairly obvious, answer is — nothing at all useful. Even if you have a dictionary that states that a tree is a kind of plant with a woody stalk and leaves and a certain range of sizes (etc) it is of no use to you because not one term in all of that has any external referent — you have no concept of scale, space, time, plants, wood, stalks or leaves, and when you examine those dictionary terms they refer to still other terms and ultimately everything comes around in a circle where leaves are things that grow on trees and growth is a change of size and size refers to space and you have no experience or concept of space. Indeed, it is difficult to see how you/Adam could think at all, as you would have nothing to think about and time itself is only known in terms of perceptual change and entropy.
You could not know good, you could not know bad. You could not know other. Without some sort of sensory experience, it is doubtful you could even know self, as self somehow involves a point of view and hence seems as though it requires a view.
George also had a smashing parable derived from Plato’s Cave. If you have never read the allegory, you should. This parable demonstrated that even after you open your eyes you are little better off. You now have a sensory stream, but you cannot ever be certain that the images and experience of your senses is an accurate reflection of the reality they supposedly represent. The point of the Cave is that the inhabitants never perceive of things as they really are, but only see their shadows, their projections on the walls of the cave. To the inhabitants, the shadows become their “reality”, but only the gods, with their gods’ eye views, can see what reality casts those shadows.
Or can they? The gods themselves are in the exact same boat. What they perceive might still be nothing but shadows, projective views of reality or worse.
“Or worse” is the basis for the Matrix movie series, which is tightly coupled to Plato’s Cave and to James Gunn’s master sci-fi tryptich, The Joy Makers (enormously strongly recommended). The tragic thing about shadows is there is no guarantee that the shadows we see correspond to any actual reality. They could all be ‘meta’ shadows, fiction, TV shows synthesized to produce the illusion of a shadow cast by the illusion of a reality and using only our senses we could not tell! Neo could only detect the Matrix with outside help, or when there was a glitch, something that is fundamentally inconsistent. And even then, the “reality” that was revealed was only a higher level Matrix that was itself an illusion, so the reality in the Matrix was a simulation in a simulation players playing World of Warcraft Deluxe inside a game of World of Warcraft Deluxe rendered at such exquisite precision that it could render a second-stage illusion of itself at exquisite precision.
The rational conclusion (arrived at long, long ago by David Hume) is that there is no such thing as “basic truth”, something that can be known about the real world beyond any doubt, except perhaps Descartes’ empirical truth that we ourselves must exist at some level in order for our ongoing experiencing of something to be experienced. Everything beyond that one running empirical observation is contingent empirical inference, not logically provable “basic” truth.
Hence everything you know is contingent, probably imperfect knowledge. Perhaps the maps you have built on the basis of your experience reflect the actual territory to some reasonable resolution and extent, and we of course assume and hope that this is the case because we have little practical alternative. If we are power units in the Matrix, we cannot get out and discover what reality is really like without outside help, not if the Matrix itself is glitch free. Under these circumstances, the sane thing to do is to do your best to make sense of your experience, by all means, and infer/deduce any number of contingent truths or probabilities and call their collective sum “knowledge”. But one should never be fooled into being certain that any part of your elaborate map reflects actual reality. Maybe it is just a map of Hogwarts, or a map of Middle Earth right out of Tolkien, and your “experience” of reality is just the result of your immersion in a “total reality” role playing game being played on truly powerful computers sometime in the simulated distant future of the simulated present. Or, more likely (perhaps) our experience of the Universe is just what it seems — experience of an objective, external Universe — but experience at a resolution and with such finite bounds and captured in such finite processing apparatus (our brains) that our beliefs concerning that objective reality are always both incomplete and rife with error.
Hence the importance of believing what it is objectively best to believe, given the evidence. Hence the supreme importance in science to never ever accept your notion of “basic truth”. The history of science has been one of an unbroken rejection of “basic truth” after “basic truth”, all “changing with the winds of time” for excellent reasons as it turns out that those “truths” were all doubtable as soon as somebody actually tried to doubt them, and when people sought explicit logical, consistent, experiential support for them, it proved lacking.
Real (probable) knowledge is constantly changing with the winds of time because it is built through a process of consistent iterative refinement, not by direct perception of basic truth. It is imperfect, and changes as our experience and evidence dictate. It is not, in fact, “truth”, it is simply the best beliefs that we have worked out, so far, that are consistent with each other and the sum totality of our experiential evidence and data.
rgb
Attempts to find a silver lining in the papal pronouncement is like picking corn out of shite. It is a setback for the realists of the world. As with science academies, we must endure and shake off such decrees, until the day, the scales fall off their eyes and the blind can once again… see. GK
I disagree.
Who cares what the UN thinks about the climate. I care what the UN DOES in the name of global warming. The big hammer the UN has been swinging is the Carbon Credit “ploy”. Tax the rich based on consumption and give it to UN sanctioned “projects”. This encyclical undermines the entire UN financing scheme. That is a huge win. Are there problems with this letter? YUP. I say the problems are more the corn. …but I am still reading the thing….
They say optimism is contagious, however, I’m not feeling it. Thanks for the effort though. GK
Not to be crude to the Catholics, but who else knows better about how absurd the sale of Indulgences are?
Beat me to it. As with Indulgences, Carbon Credits allow those with money to purchase their “do as I say, not as I do” lives with a patina of grace.
The sale of Indulgences went out 500 years ago.
Did none of you get the memo?
newminster, that’s the point.
The sale of indulgences going out 500 years ago is not fully true. It’s been simply reconfigured.
Who knows better about the absurdity of the sale of indulgences than Catholics? Lutherans perhaps?
Heh, re: names for skeptics, someone brilliant thought up ‘Defier’ recently. I like ‘protestant’, but fear even in small caps it will be impossible to not misunderstand.
=====================
Unfortunately, even though it is good to see that there is no support for “carbon credits”, the lie that Carbon Dioxide is pollution is still supported.
Indeed, the “but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require”
Is nothing less then a call to ignore market based approach and use central authority to dictate.
Yes, sort of like saying, I don’t support selling rifles to our enemy, instead let’s sell them rocket launchers. I amend my original comment. There is nothing “good” about this section.
The Pope is essentially a Communist and a tyrant at heart. It will be interesting how the abortion or gay marriage issues will be reconciled with the far-left, at the Vatican. At the same time that the absence of evidence of AGW is resulting in more strident calls for wind and solar, Germany is moving back to coal to save their economy. Also, the richer and more modern the nation the cleaner it is (America vs. China).
How is the Pope and the far-let going to convince Africans that they should reject electrical power and embrace more dung burning to survive?
pyeatte ,
I would not try to help them solve the dilemma you brought up, rather. illustrate that there is a dilemma created by the UN’s scheme which only yields more poverty, waste and pollution for the 3rd world. That dilemma will undermine consensus on a remedy. That should be the goal.
…and prior to today, the carbon credit scheme was the only game in town. We need to work on the false notion that CO2 is a pollutant, and Francis has a BSc is Chemistry so he understands the photosynthesis/krebs cycle and underlying reaction kinetics. It is worth advancing the idea that increased CO2 increases the productivity of agriculture in poor countries. Do you think? He is all about helping the poor and hungry.
I do not know if the Pope knows C3 or C4 photosynthetic carbon cycles. I hope that he was exposed to some inorganic and organic chemistry and this incredibly important bridge between them that provides all food for the planet.
Ongoing work to enhance C4 cycles in C3 plants has extraordinary prospects for increasing the biosphere, “sequestering” CO2 and using it to produce abundant foods (first focusing now on rice)while economizing on nitrogen and H2O. There is nothing but good news in this biochemistry for humanity, the globe, and his concern for the poor.
These are real carbon credits – not some fake economy – that perhaps can trump model madness. I hope that pursuing this reality could help and I believe in providing good and solid information rather than judging by who can be loudest.
http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/155/1/56.full
Bubba Cow,
I agree with your “real carbon credits”. As for Francis, I can only presume his undergrad gave him something that still remains.
Excellent. Your ‘real carbon credits’ are a fact of nature and not of narrative.
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Too much is being made of his “chemical technician’s diploma.” He received it from a technical secondary school which, as I understand it, is equivalent to our high schools. Basically, he was qualified to be a lab technician. He does NOT have a BS in Chemistry. After getting that diploma, he worked as a lab technician, bar bouncer, and janitor before he began his studies at seminary.
The “smart money” all over the world actually knows this, not just the Pope. You don’t need an advanced degree in chemistry to figure it out from readily available sources. And you can be sure those (like this blog) are being read, because NO ONE with any sense is going to sink their money into a venture in which they’ll lose.
BTW, I always start lifting up the “Cui bono?” rock any time I hear a lot of rich people wringing their hands about the 3rd-world poor. Ditto for whites wringing their hands about “racism.” Never known ’em to give a sincere rat’s, sorry. This whole lie-by-99%-omission whopper is REALLY just all about certain funds transfers, and the public have been carefully and masterfully crafted into Useful Idiots who’ll support that “to save the planet.”
BTW, what source of shared-universe fantasy belief system trumps the Pope for staying power? AGW’s one of the more plausible things HE believes in, scientifically speaking! 😉
TeaPartyGeezer,
I was using scientific American’s account of his credentials where they actually say he had a Masters Degree so the BSc would be in place at the very least. There seems to be a debate about it. I don’t think the Vatican is going to rush to correct the record. In any event, even a chem tech has rudimentary understanding of stoiciometry, PH, reactions and basic chemical processes. Enough to know, generally, about the carbon cycle.
@Kim J
Recognizes bought absolution.
Indeed. The Catholic church has a lot of previous when it comes to getting out of sin by paying. The Pope obviously wants to avoid another Martin Luther.
However, the whole process of confession/absolution and penances seem pretty close to being a ‘ploy’ which lets Catholics keep sinning…..
You are wrong, 400 years out of date, hostile and off topic.
I disagree, indulgences were about the first thing that came to with the Pope’s opposition to carbon credits. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the matter of Luther and indulgences were on the Pope’s mind as well (D.G. may have meant that the Vatican learns from its mistakes).
He’s not off topic; the old practice of buying indulgences is basically what we are all talking about with carbon credits. It’s all dressed up in a fancy new set of clothes, but it’s the same old snake underneath.
Now I agree that it’s offbase to criticize the process of confession and absolution, because that is about a very personal contrition for very personal actions. It brings about humility and leads people to reflect on how they live their own lives, which is something every person is better off doing. Their is a huge difference between that and indulgences/carbon credits, which both basically involve a wealthy person paying a fee (that means nothing to them) in exchange for a sense of moral superiority over others, no matter what they have actually done. That practice was *always* a perversion of Christian doctrine, which was one of Luther’s main themes.
What I wish this Pope would have said, cleanly, was “hey y’all, ya know that indulgence/credit thing, we tried that about 500 years ago. We were a lot stronger then than you are now, and it STILL worked out real badly for us. So take from an organization that’s been there, Just Don’t Do It.”
wws stands for ‘wery well spake’.
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Re: Absolution, I have a quarrel.
In the long run, man’s pitiful little aliquot of fossil CO2 is going to be recognized for the great boon to humanity and to Gaia, biome and all, that it is. Our recharging of the carbon cycle, our mild and beneficial warming, our wonderfully providential greening, and the immense boost to the society and comfort of man is the opposite of something for which we need absolution.
It’s all backwards, evilly so.
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LOL at HeyBip – you really need to do a better job of hiding that white sheet and hood
well now that’s a breath of fresh air….
The epicenter of “hope springs eternal”….
…is preaching doom and gloom
snark/
This site – it appears – tries to maintain credibility – but then allows anything with the word “Catholic” in it to be overrun by Know Nothings.
Explain the logic in that.
opinions are like…., including mine, yours, and others (and I didn’t get involved in this discussion). Anything can be written/spoken and be misconstrued or taken out of context to suit a preference. Everyone just has to deal with it and not become a psychotic..
It’s called tolerance.
One wonders what was leveraged to force this hand.
I thought he would have been behind this scheme as carbon offsets are just the 21st century’s version of Indulgences.
Actually he leaves no doubt. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-blasts-abortion-population-control-in-new-encyclical-10491/
As many of us in the UK know, the Roman Catholic Church is infested with child molesters so I can only suggest that they get their own house in order first before they start issuing this kind of nonsense.
So any Police Department should cease from enforcing the law if they employ any Peach Officers that have received a parking ticket?
The local police department doesn’t have “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” as part of their foundation document.
Perhaps I missed it then: The Pope is calling for good Catholics everywhere to lob bits of masonry at their governing authorities for not sending public monies to corrupt governments in Africa?
Addenda: The Biblical argument you want to go after here is Beams and Motes in eyes. “You hypocrite!” and all that rot. And to be sure, if the Vatican — one of the rich governments — is not sending funds to corrupt third-world governments for solar power generation? You have a point. Likewise, if the Vatican — one of the rich governments — is not installing solar panels on cathedral roofs? You have a point.
Can you supply proof that the RC church is infested with child molesters?
The scandal that unfolded in the U.S. hit Protestant denominations as well. These denominations were shaken by this and their clergy along with it.
Coming from a mixed religion family, I know that clergy from both experienced much sorrow from the whole rotten affair.
And this should have been handled in a better way.
Can’t see how this is related to the climate change discussion anyway and is a distraction from the issues at hand.
Barbara
Far be it from me to do your searching for you but:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10407559
I only mentioned the RC church because this article is about some rubbish that that the Pope came out with. If it had been about the recent nonsense spouted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, I’d have mentioned them instead.
And no, it’s not a distraction. Neil (above) nails it. When they are beyond reproach, which they should be as they are allegedly God’s representatives on earth (not forgetting papal infallibility of course), then and only then can they start on the shortcomings of others. Until then, I repeat, ‘get their own house in order first before they start issuing this kind of nonsense’.
Barbara,
Here are the real statistics.
http://www.catholicleague.org/sexual-abuse-in-social-context-catholic-clergy-and-other-professionals/
The worst place for a child to be in terms of abuse, statistically speaking, is their own home. Next worse is Daycare and school. At the bottom of the list is the RC Church. A child is 100X more likely to be abused in a public school by a teacher that by a cleric in the RC Church. Where is the protest? Mr Green Genes is not interested in the Climate debate or facts in general. He is hater, and a conversation stopper, who tossed in his ill-conceived clumsy notion for the consumption by the ignorant.
Paul
There there dear. Say 3 Hail Marys, or pray for my soul or something.
As for me, I hate no-one and nothing. Hate is time consuming and negative. It’s just that I have no time for peddlers of lies, whether they spout off about how the world is going to end either because I don’t have an imaginary friend or because I like a good fire in the winter.
Ireland and Australia too.
In the name of the father, the son, and gaia. Amen
The Catholic Church today = A Greenpeace department with somewhat nicer manners and bell towers 🙂
I believe the term used (in paragraph 1) is, “our Sister, Mother Earth”:
Based on what is happening in Europe today, perhaps the Pope should open Vatican City to all the refugees from the south side of the Mediterranean and put them to work on “Green Projects” that support his science. And I don’t mean that sarcastically. Just “practice what you preach.” Seems simple.
The Vatican employs scientists. It may be that the conclusion they or perhaps trusted adviser(s) reached agrees with the “consensus”, but the Pope disagrees with the latter’s solution. That is to say, the Pope may agree with the “consensus” that there is a “wicked problem”, but he opposes the wicked solution proposed to resolve it.
yes. Therein lies the opportunity.
the Vatican. Professor John Schellnhuber has been chosen as a speaker for the Vatican’s rolling out of a Papal document on climate change. He’s the professor who previously said the planet is overpopulated by at least six billion people.
It would be useful to know how they plan to achieve a reduction.
http://www.naturalnews.com/050075_Vatican_climate_science_world_depopulation.html
Tim,
As I mentioned earlier, the UN and the Vatican have very divergent views. You correctly point out a main friction point that ought to be exploited. I agree with you. The Vatican will have no part in population control by artificial means. I would highlight his involvement and make the Vatican aware that they are advancing the interests of the UN and natural enemies of the Church. I would inform the public of this fact.
Very good cleavage point. A divided house cannot stand.
Almost inevitable, Paul, but oh, my Gaia, when?
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kim… now… we should engage and hammer the wedges in… today… tomorrow…never stop.
The inevitability of an earthquake at a fault line. Perhaps if we frack we can get the movement in safe little steps.
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It would be appropriate if this were nailed to NOAA’s door at this time.
“95 Theses: Desputation of the power of CO2 to cause havoc, the efficacy of tax funded studies to alter earth’s climate, and of the primacy of the Pope on matters of science.”
Then simply cite the vast majority of studies and datasets that have conclusively refuted CAGW.
And for good measure, cite the horrific results that have occurred whenever Communism was tried as a solution for any problems.
Friedman nailed Donhue’s ridiculous claims to the wall.
Sadly, no left-winger can be persuaded by facts and reason. If they could, they wouldn’t have become left-wingers in the first place. You can see Donahue’s embarrassment at having lost utterly, but he still *chooses* to deny reality.
He’s framing the climate change issue as an “urgent moral issue”. I agree. The Climate Liars pushing the whole anti-carbon, anti-democratic, and anti-human Warmist ideology need to be held accountable for the damage they have done.
Before today, the UN IPCC context of the issue was “settled.” Now we have a “conversation” at least. Bruce, it is up to us to push that conversation in the correct direction. You can help. Keep pushing.
It was warmer when Jesus lived.
I’ll bet the pope does not know this. GK
JaneHM June 18, 2015 at 8:41 am
Ah, well done, Jane. Best laugh of the thread so far.
w.
Not only when, but where. It is warmer where Jusus lived then compared to where The Pope lives now.
Did carbon trading cause the collapse of Leahman brothers?
Pope Schellnhuber I…