Guest essay by H. Sterling Burnett
Pope Francis evidently has decided to make fighting global warming an important papal cause in 2015. He praised the United Nations’ climate treaty efforts in Lima, Peru; the Vatican has indicated he will issue an encyclical letter to the world’s bishops; he is encouraging the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to take up the battle against climate change; and he’s planning to address the next UN climate conference in Paris to pressure world leaders to adopt a strong climate agreement.
The Vatican Pontifical Academy of Sciences may be behind the pope’s rising interest in global warming as a moral and political cause. Its chancellor, Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, said, “Our academics supported the pope’s initiative to influence next year’s crucial decisions. The idea is to convene a meeting with leaders of the main religions to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion.”
Many Catholics undoubtedly support the pope’s efforts and, unlike many of his critics, I would argue the views of the pope, a significant moral leader, should be considered as climate policies are shaped. As the leader of the largest Christian denomination in the world, he is charged not just with saving souls but also with alleviating the suffering of the world’s least fortunate, and with leading the Catholic Church in efforts to make the world a better place.
Having said this, I also know moral imperatives and public policies should be grounded in the best-available science, in the reality of the human condition, and in the state of both the planet and the people. Concerning global warming, the pope evidently has been badly misinformed and led astray.
None of the disasters asserted by climate alarmists to result from global warming has come to pass. Hurricane numbers are down, deaths from natural disasters have declined, sea ice is on the rise, and crop production is increasing. Climate models have yet to be validated, missing the lull in temperature rise for the past 18 years and the declining rates of sea-level rise for the past decade. Instead, the gap between temperatures projected by climate models and temperature observed in reality grows yearly.
Investor’s Business Daily has speculated the Vatican is itching to tackle climate change, despite the above-stated facts, because,
[The] Vatican … has been infiltrated by followers of a radical green movement that is, at its core, anti-Christian, anti-people, anti-poor and anti-development. The basic tenets of Catholicism – the sanctity of human life and the value of all souls – are detested by the modern pagan environmentalists who worship the created, but not the creator. … Big Green believes that too many human beings are the basic global problem. People, according to this view, are resource destroyers. Climate change, they say, is due to the overpopulation of Mother Earth.
The pope would do well to question the sources of his information and to recognize his efforts should be focused on alleviating the poverty and suffering of billions of people in the world today. The best policy to accomplish that goal would be alleviating energy poverty worldwide.
As a CNS editorial stated,
Alex Epstein argues, rather than taking a safe climate and making it dangerous through the use of fossil fuels, we have been transforming a dangerous climate into a safer, more manageable one for human flourishing.
Humans have long fought a war with climate, and to the extent we’ve won it has been through the use of technology, most recently including, fossil fuels.
Note from Anthony:
As a Catholic myself, I’m disappointed in this stance, especially since it seems out of place with doctrines of the past where there Church denounced many issues of science through its history, only to later admit they erred, jumped to conclusions, and admitted such errors in judgment decades or centuries later.
For example, it only took the Catholic church 359 years to decide that Galileo was right after all, and that the Earth DOES in fact revolve around the Sun.
I plan to ignore the Pope and its science panel, as many are likely to do given their track record on getting science wrong in almost every case where science and religion have collided through history,
Shame on the Pope. So far he has managed to lead his flock very poorly and this is just another example of him stepping out of bounds. Me thinks he’s more interested in press coverage than spiritual matters. This reeks of days long ago when the church believed they controlled science.
Hell will freeze over before the Vatican realises that AGW is history’s greatest scam
I am very confused. Didn’t Obama announce that with his election the earth had begun to heal and the seas had begun to recede? What’s left for the Pope to do?
Pope’s and morality don’t go together anyway.
I read a Carl Sagan Quote recently, found it again;
“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
True Scientists do not speak from authority, they speak from discovery.
You might want to check out Roger Bacon’s (he invented western science) 4 obstacles to the truth. oh… he was a catholic monk circa ~1200 AD BTW. Don’t have a heart attack.
In my lifetime in the Catholic Church there was at one time a place called Limbo for unbaptised babies who died. Limbo is now closed and all babies are considered spiritually perfect. It was once a “mortal” sin to eat meat on Fridays, not so today with a few exceptions in Lent. Change in any large human run organization comes slowly and the Church is no exception. I will say this, though, the Catholic Church is one of the few churches which does not say that only their members can be saved.
Jim G: I went to catholic schools and we were definitely taught that no one outside would be saved. I don’t believe that is true but that is what we were taught.
The Pope should clean the Church of rapist and pedophile priests instead of dabbling with climatology.
“A U.N. human rights committee denounced the Vatican on Wednesday for adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on the pedophiles and the churchmen who concealed their crimes.”
On sex abuse, “the committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators,” the report said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/05/un-vatican-sex-abuse-report/5220191/
The UN are hardly in a position to chastise anyone for rape. Nor are they in a position to complain about someone ELSE failing to acknowledge the extent of crimes committed. The UN are not friends of the civilized world, in fact quite the opposite.
“A U.N. human rights committee “, that is a joke in itself. What could they possibly know about human rights?
To Dr Strangelove,
Ah, a true believer in the impartiality of UN Committees. Like the IPCC, perhaps? All UN Committees only ever speak the truth, eh?
Also, this sounds like an argument from authority: Because a UN Committee has said it, it must be true. Not the kind of comment you expect on WUWT.
The anonymous faithfuls should file their complaints to the UN committee and ask the Pope to deny under oath at the international court that the UN report is completely false and priests had never raped and committed child abuses. I’m eagerly awaiting the Pope’s official denial of this malicious report.
Dr Strangelove, You don’t really care about pedophilia. You are not sincere.
Paul Westhaver, you must be talking about yourself because you want to sweep your dirty little pedophilia secret under the faithful rug. Tom, Dick and Harry are evil child molesters but the holy Catholic priests just want children’s love. Shameful hypocrisy
Dr Strangelove (Think about your alias “strange love” … ick )
I think you had better retract your libelous comment. I have no pedophilia secret. Is that how you work? Accuse people you don’t know of terrible crimes? I have made a screen capture of this one.
Furthermore if you did care about the suffering of children, you’d do something about it. In the public schools, in your very neighborhood, funded by you, child sex abuse is happening 100X more frequently per capita than the RC church. See “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, by Carol Shakeshaft, professor of educational administration at Hofstra University. I doubt you ever contacted the school board in your own town. Because YOU DON’T CARE. No, rather you hide behind a creepy alias, falsely accuse me of crimes, and make unfounded accusations off topic for sport.
No you don’t really care about kids. You are just an abusive troll.
As the son of a Lutheran minister I feel compelled to offer Matthew chapter 6: vs. 25-34…
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[n]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
So how should this guide the church’s fight against climate change?
Matthew 28:18…
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
I don’t see anywhere where that authority was subsequently delegated to human technology, or any religious hierarchy for that matter.
They probably have a model for that too…
Well, for starters, you could try:
“And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it “ (Matthew 16:18).
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 18:18)
“If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (Jn 20:23)
SAMURAI says –
“The irony is that a very large and growing contingent of the Left that supports CAGW are also very anti-theistic in general, and very anti-Catholic in particular”
you can find 180 degree turns all over the CAGW-promoting alt media, e.g:
2013: Democracy Now: The New Pope (Francis)
News reports indicate that in 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio (Francis) that accused him of conspiring with the military government in 1976 to kidnap two Jesuit priests. Bergoglio was a superior at the Society of Jesus of Argentina in 1976. Bergoglio’s spokesman denied the allegations. Bergoglio has also staunchly opposed abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. In 2010 he said gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children…
http://www.democracynow.org/special/vatican_selects_new_pope
30 Dec: Democracy Now: Pope Francis Calls for Action on Climate Change & Capitalism on a Planet “Exploited by Human Greed”
Pope Francis is set to make history by issuing the first-ever comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change, which will urge 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide to take action…
AUSTEN IVEREIGH (author, “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope”): Well, first of all, it’s an encyclical, which is the highest form of papal teaching…
The fact that it’s also on ecology, on climate change, is also deeply significant, because there has never been a major document on this subject from the church…
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/31/pope_francis_calls_for_action_on
funny how they ignored the “green pope” Benedict, who they loathed for being a rightwing conservative:
March 2013: NRDC Blog: Pope Francis and Climate Change; Si Se Puede!
While it’s unclear exactly how the new pontiff will guide the world’s Catholics in terms of environmental policy, Pope Francis follows in the footsteps of Pope Benedict, known as the “green pope,” who warned about the risks of climate change and pushed for environmental reforms, as my NRDC colleague Adrianna Quintero blogged…
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/rkistner/pope_francis_and_climate_chang.html
I agree with Pope Francis initiative, although, as you hae said, there were not major disasters in the past year. Although I’m not catholic, he has all my respect! Still, I must mention that everybody is preoccupied by the climate change, but it is useless to discuss only the future whithout understanding the main cause of the climate transformation. My opinion is that the ocean and human activity on the ocean (mostly naval wars) has a big contribution in the matter. Aren’t we ignoring that? Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the ocean?
What “naval wars” are you referring to? And how does human activity on the ocean make a “big contribution” to climate change? Are you suggesting that the 3000 ARGO floats in the ocean are actually helping to cause the warming they are trying to measure? I have a feeling the oceans may be much more massive than you think it is. Human activity on the ocean is literally just a drop in the bucket.
Dave,
Thanks for showing what being a climate kook is all about.
” Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the ocean?”
Is the recording of sea level not enough to convince you that you are being lied to? http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70056/IDO70056SLI.pdf
God bless him for he knows not what he is saying
Is there any evidence that CO2 won’t make it easier for the poor to grow food? Is there any evidence that a little warming won’t be net beneficial to the Earth’s poor? Is there any evidence that the warming so far has increased hurricanes, tornadoes, or other forms of extreme weather around the globe? If not, then it is utter foolishness to assume that reducing CO2 will be good for anyone. In fact, requiring industrialized nations to make significant reductions in the use of fossil fuels at the same time they are required to make large payments to non-industrialized nations is unsustainable. It is the equivalent of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. But rich environmentalists will feel so good about themselves while they offer up millions of starving and freezing humans as sacrifices to Gaia.
>>…the Vatican has indicated he[the pope] will issue an encyclical letter to the world’s bishops…<<
If Pope Francis does this "ex cathedra" he claims being infallible, and that might be the beginning of the end of the catholic church. Too many people, amongst them loyal catholics, know that CAGW isn't taking place. I suppose they find it inacceptable that a noteworthy spiritual leader is not just mislead by propaganda at its worst, but propagating the climate church and its dubious dogma. Francis ought to be conciliatory and promote unbiased communication and science.
Presumably the Pope has understood the power of global warming to control populations and grasp yet more of their cash.
The current crop of Christian martyrs and soon to be martyred are in more need of the Pope’s attention than global warming is.
I see at least a few possibilities:
1. He is trying to discredit Catholicism
2. He plans to profit from selling carbon indulgences
3. Both
What a silly Pope. When the truth comes out, everyone will know that the Pope is fallible after all. He should stick to doctrine.
Perhaps George Pell has been passing in his ear?
I guess he got to be Pope through the “Peter Principal “?
OT – a friend saw this at the Science Museum.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/climatechanging/climatescienceinfozone/exploringwhatmighthappen/2point1/2point1point1.aspx#acc-fifth
It seems to contradict itself – any comments from those better versed in these matters than I?
It is now 2015.
The Pope has history in matters of climate change. At the onset of the little Ice Age, witches were the alleged cause of the rotten weather and poor summers and crop failures. The Pope said it, so it must have been true.
The fundamental question. Why in some regions “quilt” CO2 operates, in others not at all?
Guilt is the modus operandi of the Catholic faith. You are automatically guilty of sin when born and must spend the rest of your life in atonement. AGW and Catholicism have a lot in common already.
Francis has never had the sharpest miter in the cathedral, but you’d think he’d recognize that the climate doomsters are a faith-based cult whose high energy policies harm the poor and elderly the most.
Once you start mixing religion with politics its bad medicine.
As the victims of Bloody Mary would certainly attest.
The pope will burn in Hell for going against God’s wishes and trying to play God amongst mankind!
Global Warming/Cooling IS God’ will!!!
The Pope has just
teleported himself and his followers back to the Medieval Period
This is just the Catholic religion attempting to incorporate and absorb the Carbon Dioxide religion of the Church of Global Warming.