The Pope's Encyclical Exposes Real Agenda Behind Global Warming

Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball

Many times quotations are truncated to change the original meaning. When the larger quote is examined, a very different meaning often emerges. For example, most say, “Money is the root of all evil” when the full quote of Timothy 6:10 is “The love of money is the root of all evil”. This addition creates a very different emphasis and perspective. Lord Acton’s quote that “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” is similarly altered by the sentence that follows, “Great men are almost always bad men.” A frequently used quote in the climate debate quotes in “Science Under Siege” by Michael Fumento is Senator Timothy Wirth’s,

“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing,

When you add the latter part of the sentence that says, “in terms of economic policy and environmental policy ” a different understanding emerges. What is the “economic policy”? The answer is the economic redistribution of wealth by the government, or socialism. Now the quote parallels what Pope Francis is identifying in his Encyclical “Laudato Si”.

Global warming was always that, the problem is most people still don’t know, although there are signs they are learning. The recent Pew Center poll indicates more people recognize global warming as a political issue. Publication of an article on WUWT discussing the ongoing debate about humans and their role in nature is another indicator. I commend Anthony Watts for recognizing the need for airing a wider context for the debate. The problem is most don’t know or understand the political issues involved. Few are aware of the link between global warming, climate change, and overpopulation. Most don’t know that the objectives of the United Nations Environment Program, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were to demand population reduction because too many people were using too many resources and destroying the Earth.

The person who believed this vehemently was Hans Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) so he became a senior advisor to the Vatican. He is a member of the IPCC, which might explain his appointment, but It might also be due to his beliefs as a Pantheist, which one dictionary defines as

the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God’s personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature.

Some describe Pantheism is the antithesis of atheism, which would attract a religious group. However, Schellnhuber believes global warming will solve the overpopulation. In a presentation in Copenhagen in 2009 he said that if global temperatures rose 9 degrees Fahrenheit Earth’s population would be devastated. He commented,

“In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people,”

The irony lost on environmentalists and advocates against global warming is that if overpopulation is the real problem then according to Schellenhuber global warming offers a solution. The same argument holds for Malthusian controls, such as disease, wars, and famine.

The latest Encyclical by Pope Francis is a revolutionary document in which it appears Pope Francis decided that overpopulation is a bigger problem than Church doctrine, especially when the increased population is industrialized, developed and prosperous. These are exactly the positions underlying the goals of the UN Agenda 21, the White House, and most other nations. Like them, the Encyclical uses global warming as a front for a political agenda. The problem is the political agenda contradicts fundamental traditional Catholic belief and teaching. The church has always fought against birth control and abortions. Ironically, just 11 years ago the Vatican openly and actively fought the UN and the White House over these issues.

Overpopulation is the central concern of environmentalism and environmentalists. The concern obtained global and political attention in the 1960s through the Club of Rome and, in particular, the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb. Overpopulation remained a central issue through the 1970s and 1980s but moved to the background after 1988 when James Hansen appeared before the US Senate subcommittee and began the shift in the public arena to global warming. Publication of the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report in 1990 shifted the focus to global warming in the scientific and political arena.

The importance of overpopulation continued as part of the United Nations Environment Program and Agenda 21. The Clinton Administration led by Al Gore and Timothy Wirth focused on the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. It was the third conference after the first in Budapest in 1974 and the second in Mexico City in 1984. The Clinton Administration believed the Mexico meeting did not achieve the goals of population control they desired. They decided to make a determined effort to narrow the focus in Cairo, just as they did with the Hansen Hearing. Senator Timothy Wirth arranged the Hansen hearing, including pulling Hansen from obscurity in NASA. As Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, he also participated in the planning and policy positions taken by the US government in Cairo. As one author explained,

In league with several Scandinavian and West European countries, UN and World Bank population technocrats, and feminist, anti-natalist, and environmentalist NGOs, the Clintonites sought to engineer a dramatic shift in the focus of the Cairo conference. The packaging (“Population and Development”) would remain, but the content would be dramatically altered-with the earth’s “carrying capacity,” “gender equality, equity, and empowerment of women,” and “reproductive rights” supplanting mere “population and development” as the issues of moment.

These actions explain Wirth’s truncated comment discussed earlier in which the last phrase shows global warming was just a vehicle for the greater objective of population control.

Most of the objectives of the Cairo Conference contradicted traditional Catholic values but none more than the promotion of abortion. In a remarkable action, six days before the Conference the Vatican issued a statement accusing Al Gore of misrepresenting the Conference agreement on abortion.

Since preparations for the conference began in April, Pope John Paul II and his aides have taken the lead in condemning it as likely to legitimize abortion as a means of birth control, in direct contradiction of Roman Catholic doctrine on the sanctity of life from the moment of conception.

Today’s broadside by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Pope’s chief spokesman, was the first time that the Vatican had formally accused the United States of being the principal sponsor of pro-abortion policies and also the first time it had publicly attacked a high American official by name.

“Mr. Al Gore, Vice President of the U.S.A. and member of the American delegation, recently stated that ‘the United States has not sought, does not seek and will not seek to establish an international right to abortion,’ ” Mr. Navarro-Valls said at a news conference today. “The draft population document, which has the United States as its principal sponsor, contradicts, in reality, Mr. Gore’s statement.”

The White House denied the accusations that angered many in the Democratic Party, as the Los Angeles Times noted,

What promised to be a sharp and much needed debate over methods of population control is liable to end in a fog of public-relations spin control. Critics of the U.N. population conference’s draft proposal allege that it promotes abortion as a method of family planning and favors individual sexual health and liberty over the health of the family. For eight months, the draft had the unwavering support of the Clinton Administration; two weeks ago, shortly before the conference began in Cairo, however, the backpedaling began. After the Catholic hierarchy in this country threatened that Catholics would leave the Democratic Party, and after it became clear that several Islamic countries would ally themselves with the Vatican, Vice President Al Gore and Timothy Wirth of the State Department insisted that the United States was pursuing policies more or less the same as those of the Catholic Church. Could this possibly be true?

Prior to the Cairo Conference, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) cosponsored a meeting with Ted Turner (CNN), the Pew Charitable Trust and one branch of Harvard University. The moderator was CNN employee Marvin Kalb, who opened by saying that the world is frighteningly overcrowded. Al Gore spoke first and tried to discount the demographic transition model as an appropriate solution to population control. Typical Gore, I am rich with a big carbon footprint, but you are not allowed.

Now the Vatican is in a different political bed than in Cairo. As Time reported,

An unusual convergence of interests between Roman Catholic and Muslim leaders put the organizers of the United Nations-sponsored conference on the defensive around the flash points of abortion and sex education for teens.

In the Encyclical, Pope Francis rationalizes the latest affiliation and position by dismissing those who question the evidence. Scientists practicing proper skeptical science and others with alternative views are dismissed in a very unchristian manner.

Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions.

Luckily, the climate change portion of the Encyclical is minimal and wrong. The evidence provided shows that those with “obstructionist attitudes” on climate are correct. The main theme of the Encyclical is population and its errant ways concerning the environment. This shifts the focus away from climate and back to the larger issue of overpopulation, which is good because that is an easier debate. The public understands the fundamentals of population dynamics better than the complexities of climate. Besides, Catholics reject the church view on birth control as the statistics indicate. This trend occurred despite the fact that birth control was mandated in an earlier Encyclical Humanae Vitae. It is a fascinating position taken by men who will not allow women to be priests and practice the most unnatural behavior of celibacy. As a defrocked priest friend of mine, now married told me, I laugh when I remember, as a single celibate priest, counseling couples about marriage.