Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Pope Francis has waded into the climate debate again, by attempting to link human trafficking and climate change.
According to the Daily Mail;
Pope Francis has urged world leaders to take a ‘very strong stand’ on climate change ahead of the United Nations summit in Paris this year.
He was speaking at a conference of mayors and governors, who signed a declaration saying it may be the last chance to tackle human-induced global warming, at the Vatican today.
The meeting linked climate change and modern slavery because, according to an introductory paper, ‘global warming is one of the causes of poverty and forced migration’.
…
The cleric, speaking to the group in unprepared comments in Spanish, said he hoped the UN conference would address ‘particularly how it (climate change) affects the trafficking of people.
There is just one problem with this claim: where are the climate refugees?
As WUWT recently reported, the world’s only climate claimant just lost his case. The reason: In relation to the Refugee Convention, while Kiribati undoubtedly faces challenges, Mr Teitiota does not, if returned, face serious harm and there is no evidence that the government of Kiribati is failing to take steps to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation to the extent that it can
I’m not suggesting climate change cannot cause migration – a number of towns in the Swiss Alps were destroyed by advancing glaciers during the little ice age. The beginning of the current interglacial saw huge migrations, as people settled land which was liberated from the vast continental ice sheets.
A number of countries also have serious self inflicted environmental problems, caused by poor resource management, such as soil erosion from over intensive farming.
But if anthropogenic climate change were a major cause of “poverty and forced migration”, not to mention slavery, then why can’t green activists find someone who has a compelling case for claiming climate refugee status? If the unfortunate Mr Teitiota is the best example green activists can muster, we can surely conclude that there currently is no verifiable connection between anthropogenic climate change, forced migration and human trafficking.
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CO2’s increase from 280ppm to its current level of 400ppm alone has increased crop yields and forest growth by 25% from the CO2 fertilization effect. If anything, CO2 has been a huge boon to improving the standard of living for those in poverty.
Poverty is fundamentally caused by Statism, which restricts men’s natural rights to: life, liberty and private property and also through the widespread initiation of force by the government against its people or other nations.
If the Pope was seriously interested in eliminating poverty, he’d support free-market capitalism, which is the only social and economic construct capable of achieving long-term sustainable growth and ever increasing standards of living, rather than advocating Statism and condemning the CO2 molecule.
Free market capitalism also has plenty of warts, as there is a race to the bottom to become the low cost producer, driving all others out of business and creating a monopoly, at which time the free market no longer exists.
Not saying the market if bad, rather that there are structural problems due to inefficiencies of scale that make markets unstable. people need to pay the mortgage every month, which means so form of regulation.
The problem comes when the regulation stops serving to smooth the market and instead starts to choke the market. This is the situation in many developed economies, where the standard of living has stagnated as we try and every increasingly regulate the marked without regard for the inefficiencies introduced.
Ferd– Free-market capitalism is actually a race to the top, not a “race to the bottom”…
Only those companies with the top business model, top products, top technology, top profitability, top management, top executives, top ideas, top innovations, at the lowest prices are at the top of their industries…. The companies at the bottom of a business sector soon go bankrupt and their assets are sold off to give another company the chance to compete.
The silly Marxist propaganda that destructive “monopolies” are the end result of free-market capitalism is a cartoonish fallacy. There will certainly be times when extremely innovative companies with outstanding management may achieve a very large market share, but “BIG” doesn’t necessarily mean bad, providing free-market competition is not inhibited by the government.
Free-market capitalism is extreremly efficient, as only the best companies in a given field survive the competition process, providing the stupid government doest muck things up with overregulation, subsidies, bailouts, legislation, licensing, etc., to poorly run companies unable to compete without government intervening in the completion process.
Government over regulation is what has destroyed free-market capitalism.. In particular the idiotic Sherman Antitrust Act, where the second any new company opens its doors, their in violation of it: prices “too high”= price gouging, prices “the same”=collusion, prices “too low”= predatory pricing—complete insanity…
U.S.governmet rules and regulation compliance costs equate to almost $2 TRILLION/yr… That’s what’s killing the economy. Stupid compliance costs alone equals the ENTIRE GDP of India of 1 billion people… Jeez…
The boom/bust economies around the world are primarily the result of Cental banks manipulating interest rates too low and printing money in order to finance $100 TRILLION in worldwide sovereign debt…. This causes a lot misalocations of capital in the market, particularly in high-risk real estate and equity markets…
The irony is that the insane levels of sovereign debt is about to cause a worldwide economic collapse and when the crash comes, capitalism will be be blamed…. Oh, the irony…..
“The boom/bust economies around the world are primarily the result of Cental banks manipulating interest rates too low and printing money ”
..
The USA experienced boom and bust cycles prior to the creation of it’s central bank.
Scoff all you want, but we know this is true. Every summer, displeased people with a personal distaste for the climate in tropical zones, sell themselves unwittingly into sexual slavery and bondage. Engaging Coyotes, who then traffick them to the more pleasant climes of Montana.
If we don’t stop Summer, how will we stop prostitution?
“If we don’t stop Summer, how will we stop prostitution?”
What on earth would we try to stop prostitution for? It is a matter of consensual sex, even if one party gets paid some money. (or dinner&show, vacation, new car, promotion, whatever)
Post sarc ergo propter sarc.
What man among us hasn’t spent money on a good looking gal to get her into bed?
According to the Law this makes her a prostitute and you a criminal.
Migration from northern states to AZ and other sunshine states still unabated in the Unite … oh wait, that is refugees moving in the wrong direction. Mods go ahead and delete this post.
(-:
This pope is ample evidence that global warming alarmism (aka climate change) is religious in nature.
This guy must be on the Mother of all sucker lists. First the sky fairy, now this. Your Holiness; would you care to buy a bridge?
With all due respect, this Pope is just plain stupid. He has forgotten that his mission is to strengthen the Church through Jesus Christ. Not by dealing in earthly matters.
It sounds like the Devil has taken charge of the Pope!
It’s really hot and muggy outside. I think I’m gonna go enslave somebody.
rgb
Hopefully someone that doesn’t sweat much…
I fail to make the connection also… and where have the masses been displaced by climate change?
(Of course, there is the annual migration of ‘snowbirds between the northern and southern parts of the US, and you sure meet a lot of brits in Jamaica in January.)
You’d have to drive them somewhere before it’s “trafficking”.
Who cares what this fool in halloween costume has to say science?
..say about*
Can a Pope get dementia?And if the Dalai Lama can say he is a Marxist, then the Pope can too.
Now the Global Warming believers have found their spiritual leader, finally we now can name their temple.
+10
He can merge Catholicism into the new global Church of the Omnipotent Greenhouse in Carbon.
Call the temple “Model Fellowship of Mann”.
What is it with this guy over here? Anybody know this guy? Something doesn’t smell right.
Which guy? There are a lot of posts here.
Which guy? The first guy or the other guy?
Investigate “Liberation Theology” a Marxist type of Catholic theology that became popular in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s. Charlie this might answer your question.
As a practical matter, “Black Liberation Theology” was the “religion” that Rev. Wright spewed at Obama in the pews for a long time.
But war causes forced migration and everybody knows that “climate change” causes war 😉
This pope is neither demented nor stupid, he is only trying to co-opt the CAGW religion and capture the revenue stream that comes with it. Nothing new for his orgnisation.
+1
The Pope is on very dangerous ground with this pronouncement. Many educated and intelligent Catholics will be thinking he has lost the plot and is way out of his depth and they will not be happy. Disenchantment amongst the faithful is the last thing the Pope needs. Someone ought to tell him to get a second opinion.
The Pope has totally lost his reason for being a Pope. I haven’t heard much from him about how Jesus died for our sins and how we can be redeemed through the Blood of the Lamb. Instead it’s all about global warming and the evils of a free market. Sorry, Pope, but the free market has given us long lives and better health. You are completely our of your field of knowledge. I second the motion; get a second opinion from real scientists who understand what is and what is not happening. If you won’t do that, them please explain the 19 year flatline in temperature. As it is right now you are making a fool of yourself.
“Someone ought to tell him to get a second opinion”. He has a problem there . He is infallible.
His encyclical was not infallible. Nor is his rambling nonsense. A joke is funnier if it is closer to being true. You may try again.
Disenchantment amongst the faithful with deep pockets is the last thing he needs. My parents are as devote Catholics you could ever meet, and they openly ridicule this pope. Not long ago, they would have feared excommunication for such thoughts let alone words.
*devout
@Katherine009. “devoted” would have worked as well. Thankfully my parents who were the same as yours passed away before this charade, they would have been in tears.
Agreed
4 Eyes,
Today in Breitbart
“Popes Popularity Amongst Americans PLUMMETS”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/22/popes-popularity-plummets-among-americans/
“He was speaking at a conference of mayors and governors, who signed a declaration saying it may be the last chance to tackle human-induced global warming, at the Vatican today.”
The governors and mayors have signed agreements or declarations with a very wealthy foreign power to implement environmental policies domestically.
Rome is a state, the Jesuit Jorges Bergoglio is the leader of that state, and these declarations, connections, and gifts from Rome will have influence on internal affairs of cities and states. This bypasses congress and the president and local voters.
This also is plainly touching on the Jesuit goal “to inform and transform local, regional and national immigration policies.” Remember that when you see the boatloads heading straight for Great Britain and Australia. Britain must receive anyone with a European passport under EU law and cannot set policy or numbers in any way. Last year immigration jumped from an average of 30,000 to 300,000.
Countries which suddenly experience four, five, and ten-fold increase in immigration not only have wage depression and overstressed housing and schools, but the sudden influx is creating extremely vulnerable populations who will be reliant on government services and who do not speak the language. Creating these ghettoized populations is not acting in love towards others. They will end up bent over in fields or in the drug business.
is this legal? —
“The governors and mayors have signed agreements or declarations with a very wealthy foreign power to implement environmental policies domestically”.
Governor Pinocchio Shumlin from my current socialist state of Vermont just signed some other international agreement in Canada and with several Marxist South American countries to join the religious Crusade on Carbon. (guess he would have been in deeper do do if he tried to swing a trip to Rome)
[snip – over the top -mod]
Hush your mouth, you hear!! You aren’t suppose to mention
the priestly molesters. That detracts from his message about
climate change.
I find many comments here to be witty, insightful, funny, and sometimes quite knowledgeable. There are the rare threads that I might make a useful contribution. Many of Eric Worrall’s postings seem like a carnival duck shoot and, as unbelievable as the stories may seem, I can see where the sheer lunacies and attempts to manipulate our lives could provoke especially passionate comments that get snipped for being “over the top”.
Before my molecules merge back with the Cosmos, I hope the perfect storm of story and wit might enable me to write something that gets snipped for being “under the bottom”.
“… snipped for being “under the bottom”. …”
Bubba, if you ever do that I wager it will take a very dry wit to be “under the bottom”.
I’ll drink to that. Bottoms up!
Hic.
I just pondered the question if this was the same climate change that compels bishops and cardinals to traffic in priests.
‘global warming is one of the causes of poverty and forced migration’.
No, high unreliable energy costs are, fact, not supposition!
Had to laugh at the expression of the priest behind the pope in the photo.
What we’re seeing here is an unprecedented increase in the number of climate refugees. From zero, to one
The sculpture in the background
?w=480&h=320&crop=1
in full:
I don’t know much about this bronze, except that it was installed in 1906.
General audience with Pope Francis
I am sure the mayors and governors we elected enjoyed the refined taste and impeccable manners of Rome.
Grotesque sculpture. I prefer this one of the mother of the church:
http://stmarysalbany.com/church-art/
That is definitely a lovely sculpture of Mary.
http://stmarysalbany.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/mary_statue_infront_of_church-2.jpg
I have never heard of “Mary of Pentecost” but there is every reason to believe she was there on that day with all the others, as she was from Galilee.
“Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?
The verse goes on to say that everyone heard the message in his own language:
“8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
Parthians were possibly Scythians. Medes and Elamites were in the area of Iran; Cappadocia and Pontus and Phrygia were ancient Anatolian people, or modern day Turkey, long before the Arab invasion.
Here’s a translation by Wulfila in the fourth century into the Gothic language:
Now that is beautiful Goth silver and gold ink on purple vellum! Contraband, too.
Ok in theory Catholics believe in the afterlife, correct? Why would a marxist catholic want to change nature or natural law? That is what Marxism is right? They think nature is cruel and broken or just that man is cruel and broken but isn’t man part of nature? If earthly life is not heaven then why would feel the need to manipulate it to arrange it to be so and so? Isn’t that an atheist rabbit hole? I’m glad I don’t take life too seriously but that’s my own religion
Hey Charlie. I think you got most of all that wrong, but who cares… really.
I don’t enjoy speaking against any Pope. However, here he had an opportunity to laud the historical achievements of science and speak to how it has improved the lot of humanity, while at the same time giving guidance on care of our common home without embracing the illegitimate “science” of the UN. I am extremely disappointed.
He is listening to most scientists, politicians, and activists. So? I am just sad.
Excellent post.
I don’t think Jesus would approve this Catholic Church.
I agree. The Pope and his Church have completely lost their purpose.
They are wandering in a swamp of confusion. The Catholic Church will slide downhill
thanks to this Pope. That will put a lot of priestly pedophiles out of a job.
Good. Let the Catholic Church once again allow priests to marry and let women take on the priesthood. Much healthier.
WWJD was phased out with Jim and Tammy Baker.
I don’t think Jesus would have approved of any Catholic Church.
Pope Francis was a Jesuit Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church before he became a pope so it’s no surprise he is a leftist and believes in global warming, climate change, etc. The Jesuits turned left in the early 1900s in response to the rise of Marxist doctrine and Communism, and gave birth to Liberation Theology, a Marxist belief. The Jesuits went as far as to support the Sandistas in their war of liberation against the ruthless dictatorship of the Somosas in Nicaragua, to the displeasure of the Vatican in the 1970s. This interference of the Catholic Church in climate science is not good thing for the world as it could make it difficult for skeptics to defeat the anti science warmers. We’re back to the era of the Church which persecuted Galileo!
Richard,
Ouch! Yes. Except, Galileo’s ideas were not universally accepted as is Global Warming, and Galileo was not persecuted as believed in pop culture.
Following the logic of Pope’s advisor Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, slave traders are victims of capitalism.