From Springer:
Despite papal letter, Catholics and the public politically divided on climate change
Pope’s 2015 warning about global warming failed to rally broad support for climate action
Among Catholics and non-Catholics, awareness of Laudato Si‘, the first-ever encyclical or papal letter devoted to the environment, was not associated with an increase in public concern over climate change. In addition, people who were aware of the encyclical appeared to be more politically polarized in their view of climate change than those who were not aware of it, according to a national survey led by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania and published in Springer’s journal Climatic Change.
The papal letter to Catholics worldwide was released in 2015 by Pope Francis. He cited scientific consensus on the existence and human causes of climate change, and highlighted the disproportionate risks it poses to the world’s poor. The Pope declared that there was a moral imperative to address climate change.
Prior to the release of the encyclical, Pew Research reported that 71 percent of American Catholics believed climate change exists. This figure is on par with that of the general public. Catholics’ views on the topic also broadly reflect the general partisan split along political lines among Americans. Among Catholic Democrats, 62 percent believe in climate change and attribute it to human causes, while only 24 percent of Catholic Republicans do. Conservatives are both more skeptical that anthropogenic climate change exists and less concerned with its adverse effects.
The Pope’s call for action raised the question whether a religious authority could influence public opinion on such a highly polarized topic. APPC researchers set out to examine the effect that the encyclical had by asking respondents whether they had heard about the encyclical, whether they believed that climate change is caused by humans, how serious a problem they thought climate change is, and whether they thought there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Data was obtained from 1,381 20-minute phone interviews conducted one week before the encyclical’s release on June 18, 2015 and another 1,374 interviews done two weeks later.
According to the survey results, those who had heard of the encyclical were not generally more accepting of the science on climate change or concerned about the effects of climate change. Instead, the study found that liberals who were aware of the encyclical were more concerned about climate change and perceived more risks than liberals who weren’t aware of Laudato Si’. The opposite was true for conservatives.
Respondents’ views of the Pope’s credibility on climate change varied according to their own political views. Encyclical-aware liberals said the Pope was more credible on climate change than did liberals who were not aware of the encyclical, while encyclical-aware conservatives said the Pope was less credible on climate change than conservatives who weren’t aware of it. Although Pope Francis’s message was expected to be especially influential among Catholics, their attitudes and beliefs about climate change remained strongly associated with their political views.
“While Pope Francis’ environmental call may have increased some individuals’ concerns about climate change, it backfired with conservative Catholics and non-Catholics, who not only resisted the message but defended their pre-existing beliefs by devaluing the pope’s credibility on climate change,” says Nan Li, lead author of the study.
The results suggest that the worldviews, political identities, and group norms that lead conservative Catholics to doubt climate change may take priority over deference to religious authority when judging the reality and risks of this environmental phenomenon.
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Reference: Li, N. et al. (2016). Cross-pressuring conservative Catholics? Effects of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the U.S. public opinion on climate change, Climatic Change. DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1821-z
The Pope did not jump on board the climate change gravy train because of climate change he did is because of this:
http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/
The real objective is to transfer money and resources to the undeveloped world(poor) from the (over)developed world that needs to cut back on its over-consumption of natural resources, especially fossil fuels. De-carbonizing is a very effective means to accomplish this. Also, transferring billions from the rich countries to the poor countries via schemes like the “Green Climate Fund” which will help the poor countries adapt to the damage of climate change that the rich countries caused.
I am all for helping the poor but using fraudulent schemes and hijacking climate science to do it via a corrupted United Nations leadership is a recipe for the abuse of power, graft and misuse of funding by unaccountable entities. When billions of dollars are going towards adapting to climate change, after what has been a period that featured the best 4 decades of weather, climate and CO2 levels for most life on this planet (especially humans) since the Medieval Warm Period, then one assumes that much of those funds will go outside of where they were intended.
I don’t trust entities that design their “help the poor” schemes, disguised with a “save the planet” false narrative to accomplish its objectives.
Bingo!
Yes, and renaming Third World or North-South initiatives as climate this or that does not help either.
Yes, the best aid developed nations could give poor nations is the gift of small, fail safe, modular nuke power generators. It could even be done by short circuiting all the graft and corruption normally encountered in undeveloped countries.
Our present Pope is a radical Jesuit Peronist from a backwards country whose climatology is even worse than his theology. For all the Catholic haters posting here, I should like to note that the Church is staffed by humans. We have had bad Popes before. The Church survived them. The Church will survive this one. Many orthodox Catholics are quite disturbed by this Pope’s many outrageous misstatements. G.K. Chesterton noted 5 times in History when it seemed the Catholic church would disappear. Each time it renewed itself and re-emerged as a vibrant and positive force. Since the Enlightenment, there has been an unceasing attack on the Church. A recent book, by a non-Catholic, debunks many of the popular slanders against the Church. The Church gave the moral foundation for what became Western civilization until the recent emergence of secularization and anti-theism. As Western society degenerates, it seems the Church owes no apologies to anyone for its History. People who believe the message of the Church, believe that Christ has already won the battle and that His Words will not pass away. The gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church although it seems we are headed for trying times.
There is a difference, I’ve found, between faith and religion. Faith is of the heart. Religion is politics. This pope is a politician – but aren’t they all?
What is new? This is old news actually.
Also Benedict XVI and Saint JPII wrote on the environment. They are cited by Francis. So what happened today to provoke this? Have I missed something?
Anthony trolling for clicks?
🙂
https://www.google.at/search?q=a+case+of+conscience&oq=a+case+of+conscience&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.43703j0j4&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
That is an interesting finding. There certainly are plenty of statements made by the Roman Pontifex Maximus that could be the subject of more studies and polls.
They could poll to find out if people in the Roman Church all agree with him that tax evasion is theft. Keeping in mind that the countries who are most aggressive in prosecuting tax evasion have destroyed their economies through expensive add-on wind turbines and solar panels, and also have run their countries into the highest debt-levels ever seen on God’s green earth.
An alternative view is that green energy and massive government spending is theft. And not just from the poor but also from the middle class.
Or what about the Roman Pontifex Maximus’ position that democracies are not suitable for addressing climate change and environmental issues because of the inherent changes with new administrations?
Or what about the Jesuits’ mission to weaken all immigration policies and laws in all countries to allow free movement of peoples and mass migration?
There are a few more questions for researchers to ask Catholics.
It is a good bet that very few here have read the entire encyclical. He had much to say about how the zealots of climate change who want to curb population growth to battle AGW. He said no. He had much to say to both sides of the issue. And NO, the Church is not against birth control. It is against “artificial” birth control. There is so much in these posts about the Catholic Church that are outright lies that it would be impossible to address them in a forum like this.
Let’s see the rebuttal from Planned Parenthood. I would like to see their side.
Planned Parenthood has nothing of value to offer….ever.
The pope has no right to entangle with politics. Since the 30 years war he should know better.
The popes repeatedly acted against better knowing; always to a bad end.
Seemingly god has mercy with them, same as with us.
But the Holy Father needs no decision by the conflict between secular and religious powers.
When there’s already written
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”