Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The objective has been set, now up to the engineers to deliver.
Climate change: Pope urges action on clean energy
9 June 2018
Pope Francis has said climate change is a challenge of “epochal proportions” and that the world must convert to clean fuel.
“Civilisation requires energy, but energy use must not destroy civilisation,” he said.
He was speaking to a group of oil company executives at the end of a two-day conference in the Vatican.
Modern society with its “massive movement of information, persons and things requires an immense supply of energy”, he told the gathering.
“But that energy should also be clean, by a reduction in the systematic use of fossil fuels,” he said.
“Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.”
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44424572
The obvious response is you can have cheap, reliable energy or non-polluting energy, but not both.
But perhaps this is an opportunity. The Catholic Church has an awful lot of money, and the world is full of wildly implausible energy claims which few serious venture capitalists would consider, like E-cat cold fusion generators.
Skeptics like myself might think alternative energy ideas like Andrea Rossi’s E-cat claims are nonsense, but who knows? If Pope Francis wants the impossible, he needs to consider the extremely improbable, because just maybe somewhere out in the wilderness of wild ideas is an idea with real potential which we have all overlooked.
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That’s exactly what they do.
Isn’t a Pope supposed to be asking God for this, not man?
He seems to be a little mixed up between “God” and “Mammon.”
Being Pope has gone to his head………
Isn’t the Pope supposed to be infallible? So, if he is wrong about man-made climate change, what does it tell about the Catholic Church?
Infallible in matters of faith and morals when speaking ex cathedra, i.e., from the papal throne as Pope.
Lord Acton (“…Absolute power* corrupts absolutely.”) made a trip to Rome to try to convince the Church not to declare the Pope infallible in even that limited sense. He was unsuccessful, unfortunately.
So far, the current Pope has not spoken on Climate ex cathedra. I would not rule that out in the future, however. Francis is a Communist and Communists are, by nature, unable to leave any power unused that might serve their ends.
* Acton was speaking of the Pope, but this is generally true.
I would not recommend trying to defend the Catholic faith by making claims about the infallibility of this guy.
If they wanted to elect a pope that would damage respect for the church, they picked the right person.
“Infallible in matters of faith and morals when speaking ex cathedra, i.e., from the papal throne as Pope.”
Wasnt he speaking about matters of faith when he declared the Sun moved around the Earth during the time of Galileo?
Jesus – “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” but the man who claims to represent him on Earth lives in a palace and sleeps in a golden bed.
Richard;
No, he wasn’t. As a cardinal at the time observed, “The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go”. Galileo claimed as a matter of truth that the earth went around the sun. He could offer no supporting evidence, which wouldn’t be forthcoming until M. Foucault’s observations a couple of hundred years later. This absolute claim is what got him in dutch with the Office of the Inquisition.
There are only two (2) ex cathedra teachings, and both are about Mary.
If he wants to venture out of his realm of infallibility, he needs to be ready for people to tell him that he has no clue about what he’s trying to discus. It’s kind of like a sports figure or actor recommending a commercial product unrelated to his area of expertise.
NO, he’s not infallible. Where people pick up this nonsense about papal infallibility is beyond me…
http://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2011/02/17/when-does-the-pope-speak-infallibly/
The Pope is pissing off most all followers. He is gonna get a boot in his a$$ from his continued questionable actions on many fronts. This is what happens when you put a socialist in that position of power.
Supplimental video that was sent to me. Is this wrong on said subject from a year ago? Much has happened since. Just curious on others take. Start at 9 minutes if you want to get to the nitty gritty fast, but the beginning was interesting also.
She tells her opinions openly, and thoroughly. I love it. This vid should be sent to every news agency on Earth.
The Pope should stick to the religion of Christianity. He’s out of his depth with the Climate Change religion, but he thinks it can serve his socialist political desires.
Yes, the 9:00 minute mark is the climate nitty-gritty, but if you’re interested in faith, I recommend starting at the beginning. (I did not watch the whole video. Well not yet)
(P.S. this is my first post in the new comment style. Hope it’s OK)
No, the obvious response is that we already have cheap, reliable, clean energy from the oil companies.
Not to mention the cheap reliable and CO2 free Hydro and Nuclear energy fuels sources.
Coming from the Pope, perhaps the church could bring forth a miracle of a cheap/abundant/”clean” non nuclear, non hydro energy source.
You know da greens is in trouble when all dey got left is da pope! (‘n you know what? all dey got left is da pope)…
So any mention of nuclear fission? None ? I guess when your profession depends on miracles you can overlook the one that has already occurred and go for the preposterous.
Great if you can work out how to use less energy to start and maintain the reaction than what you get out of it.
Ummm, we’ve known how to start and maintain the reaction of nuclear fission and get gigantic amounts of energy out of it for a lifetime now.
Ehem, right you are. Muddle those two words all the time…
Avi Fission (U-235) not fusion (H-3 + H-2)
Um, thanks. I stand corrected with a smear of egg on my face….
The consensus is now complete.
The victory of the green religion over the traditional Christian one is complete!
How do I know that? Because even the pope doesn’t see it!
There’s a bunch of us who’ve been saying that the popes are full of crap for a little over 500 years now.
Not all of them. John Paul II played a pivotal role in the collapse of the old Soviet Union.
“There’s a bunch of us who’ve been saying that the popes are full of crap for a little over 500 years now.”
You age remarkably well!
🤣(ROFLMAO)
I get that popes can pretty much speak on whatever they want…however, the church obviously has a long-standing criminal mess with priests (and their enabling bishops) playing with little boys.
Maybe popes should spend more time & effort on things they’re directly responsible for before wandering into the fantasy world of climate.
“It’s up to the engineers to deliver”. So easy to say when you are not an engineer. From the day I started mech engineering at university, 48 years ago, I have been wondering about alternative ways of powering the world. Why wouldn’t I? I’d be a trillionaire if I could economically replace fossil fuels. I am sure 97% of mech engineers have dreamt the same. Problem is, dear Pope, dear alarmists, dear politician, dear journalist, dear greeny, it just isn’t that simple.
It’s clear Pope Francis doesn’t know much about technology, engineering, business, economics or how to make a living outside the church. It is also evident his advisors are ignorant Marxists, which is understandable given that the guy is communist.
What seems to escape him is that non government owned oil companies are very good at extracting oil and making products which use oil and gas as a feedstock. They aren’t really energy companies, aren’t well suited to build nuclear plants, windmill or solar panels. This means they shouldn’t even try to go into those business lines, because they’ll likely fail.
I realize Statoil, which has strong government mandates, is dabbling in offshore wind power, which works when heavily subsidized and won’t accomplish much beyond a few niche projects in rich nations. But I wouldn’t bet on oil companies in general doing much good outside their field. As oil runs out, they are turning into natural gas producers. When natural gas runs out, they won’t have much left to do.
Fernando wrote:
“It’s clear Pope Francis doesn’t know much about technology, engineering, business, economics or how to make a living outside the church.”
Sounds like most politicians I hear of in the news. Just replace “Pope Francis” with any politician’s name and “the church” with “government”, and the statement would be just as true. Everyone in power all of a sudden becomes an expert in fields they have never studied.
Oil companies have enormous experience working in deep sea environments. They can easily leverage that into deep sea mining operations. The recent discovery of several hundred years of rare earth metals at 6000m off the coast of Japan is just the tip of the iceberg.
With due respect he is clueless on this subject and should leave it to those who know. Oil companies already produce cheap fuel. That is why greens don’t get it, they are still down the bottom of the garden with the other gnomes and fairies.
Should have just stopped after ‘clueless’!
It seems like the pope is an expert in all things, but has little knowledge of anything.
I am reminded of the older, real religious-leader Pope, who was told, “The Church should tell us how to get to heaven, not how heaven goes to hell.”
Well, he was educated/mentored by communists.
Well da papa could try a little miracle himself – mebe practice a little by walking on water for awhile and then work up to a really biggie – carbon free cheap energy – that would do the trick – join the immortals!
(he could turn water into gasahol… ☺)
I am now going to preach to the pope: Francis, please open your Bible to Genesis, Chapter 8, and read its last two verses:
“…and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake … neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
Francis, please note the last sentence. The things of nature mentioned therein are all CYCLICAL — no monotonically increasing, run-away heat death for this earth. Francis, put away your LINEAR thinking!
This ends my encyclical to Pope Francis.
In the Green religion Man has become God. Little does he remember that in fact he is just one more squirming Animal, existing at the whim and mercy of Nature. I think that’s what they just can’t take.
noaaprogrammer
————
It seems like you making a logical point… but last time the Vatican and the Pope did follow that line, the Pope and the Vatican ended up hands full with this Galileo humiliating problem.
In matters of knowledge as per science there is no any authority position that actually validates confirms or proves anything, apart from the means of the scientific method, which simply means that in matters of science the Pope has to stand by the main line of the
scientific orthodoxy, unless clearly and convincingly shown otherwise….
And in this particular case, is not like pope Francis has or did issued a Papal order, or any order at all,,, it simply is in a manner of urging and pleading….far much softer and benign than the position that some USA institutions of power are taking.
And in principle I think that the theological or philosophical religious method can not be engaged against the science by a religious authority, as it will engage at some point with the scientific method, which is not much different in principle.
Both methods essentially support and cherish the “ugly fact”, in fact the christian path stands as the upholding of the virtue of one of most “ugly facts” in Religion of God. Where The Pope actually as per catholic position, stands as the very loyal servant of that “fact”….as per religion point of view always of course .
In this context, any catholic or christian or any one baptized or even circumcised, that may like to assist and support the Vatican and pope Francis in matters of climate change science, got to make the effort and get a petition in the means of informing about the four testimonies before the USA congress about the scientific method in the subject of climate change…
Anyway, I my self can not see any reason for much of a problem with this latest activity.
Maybe the problem could be little more so and a bit more complicated in the case of the excommunication clause! (not very clear this one)
cheers
The pope is an idiot.
Sam Grove
Worse than that, he’s just what Jesus didn’t want.
A privileged man, taking money from the poor to surround himself with wealth, then preach to the poor about how evil they are.
Is this the guy who heads a religion that until recently (1822) thought the sun revolved around the earth. The same religion that until 1903 promoted the castration of children to maintain their singing tone? Sorry if I don’t care about what an irrelevant guy in a dress and pointy hat thinks about global warming, green energy or anything else really.
No. This is the guy who heads a denomination that until recently, etc.
The day he shows us the “loaves and fishes” trick with energy we’ll start paying attention. ‘Til then, he’s just one more voice braying into the echo chamber of the Tower of Babel.
” or non-polluting energy ”
I’ll give you some leeway on this. Just suggesting it could have been worded better.
Unlike those who are working to destroy western civilization from within, the Pope acknowledges the importance of cheap reliable energy. That’s a good thing.
We know that agents of the USSR actively worked to subvert the west by working with the powerful, corrupt, and cynical. link H.R. McMaster says Putin is still doing the same thing. link Putin would like to have activists campaign against fracking in Europe. That way, Europe would be forced to continue importing natural gas from Russia. link
The bad guys want to deprive everyone of cheap reliable energy.
The cleanest burning of fossil fuels oxidizes hydrocarbons to yield CO2 and H2O both of which are vital to life on this planet. The reality is that there is no radiant greenhouse effect and that this added CO2 and H2O has no effect on climate. The climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control.
Abundant clean energy? Sure. But it won’t be especially cheap, especially as long as the Luddites keep blocking the way. Nuclear? While the lefty lawyers keep filing lawsuits to delay everything…. As long as the politicians keep blocking things like orbital solar power…
I suggest fairy dust and unicorn farts.
Fusion is the future and getting here fast. Progress is sufficient that public utilities are starting to invest. Southern Company is my local utility and they are starting to talk about fusion efforts at investor conferences.
Getting here fast? In the ’60s, it was just 40 years away. Sometimes I hear now that it is just 20 years away, but I suspect it is still 40 years – i.e, the business horizon. Businesses don’t generally plan beyond 40 years in general. That’s as far as the eye can see for them.
Fusion has been a few years,away for over 60 years.
Fission is just fine and waiting to actually help us.
Oil company executives don’t tell Francis how to do his job. He shouldn’t be telling them how to do their jobs, especially since he is so clueless. Stick to what you know, Frank.
I do wonder what the engineers thought, or even discussed for two days. Did they just sit back in their chairs dreaming of what they’d do when they get back home, or did they discuss the problem with the Pope.
Gathering from his comments; whatever was discussed, it didn’t penetrate this thick skull.
And what exactly does the Pope know?
Back in the 80’s the Council of Bishops issue an encyclical on the economy.
A famous economist (could have been Alan Greenspan) replied, when asked about it replied, I’ll read it right after the Council of Economic Advisers publishes it’s paper on the Virgin Birth.
He has shown that the office of the Pope is a political post and has very little to do with religion.
Mike – He has shown that the office of the Pope has become a political post and has very little to do with religion.
Wasn’t always that way, or at least didn’t appear to be so. Of course, any post that one is elected to has some politics in it, but the lifetime appointment was intended to minimize that element. But this pope is all about global politics.
There were times (before the Reformation) when it was **much** more politicized than today. When the office was sold to the highest bidder (from the ‘correct’ families of course).
Oil company Chiefs deserve the Pope and vice versa.
Both are left-wing UN globalist mobsters serving corrupt vested interests.
Many public entities and the Catholic church have been infiltrated by ‘fund managers people’ fronting for the UN.
Crooks of the highest order and let’s not forget their mates at Google who blew a couple of hundred million trying to prove that everyone was doing renewables wrong. Then abruptly in 2014 Google stopped and admitted renewables were unviable. Some of their engineers were not so polite using words to describe renewables that can’t be repeated here.
https://community.oilprice.com/topic/2011-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/
Wrong. Here is what they said: “Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work”, they write. “We need a fundamentally different approach.”
So yeah, renewables alone are not enough. That’s no stop the presses news – it’s well known that a combination of energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy is needed. And of course in the 4 years since they wrote their article, massive improvements in battery technology have been made.
Just keep telling yourself that. Perhaps it will help you sleep at night.
Massive? Is that another word for imaginary?
Wrong. Renewables (solar & wind) are unviable. Google spent most of its time and money under RE<C on solar and wind. Fragmentation, as you propose ("a combination of energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy") of the electricity market is the problem, not the solution.
Anyway, just ask James Hansen what's going to happen to solar & wind. He was a principal adviser to RE<C.
There won't be many commercial solar or wind farm operating in the World by 2080.
Watermelon pope
Pope makes it official: The Middle Ages were the Good Old Days!
His native Argentina agrees to junk all tractors, plow the pampas with teams of mules, haul produce to market with “clean” ox carts, manage transoceanic commerce with wooden windjammers.
Peasant revolt begins when the little people tire of stepping in cow flop, being widowed & orphaned by shipwrecks.
“Oh well,” sayeth the Pope. “Back to the drawing board.”
The Pontiff retreats to walled Vatican City, as angry peasants mass outside, brandishing pitchforks. “The next project? A world without walls! Or pitchforks.”
Plowing the pampas with mules or oxen is considered animal cruelty these days.
This attitude has deep roots – right back into the Old Testament.
Moses, otherwise brilliant, led his people from Egypt to the only patch of land there that had not a single drop of oil.
Talk about futures!
bonbon I wish you would submit a story to Anthony, you’re so weird it might actually be funny.
Not only that, he took 40 years to do it – Golda Meir.
But they have natural gas!
That took only 3000 years to mature – long term investment.
That’s half the Biblical age of the universe, high risk.
The Bible does not give an age for the Universe.
But, Tom, the great Bishop Ussher, Primate of All Ireland, calculated, from the Holy Scripture, that the World was created in 4004 BC [I think on 26th October, but open to correction – my memory may well be in error].
That seems tolerably close to giving an age for the universe – remember, before then the ‘World was void and without form’ – ‘World’, perhaps, an analogy for universe.
Like the Racing Pages may say that Horse One beat Horse Two by five lengths, and Horse Two beat Horse Three by two lengths. They do not say that Horse One beat Horse Three by seven lengths. But that can be calculated!
Of course, the Bishop may have miscounted.
Or the Biblical words may have been mistranslated – or even wrong to start with.
Or, perhaps, written only as analogies . . . . .
Auto
Or, there’s the truth. That the genealogies from which any well meaning counter (including Bishop Ussher) might attempt such a calculation, are incomplete.
Unless of course, Jesus Christ truly is the “son of David” (strictly speaking, that is) plus or minus 1000 years after David’s death.
Oil has been found in Israel.
God exists! Scientific proof: 100% consensus among priests . . . .
Not quite. https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/catholic-priests-dont-believe-god-2153298
Denier! Heretic!
Those priests are just misguided souls, or had their words skewed by the evil media (you know the ones that don’t support our statement), the consensus is in! The matter is settled!! How dare you question the consensus and our made up statistic!
/sarc
The Pope endorsed the Encyclical from Hell, Laudato Si , written by Dr. John Schellnhuber, CBE of the Potsdam Climate Institute. Scientific and technological progress is ruled out a direct attack on developing nations.
Correction : PIK – the Potsdam Climate Impact research institute.