Slashdot Mirror
Pope Francis To Issue Encyclical On Global Warming
HughPickens.com writes The Guardian reports that following a visit in March to Tacloban, the Philippine city devastated in 2012 by typhoon Haiyan, Pope Francis plans to publish a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology urging all Catholics to take action on moral and scientific grounds. "A papal encyclical is rare," says Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences who revealed the pope's plans when he delivered Cafod's annual Pope Paul VI lecture. "It is among the highest levels of a pope's authority. It will be 50 to 60 pages long; it's a big deal." The encyclical will be sent to the world's 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will distribute it to parishioners. Within Catholicism in recent times, an encyclical is generally used for significant issues, and is second in importance only to the highest ranking document now issued by popes, an Apostolic Constitution. "Just as humanity confronted revolutionary change in the 19th century at the time of industrialization, today we have changed the natural environment so much," says Sorondo. "If current trends continue, the century will witness unprecedented climate change and destruction of the ecosystem with tragic consequences."
Francis's environmental radicalism is likely to attract resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US – where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives and Rick Santorum, the former Republican presidential candidate. "There will always be 5-10% of people who will take offence. They are very vocal and have political clout," says Dan Misleh, director of the Catholic climate covenant. "This encyclical will threaten some people and bring joy to others. The arguments are around economics and science rather than morality." Francis will also be opposed by the powerful US evangelical movement, says Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the conservative Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, which has declared the US environmental movement to be "un-biblical" and a false religion. "The pope should back off," says Beisner. "The Catholic church is correct on the ethical principles but has been misled on the science. It follows that the policies the Vatican is promoting are incorrect. Our position reflects the views of millions of evangelical Christians in the US."
Francis's environmental radicalism is likely to attract resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US – where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives and Rick Santorum, the former Republican presidential candidate. "There will always be 5-10% of people who will take offence. They are very vocal and have political clout," says Dan Misleh, director of the Catholic climate covenant. "This encyclical will threaten some people and bring joy to others. The arguments are around economics and science rather than morality." Francis will also be opposed by the powerful US evangelical movement, says Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the conservative Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, which has declared the US environmental movement to be "un-biblical" and a false religion. "The pope should back off," says Beisner. "The Catholic church is correct on the ethical principles but has been misled on the science. It follows that the policies the Vatican is promoting are incorrect. Our position reflects the views of millions of evangelical Christians in the US."
Climate change is a non-issue. The temperature has NOT risen since 1998. Fact. If people build homes on increasingly marginal land and closer to the sea or low-lying areas, then OF COURSE the effects of ANY climate event will be more severe! This is NOT proof that carbon dioxide is pollution.
Pope Frank can go right to hell. Between this and his bullshit about "welcoming" faggots to the church and his ridiculus support for evolution this has to be the worst pope in modern history. I know our local church is talking about issuing our own (albeit meagre) statement against him in the hope of starting a movement to have him defrocked. Pope francis does not represent me or millions of other catholics in the world. He is the result of an elite and corrupt segment of liberalsin the vatican who are trying to destroy the church from within.
You do know that there's PLENTY of scientific evidence out there which ISN'T funded by big oil refuting the ridiculous notion that carbon-dioxide is pollution? Just because something is funded by people with whom you have an ideological dispute it doesn't alter the quality (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of the writing on the page.
Most "climate science" is produced by rent-seeking alarmists whose jobs are dependent on a steady stream of government-funded group-think for their livelihoods. I would argue that this is the BIGGEST problem today. In fact, the state of "climate change" evidence (if you could call it that) is very analogues to medieval Catholicism:
Hypocritical Pope: Al Gore (flies about in jets all the time and has several electricity-guzzling mansions)
Heretics: "deniers"
Indulgences: carbon credits
Inquisition: the gullible mainstream media
Excommunication: the so-called "peer review" process which refuses to publish anything that doesn't toe the "CO2 is pollution" line
The past two to three decades have been an utter waste of time and money spent on this crap. You people could have been helping the world's poor by not providing them with unreliable/intermittent/costly "renewable" energy and letting them have coal-fired power plants to lift them out of poverty. But no, you prefer to hold them back. This is the great moral bankruptcy of this whole charade.
The embedded emissions in wind and solar are so high as to render them a complete waste of time. You do realise that coking coal is used in smelters to make all the steel to build these worthless contraptions? And the cement foundations for the wind turbines; cement is made from heating limestone & shale, releasing vast amounts CO2. You then have all the steel needed to prop up the solar panels, also made by burning coal. It all adds up, you know.
Just because you can see a shiny new wind turbine (that kills birds and bats in high numbers, by the way) doesn't mean all that CO2 released into the atmosphere during its production doesn't exist. Then you have the fact that wind turbines in cold areas draw electricity from coal-fired grids to keep them spinning during low wind conditions to prevent ice formation. Turbines also have to shut down in high wind conditions to stop them from breaking apart. A coal-fired plant is needed to back them up anyway, and you can't just flick the switch on a coal plant the moment the wind dies down, they take a day or more to get going. It would be funny if we all weren't paying for this huge waste of time.
I am old enough to mistrust any politician or religionist who talks about anything as a "moral imperative" because it usually implies mob justice and the crushing of civil liberties. Look at the history of the World. Look at ISIS right now whose highest priority is the moral imperative of submission to Islam. Tell me I'm wrong.
Francis is a communist. Lashing his religion to the religion of AGW, complete with social justice wealth redistribution as the solution, comes as no surprise.
I bet right now a lot of Catholics are longing for the days of Pope John Paul II, a man who spent his life fighting the Nazis and communists.
If you equate rape with the few marginal forms of gender discrimination that still exist, you are part of the problem.
I have always cared about ACTUAL environmentalism, not this global warming alarmist claptrap by watermelon greenies. It's sad how real environmentalism has been thrown under the bus for the sake of a few iconic baubles to satisfy the new eco-puritans who don't even realise the damage they support.
It's a shame his hands are tied on some of the most important issues though, e.g. contraception and family planning, or full acceptance of homosexuals. Those things cause a lot of unnecessary suffering.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC