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Pope Attacked By Climate Change Skeptics
HughPickens.com writes: The Telegraph reports that as the Vatican forges an alliance with the UN to tackle climate change, skeptics accuse Pope Francis of being deeply ill-informed about global warming. The Pope discussed climate change with Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, who then opened a one-day Vatican conference called "The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Development". Organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, SDSN and Religions for Peace, the goal of the conference is to help strengthen the global consensus on the importance of climate change in the context of sustainable development.
But a group of British and American skeptics say the Pope is being fed "mistaken" advice from the UN and that he should stick to speaking out on matters of morality and theology rather than getting involved in the climate change debate. "The Pope has great moral authority but he's not an authority on climate science. He's a learned man but the IPCC has got it wrong," says Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute, a conservative American pressure group partly funded by billionaire industrialists who question climate change. "The Pope would make a grave mistake if he put his moral authority behind scientists saying that climate change is a threat to the world. Many scientists have concluded that human activity is a minor player. The Earth has been warming since the end of the last Ice Age."
It was the first time the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago and has been described by the New York Times as "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism," has traveled to Rome to try to influence a pope. "The sideshow envisioned by these organizations will not detract from the deep concern that Pope Francis has for the truth and how it relates to the environment," says Dr. Bernard Brady, Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at the University of St. Thomas. "Pope Francis will probably follow his predecessor, Benedict XVI, recognizing the interrelatedness of climate change with other moral issues and calling for persons, organizations, communities, nations, and indeed the global community, to reconsider established patterns of behavior."
But a group of British and American skeptics say the Pope is being fed "mistaken" advice from the UN and that he should stick to speaking out on matters of morality and theology rather than getting involved in the climate change debate. "The Pope has great moral authority but he's not an authority on climate science. He's a learned man but the IPCC has got it wrong," says Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute, a conservative American pressure group partly funded by billionaire industrialists who question climate change. "The Pope would make a grave mistake if he put his moral authority behind scientists saying that climate change is a threat to the world. Many scientists have concluded that human activity is a minor player. The Earth has been warming since the end of the last Ice Age."
It was the first time the Heartland Institute, which is based in Chicago and has been described by the New York Times as "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism," has traveled to Rome to try to influence a pope. "The sideshow envisioned by these organizations will not detract from the deep concern that Pope Francis has for the truth and how it relates to the environment," says Dr. Bernard Brady, Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at the University of St. Thomas. "Pope Francis will probably follow his predecessor, Benedict XVI, recognizing the interrelatedness of climate change with other moral issues and calling for persons, organizations, communities, nations, and indeed the global community, to reconsider established patterns of behavior."
than the climate skeptics like. But maybe they are right, maybe he should just give them spiritual guidance to stop lying for money.
When the Pope is more progressive than you are then you might be an extremist.
Err, the church has always been learned, in fact most of the information that survived through the dark ages survived because of monks. If you're thinking of Galileo, the church knew he was correct but they didn't think that the populace should be exposed to it without preparation, that might have been very arrogant, but it hardly shows a lack of scientific knowledge by the Pope.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
He worked as a Chemical Technologist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_technologist) part of his life, and global warming definitely seems like a moral issue to me.
If he can criticize the deaths caused by poverty or extremism, he can criticize global warming.
Not really, since if there is no man made climate change we at least need to clean up our environment anyway. If on the other hand the skeptics are wrong and they win the argument humanity is up shit creek and it's going to cost a ton of money and lives in the near future.
So, to be on the safe side isn't it better to deal with a possible man made climate change now regardless of it's true or not?
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
"But a group of British and American skeptics say the Pope is being fed "mistaken" advice from the UN and that he should stick to speaking out on matters of morality and theology rather than getting involved in the climate change debate"
While I would have no reason to consider the pope's opinion on a scientific matter to be particularly interesting; doesn't climate change count as a glaringly obvious moral issue under all but the very, very, most optimistic models of its expected effects? I realize such statements are a polite way of saying 'go back to talking about financially irrelevant stuff like homosexuals and the slut menace, and let us do as we wish'; but if the imposition of negative externalities, on a substantial scale, isn't a moral issue, what would be?
The Pope is just the person we need to settle once and for all the correct interpretation of the scientific evidence. Thank goodness we'll be spared the downward spiral into nearly religious zealotry that climate change debate was headed.
I strongly suspect that you will find most American and British conservatives are Protestants. Excommunicating them from the Catholic church would be a non-concept for them.
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Just because the Catholic Church has been taken some stupid, incorrect positions in some fields of science doesn't mean they don't care about the sciences in general.
The lines between communism/socialism and Catholicism/"conservative Christianity" have never been all that sharp to begin with: they both denounce competition and wealth, they both tend to be socially conservative in practice, and both believe that they know the road to salvation for all humanity and it's their job to impose it even on the unwilling. That is probably why those two ideologies hate each other so much.
One of those ideologies has taken over the Democrats, and the other has taken over the Republicans. They agree on the principle of compelling people against their will to do what they believe is good and moral, they simply disagree about who should be in charge and which irrational principles justify that. You and what you want is irrelevant to either of these groups; according to both of them, you are just a "stupid American voter" who needs to be tricked into doing the right thing for his own good (tricking people into doing the "right" thing is, again, a long-standing principle in both ideologies).
It's like members of the flat earth society getting top billing on all the news broadcasts.
Pope: "The Earth is round."
Skeptics: "How can you be sure? I paid $100 million to have bunch of people say it's flat!!"
Fixed the headline.
This is not just a nitpick. Skeptics are people who reserve judgement or attack bad evidence. Pretending the evidence is bad doesn't make you a skeptic, it makes you a denier. As in "holocaust denier" or "evolution denier" or "Sandy Hook shooting denier".
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Skeptic implies the science isnt overwhelmingly concentric on the nature and cause of climate change as a science. What we mean when we say 'skeptic' is overpaid corporate shit-lord who learned grant funding for snake oil 'research' means trading your honda hatchback for a BMW and making your student loans disappear.
Climate change is real. We are causing it. When even the leader of a cult that believes you can eat and drink the body of your dead god comes to realize this, its probably time to pack up your dog and pony show.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Sounds like the Heartland Institute is getting a lot of Koch lately.
What is those Scientific questions may mean life or death for millions? Or prevent good stewardship of the planet, which is a biblical imperative?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Well, correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Bible say that Man has dominion over all living things, and even the Earth itself? If God commands us to be the stewards of the Earth, then it seems to be climate change is well within the purview of the Pope.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
.
However, the rate of warming has increased, with a correlation to the increase of the warming gases.
Is the correlation 100%? No. However, if we wait until the correlation is 100%, then it will be too late to do anything about the problem.
On the other hand, even if global warming were not caused by humans, shouldn't we be trying to mitigate its effects anyway? Should we be planning for the effects of rising sea waters, instead of (as the skeptics want) just do nothing and let the waters rise?
I agree that a religious figure has no business opining on science issues
The pope doesn't opine on science issues. He takes it for a scientific fact, which is perfectly reasonable.
The pope opines on how people can improve their lifestyles so as to minimize the climate impact.
The overwhelming majority of climatologists are essentially paid by the taxpayers of their nations. Whether AGW is true or not, most of them would still be in related fields (atmospheric research, oceanography, geology, etc.) Climatologists have nothing to gain by AGW being demonstrated as happening, but the fossil fuel industry has an enormous amount to lose by it being generally accepted.
Note here that in the climatological community, the number of skeptics is probably around the same as the number of skeptics of evolution to be found in the biology community. There is very little controversy over AGW, no matter how much fossil fuel-funded propaganda outfits like Heartland claim there is.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
For chrissakes, that was four hundred years ago. Jesus christ, is that the best defense of the lying sociopaths at the Heartland Institute, that one of the Pope's predecessors, centuries ago, screwed over an astronomer?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Science without religion is science. Religion is blind.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
On the other hand, even if global warming were not caused by humans, shouldn't we be trying to mitigate its effects anyway? Should we be planning for the effects of rising sea waters, instead of (as the skeptics want) just do nothing and let the waters rise?
Is that their claim? The seas have risen by something like 200m in the past 13000 years.
I thought their claim was that human-produced CO2 is a minor contributor and that the vapor feedback cycle is limiting, so humans should focus on adaptation to change rather than trying to prevent it since they can't.
Is this a misrepresentation of the claims?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
First they denied climate change. Next they denied human influence on the climate. Now they are denying man-made climate change will have some adverse effects. Deniers will always deny, until it's too late. The whole article is wrong. The debate is not about whether it is dangerous or not. Of course it is not dangerous. Life on earth isn't threatened by climate change. The debate is whether the costs of doing nothing outweigh the costs of acting now to reduce CO2 emissions. And most current evidence points us to answer positively, although we will never be 100% sure. The other debate is how to reduce emissions and who should reduce them. With most countries obviously arguing so that all others make the effort but not them. The developed countries are especially to blame, because they want to continue to pollute a lot more, per capita, than developing countries.
Good thing we don't have to go to Soros for information on AGW.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What to do or not do about climate change is a moral issue, and therefore a religious issue. Science doesn't dictate human actions; it only describes consequences of actions. But obviously consequences should affect decisions.
If there are moral decisions to made over climate change, then religious leaders are obligated to look into the science behind it to make sure they have the base facts correct.
Table-ized A.I.
Bring back Pope Benedict. At least he was rational. And while we're at it, arm him, and give him troops so he can do something about persecutions of Christians in the Middle East.
You want the pedophile shuffler back? Really?
His resignation was timed to deflect attention from that issue, coming as it was the very week HBO's documentary linking him (and his soon-to-be-sainted predecessor) directly to the pedophile scandals in the US, Ireland, and elsewhere came out.
And it worked. Instead of public outcry at the documented link between the then-reigning popes and the pedophile coverup, everyone was wetting their pants over a shiny new pope who wasn't to the right of Genghis Khan.
That said, it takes a really hardcore right-wingnut to want Ratzinger back.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
He is in charge of his followers' spiritual well-being, which would be tested to the extreme should they be subjected to famine, loss of their homes, pestilence, and so on. The fact he's on the side of science and attempting to help billions of people should be applauded, not condemned.
The four most populous countries use the death penalty and in total over 50% of the world population lives in nations where state aurhorized executions occur. Capital punishment is not unusual even among the worlds economic leaders. There are many good arguments against capital punishment but this isn't one. Instead cite 4% of those executed being innocent or the higher cost relative to incarceration.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
And Jesuits have done more than a little bit to advance scientific understanding, especially in the earth sciences, but also in just about every field you can imagine. It's surprising, the scientific disciplines where you find Jesuits doing important work.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They do. In fact, many Catholic organizations, such as Dayton University divested themselves of their fossil fuel holdings and moved the money to green energy.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You need to go back read a little history on why Galileo was punished.
Yes, the church has been on the wrong side of a whole lot of science, but Galileo's predicament was largely his own fault, and had little to do with science. Giordano Bruno might have been a better choice for an example, although his BBQ wasn't entirely about his stance in science.
That said, the church also accepts natural selection, and when it's been faced with evidence of it's incorrectness, it does come around (eventually). The ones here on the wrong side are the ones who are being bought and paid for mouthpieces for industries that stand to lose lots of money should humanity start taking corrective action. As we've seen, the scientists who populate that side tend to have minimally connected area's of study at best, and at worst are nothing more than common people with no education in any field at all, but they just want their uneducated and ignorant opinion to be heard as loud as possible.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I strongly suspect that you will find most American and British conservatives are Protestants. Excommunicating them from the Catholic church would be a non-concept for them.
Well, maybe. Of the Republicans running or widely considered to be possibly running for President, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal
Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum are all Catholic. That's a pretty good chunk of the people considered to be actual contenders.
I find it hilarious that the one "leading climate change skeptic" they name is Christopher Monckton who is basically a climate change denial kook. The Telegraph seems to have an obsession for climate change denial and hosts columns from two other prominent denialists - James Delingpole and Christopher Booker.
Rhetoric is not some magical thing owned by only one group. The same types of arguments to sway emotion and ignore information harming your argument have been around for at least 2,600 years. Socrates hated the Sophists because they were masters of manipulation, and cared nothing for truth and honesty.
Why do you think that we have named fallacies, which very few people learn? Oh.. because if people know to look for them the Sophistry begins to fail.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
in fact most of the information that survived through the dark ages survived because of monks
Much survived because of monks, but if my history is right (and it's probably not) the enlightenment came from knowledge that survived via the Arabs. Hence we have names like Algebra (from Al-Jabr), for example.
I am seem to recall that during the dark ages the Romans/Italians had around 2-5% literacy rate. Not much knowledge survived there.
There was progression by monks during the middle ages, notably time-keeping and eyeglasses. But I am not sure how much historical knowledge was retained by them. It might be lots - but I've just not seen any historical books to that effect (though I would enjoy reading knowing more).
... the day you make it illegal for billionaires to use air conditioning.
Fine, the Heartland institute, a well known fossil fuel propaganda production facility, made baseless criticisms on the Pope, invoking several of their well known fallacies, lies and distortions.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well first, you need to understand that monks copied or translated works. They didn't write history books, etc; so you're probably not going to find books penned by monks. Partly for the whole humility thing. So, for example while not exactly a history book, Beowulf. We have Beowulf because monks copied and preserved the story or wrote down the oral tale. That literacy rate you're talking about while harmful didn't stop the monks. The clergy was the literate of the "dark ages" (a misnomer but I'll still use it for our purposes here); they could read and write.
Your history is slightly off too. The Renaissance came about because of the works coming out of the Arab world at that time. The Crusades ironically are what kick started this. Prior to the Crusades, Arab works trickled into Europe.
I get GPs point, but believe they asked the wrong question. The question should have been, "What do Democrats DO differently than Republicans?" The answer to that is where people say "nothing" and see that there is no difference between the parties.
Example: Barack Obama claiming "I want peace in the Middle East" is not the same thing as him continuing and extending bombing, drone campaigns, funding and arming rebels, and toppling governments that "The US does not like"
His _actions_ are not different from GW Bush in terms of actual "peace". I don't count any politicians speeches as their actions, I count their actions as their actions.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Bruno was a mystic who thought the stars and planets had souls, and wrote books on magic. He was right about the infinite nature of the universe the way a broken clock is right twice a day.
No one should be persecuted for their religious beliefs. But, to hold Bruno up as an example of the Church's "anti-science attitude" (if you believe it has one) is false, as while yes he was persecuted, he was persecuted for his religious ideas (like denying the divinity of Christ, magic, etc) and not his scientific ideas.
His ideas were also not particularly scientific, as they derived from reason, not observation and experiment. More Aristotle than Democritus.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
To wit, New Pope is a Jesuit and worked as a chemical engineer.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
It was corporate interests that sold Americans on the idea that Capitalism went hand in hand with Christianity. I love the irony of Christianity arguing back. (It isn't just the pope, there have been some fundamentalist groups making the same basic argument recently).
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
Also it is true that 1998 was a hot year. If the temperatures were not rising, we should expect lower temperatures after the outlier 1998, isn't it? But the record of 1998 was beaten in 2005, 2010 and 2014. So it's not true that there hasn't been any warming since then.
| In the whole recorded history of the planet, CO2 *follows* the heat patterns
Except for the very important exception of now, when humans have dug up fossil fuels and burnt them in a mechanism never previously active in geological history. We have CO2 first, and now the heat's coming.
If something different is happening now, the results may be different.
The causal mechanism from CO2 to temperature is not derived from historical correlations but direct quantitative observation and physical experiments. The importance of the paleoclimate is that there may be natural feedforwards in which extra heat releases additional CO2 which would increase heat more still.
Please tell us who exactly who was "pumping" all that CO2 and Methane into Earth's atmosphere back when CO2 levels were higher and temperatures were much warmer?
Volcanoes
Nothing could be better for Pope Francis's credibility and demonstrate better that he is raising valid points than being attacked by climate change so-called skeptics.
Seriously? At this point in time, you are going against all current peer reviewed science on this? You aren't a skeptic. You're a denier. And/or paid shills and/or liars.
All other plausible non-anthropogenic mechanisms have been investigated and do not explain the observed data. Every aspect has been investigated every which way for decades.
Claiming data and mechanisms are not the same as providing data and mechanism.
You have just claimed, not provided, thus hinting that you are wrong.