Earth Day - Climate Change and Catholic Church

[BobCatholic]

Like I said before, the leftist dominated modern environmental movement puts the earth above those who live on it, and dehumanizes people. They are part of the culture of death.

To them, we humans are nothing but a virus and the only cure is our death. I’m sure that when they choose who gets to die, they’re going to be fair, right?

“the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” - Tertullian

 

[gam197]

originally posted by tuviskazinai,
But I do have one last question (two, actually): first of all, is the world’s growing population a threat to world peace and economic justice? And secondly: if not, then why not, and if so, then what can be done about it within a Catholic framework? Maybe this is a question for another thread, I’m not sure. Either way, it interests me. This is one of the precious few questions I am often unable to answer as a Catholic when I talk to my non-Catholic friends…

.

I think there needs to be a new thread for this. This question is asked of all of us and I am not sure we can answer it as no one knows whether the world’s population is a real threat or not; many believe that its about marketing, over consumption and distribution.

Some catholics are trying to get some values and control back in their own families by homeschooling so that their kids aren’t having sex at age 12. The Church does allow couples to use NFP to space their children so possibly earlier and better teaching on how bodies work would be in order.

 

[tuviskazinai]

.

I think there needs to be a new thread for this. This question is asked of all of us and I am not sure we can answer it as no one knows whether the world’s population is a real threat or not; many believe that its about marketing, over consumption and distribution.

Some catholics are trying to get some values and control back in their own families by homeschooling so that their kids aren’t having sex at age 12. The Church does allow couples to use NFP to space their children so possibly earlier and better teaching on how bodies work would be in order.

Very good answers…thanks very much!!

Peace,
+AMDG+

 

[Don_L]

I just hope that the Church doesn’t encourage this giagantic climate change hoax by confusing this “settled science” politics and eco - worship with legitimate stewardship.(Which always must be supported)

Its intent is to control people, not free them. It

One clue ought to be that it “is not debatable”(who fears truth?) and is supported by the same political ideologues that seek to eliminate excess humans from the planet and equate man with being just another animal. Another clue is that these same earth-worshipping ideologues generally loathe religion and particularly Catholics and their Church.

They also fear using our resources (wisely) and prefer preservation (don’t use) to conservation (wise use) as did the loser in the parable of the talents.

 

[JimG]

Actually, the most significant threat in future years will be UNDERpopulation. Find the video on “Demographic Winter,” to get the facts. The developed countries will be the first to be affected. It takes a fertility rate of 2.11 to keep a population stable. Many European countries are already below that, and will be able to maintain national identity only through immigration. The U.S. is teetering on the edge. We will soon be hearing about government initiatives to induce couples to have more children. Many nations with low fertility levels already have such initiatives in place.

In the meantime, Gaia has never had a problem taking care of herself. She’s 25,000 miles in circumference and has a complex ecosystem. I doubt that our computer models actually know what’s happening with her.

 

[tuviskazinai]

Actually, the most significant threat in future years will be UNDERpopulation. Find the video on “Demographic Winter,” to get the facts. The developed countries will be the first to be affected. It takes a fertility rate of 2.11 to keep a population stable. Many European countries are already below that, and will be able to maintain national identity only through immigration. The U.S. is teetering on the edge. We will soon be hearing about government initiatives to induce couples to have more children. Many nations with low fertility levels already have such initiatives in place.

In the meantime, Gaia has never had a problem taking care of herself. She’s 25,000 miles in circumference and has a complex ecosystem. I doubt that our computer models actually know what’s happening with her.

Thanks very much for this reference! I would be very interested in seeing this video. The population decline in Europe is scary. In fact, just the other day I was in class – a course on contemporary French society – and our professor, a pretty secular guy who has no qualms about insulting the Church, said that he was terrified about the low birth rate in countries like Italy and Spain. (France is, by European standards, fairly fertile.) So it was good to know that this isn’t just “Christian right fearmongering,” which is how many websites describe the Demographic Winter project.

Do you have any references for the countries out there that have initiatives encouraging childbirth? France may be one of them. It pays a ton of money for public nurseries and allows you to deduct tons of taxes for each child that you have – and subsidizes (it’s complex, but it works out to being a subsidy) nurses so that women don’t feel like they need to choose between raising children and having careers. (I would imagine that having both parents at work quite often also has effects on how the children grow up, but I’m not able to speak to that question…) Also, college is practically free in France. These are interesting ideas that maybe the US and other low-fertility countries could think about…?

I do still have a few questions / observations.

1. While Europe’s population may be declining, populations in the third world, and in second-world countries like India, are booming. So in other words, population is growing in places where resources are not adequate to meet their needs. I don’t want to project an anti-life attitude, because I don’t believe the proper response is to be afraid of our children; but I do think that on the broad level of global social justice, some sort of solution needs to be worked out.
2. The Demographic Winter site suggested that America is becoming barren too, although I’ve looked at other statistics and it’s not as bad as Europe. (Large waves of immigrants also contribute to the growing US population.) The problem here is that Americans tend to consume and pollute a LOT more than most other people in the world…again putting a strain on global resources and the environment, even if its population isn’t exactly skyrocketing. So the question here is not so much how Americans will regulate their births, but whether they will teach their children to consume responsibly.
3. The last question is sort of theoretical. One of the reasons that the population decline in Europe is even scarier than it would be otherwise is that nowadays people are living a lot longer than we used to, and need to be supported (by the young and by the economy) into our old age as we lose the ability to work. But let’s say that Europe’s fertility were to skyrocket suddenly, in answer to D. Winter’s prayers. Wouldn’t that population grow old too, and probably live even longer than this generation, necessitating an even larger subsequent generation, and on and on until there really was no room on the planet for everyone?

Ok, I admit that this last one is sort of a sci-fi scenario. haha. But it does make me think. I do understand your comments about how the earth is self-regulating, but it’s often regulated itself through things like mass extinctions and long periods of biological barrenness…which is sort of a sobering thought!

Peace,
+AMDG+

 

[Malkin71]

Earth Day(April 22) has replaced Patriots day; this was a 750 word article in newspaper.

catholicsandclimatechange.org/coalition_activities/covenant.html

I hope this is a small time event but I think it being promoted in many faiths. I heard a radio host say his child brought home a pledge to buy 5 bulbs.

Shockley is executive for the National Religious Partnership for the Environment; here is the web page and yes, the USCCB is on it.

nrpe.org/

The credited founder of Earth Day Ira Eihorn who was arrested for murdering his girlfriend in the late70’s was represented by current PA U.S. Senator Arlen Specter. Arlen helped to get Ira’s bail lowered and before his trial he escaped. Here is a article about it.

nationalreview.com/miller/miller200404080822.asp

I did not find this out till recently. Makes you think.

 

[mpi]

But Catholic doctrine urges* prudence* on a whole bunch of matters not directly addressed (so far) by Church fathers. I think we would be right to ask ourselves how to put passage 2415 of the Catechism into practice:

The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity…Use of mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives…Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.

If there is something wrong (intrinsically or prudentially) or useless about the attempt to reduce CO2, then we should be able to explain why through recourse to science and moral philosophy. Perhaps you could explain a bit more thoroughly what you mean. I for one don’t see why it is intrinsically “anti-life,” and I certainly don’t see why it is a doctrine proper to the “misanthropic” and to the “left,” considering that none other than the Vatican has, among other things, committed itself to becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral state. The contemporary debate on environmentalism is fairly new; give the Vatican a few years, and who knows? It may indeed weigh in on it someday soon.

Peace,
+AMDG+

You say a lot in your post. But the truth of my post remains - reducing CO2 IS NOT A CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. Some may try and contort the CCC to make it seem like a Catholic doctrine, but it is not.

 

[mpi]

Thanks very much for this reference! I would be very interested in seeing this video. The population decline in Europe is scary. In fact, just the other day I was in class – a course on contemporary French society – and our professor, a pretty secular guy who has no qualms about insulting the Church, said that he was terrified about the low birth rate in countries like Italy and Spain. (France is, by European standards, fairly fertile.) So it was good to know that this isn’t just “Christian right fearmongering,” which is how many websites describe the Demographic Winter project.

Do you have any references for the countries out there that have initiatives encouraging childbirth? France may be one of them. It pays a ton of money for public nurseries and allows you to deduct tons of taxes for each child that you have – and subsidizes (it’s complex, but it works out to being a subsidy) nurses so that women don’t feel like they need to choose between raising children and having careers. (I would imagine that having both parents at work quite often also has effects on how the children grow up, but I’m not able to speak to that question…) Also, college is practically free in France. These are interesting ideas that maybe the US and other low-fertility countries could think about…?

I do still have a few questions / observations.

1. While Europe’s population may be declining, populations in the third world, and in second-world countries like India, are booming. So in other words, population is growing in places where resources are not adequate to meet their needs. I don’t want to project an anti-life attitude, because I don’t believe the proper response is to be afraid of our children; but I do think that on the broad level of global social justice, some sort of solution needs to be worked out.
2. The Demographic Winter site suggested that America is becoming barren too, although I’ve looked at other statistics and it’s not as bad as Europe. (Large waves of immigrants also contribute to the growing US population.) The problem here is that Americans tend to consume and pollute a LOT more than most other people in the world…again putting a strain on global resources and the environment, even if its population isn’t exactly skyrocketing. So the question here is not so much how Americans will regulate their births, but whether they will teach their children to consume responsibly.
3. The last question is sort of theoretical. One of the reasons that the population decline in Europe is even scarier than it would be otherwise is that nowadays people are living a lot longer than we used to, and need to be supported (by the young and by the economy) into our old age as we lose the ability to work. But let’s say that Europe’s fertility were to skyrocket suddenly, in answer to D. Winter’s prayers. Wouldn’t that population grow old too, and probably live even longer than this generation, necessitating an even larger subsequent generation, and on and on until there really was no room on the planet for everyone?

Ok, I admit that this last one is sort of a sci-fi scenario. haha. But it does make me think. I do understand your comments about how the earth is self-regulating, but it’s often regulated itself through things like mass extinctions and long periods of biological barrenness…which is sort of a sobering thought!

Peace,
+AMDG+

I see an interesting perspective on this problem in your post. A perspective that I held many years ago. The very programs employed by the Western world to encourage child birth do just the opposite. It is the law of unintended consequences that strikes all leftist policies. I know, for example, of no country that uses large maternity benefits that also has above replacement fertility rates (i.e. above 2.1). Free college? - Again look at Germany, among the lowest of the low for birth rates. Germany is a country in which people are too busy getting “free” university until the age of 35 to even think about doing something like having children, which is so beneath their station.

 

[Don_L]

The earth is a gift from God, therefore a sacred thing to be cared for and used wisely (but used) Since all sin is an abuse of God’s gifts, (think glutony, sex, alchohol) and a turning away from God, there is nothing outside of God to worship, but that which he has made(idolatry) hence we have the modern atheist, agnostic, anti-God environental/animal worshipping phenomenon of today.

One large evil hardly being excoriated is that wich is being done by this movement - is to destroy science (a form of truth) by converting it to mere emotional consensus for manipulation -hence deceit purposes.

It’s big, and man cannot see all this, never mind handle and dispute all this, without God’s grace.

 

[tuviskazinai]

You say a lot in your post. But the truth of my post remains - reducing CO2 IS NOT A CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. Some may try and contort the CCC to make it seem like a Catholic doctrine, but it is not.

I do agree with you that it’s not Catholic doctrine, but I would say it’s the “how” rather than the “why” that isn’t listed in the Catechism. We are called to respect the environment and safeguard the human family. I am not positive whether or to what extent CO2 reduction is the answer, and neither is the Church (since scientists aren’t in consensus), so yes, I think the matter is definitely open to discussion in a way that the morality of abortion, for instance, is not. But I would definitely say that we have the moral obligation to be prudent, to investigate whether our actions might be harming the earth, and to take seriously the claims of many, many scientists who say that not to reduce CO2 would be to inflict harm on the human family.

Peace,
+AMDG+

 

[tuviskazinai]

I see an interesting perspective on this problem in your post. A perspective that I held many years ago. The very programs employed by the Western world to encourage child birth do just the opposite. It is the law of unintended consequences that strikes all leftist policies. I know, for example, of no country that uses large maternity benefits that also has above replacement fertility rates (i.e. above 2.1). Free college? - Again look at Germany, among the lowest of the low for birth rates. Germany is a country in which people are too busy getting “free” university until the age of 35 to even think about doing something like having children, which is so beneath their station.

Hmm…this is really interesting. You might be right.

I guess I would also say that in many countries where the birth rate is high, so is the systematic societal abuse of women – the idea that they are just child-bearing and child-rearing machines whose job is to stay at home and replenish the society that gives men the opportunity to work and pursue their extra-familial dreams. There is definitely a feeling even in a developed country like the United States that women often have to choose between their children and a career – I know many women, my mother included, who have had to drop out of law school or medical school to raise their kids and were never able to go back.

Now, granted, my mother did this out of love and never complained nor regretted it for an instant! And I think that a lot of women feel the same way, which is something that some feminists who look at childbirth as a plague on womankind refuse to admit. Still, I wish that there were some way to honor and respect all women’s need for total self-actualization in their careers while balancing that with an encouragement of the beauties of motherhood. (Same could and should be said, I guess, about men’s self-actualization and the beauties of fatherhood.) That’s why I don’t believe we should give up on maternity benefits, although as you point out, it’s complicated.

But anyway, that doesn’t have much to do with climate change, and I don’t mean to go off on a tangent. I do see your point, and you’ve given me a lot to think about!! Your point about college in Germany, in particular, hits home.

Peace,
+AMDG+