If you think the green movement is harmless and consistent with your faith

[manualman]

Overpopulation concerns are such nonsense. We passed the trend inflection point some time ago and are moving rapidly towards catastrophic DEpopulation. Not ONE major civilized, industrialized and educated population center on this planet has a positive fertility rate. And the mentality is spreading fast into the third world.

Look up total fertility rates in the CIA world fact book if you doubt me.

 

[benedictus2]

Overpopulation concerns are such nonsense. We passed the trend inflection point some time ago and are moving rapidly towards catastrophic DEpopulation. Not ONE major civilized, industrialized and educated population center on this planet has a positive fertility rate. And the mentality is spreading fast into the third world.

Look up total fertility rates in the CIA world fact book if you doubt me.

Exactly! Overpopulation is pure hogwash. The earth and its resources is enough if people are not greedy, if people lived and operated according to need rather greed.

It is the hegemony of the self that is the problem. The overpopulation myth is a lie of the devil.

 

[Contarini]

Well, Pope Benedict seems to disagree with the OP:

I would say that the emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s, while it has not exactly flung open the windows, nevertheless was and continues to be a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside, just because too much of it is seen to be irrational. Young people had come to realize that something is wrong in our relationship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that the earth has a dignity of its own and that we must follow its directives. In saying this, I am clearly not promoting any particular political party – nothing could be further from my mind. If something is wrong in our relationship with reality, then we must all reflect seriously on the whole situation and we are all prompted to question the very foundations of our culture. Allow me to dwell a little longer on this point. The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly.

He then goes on to argue that “there is an ecology of man,” i.e., natural law.

I think this is brilliant and wise, and I wish conservative American Catholics who claim to love Pope Benedict would follow his example more thoroughly instead of using him as a stalking horse for their own right-wing American ideology. (Obviously not all conservative American Catholics do this, but many on this forum do.)

Rahn posted:

If you strip a way all of the rhetoric, what is at the heart of the green movement is the philosophy that man controls God’s creation. Witness what we call it: “climate control”. It’s the same as abortion: we get to decide when children are born, we decide what is good and what is a “sin” for the environment, etc.

“Stripping away all the rhetoric” appears to be a euphemism for ignoring what environmentalists actually say in favor of a straw man you wish to construct.

At the heart of the actual green movement is exactly the opposite conviction: that we are not in ultimate control of our environment and that attempts to act as if we were are disastrous.

That is why the Pope supports environmentalism in essence–because this conviction is also at the heart of the Catholic natural law tradition, as he recognizes in the speech to which I linked.

Edwin

 

[benedictus2]

Well, Pope Benedict seems to disagree with the OP:

I would say that the emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s, while it has not exactly flung open the windows, nevertheless was and continues to be a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside, just because too much of it is seen to be irrational. Young people had come to realize that something is wrong in our relationship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that the earth has a dignity of its own and that we must follow its directives. In saying this, I am clearly not promoting any particular political party – nothing could be further from my mind. If something is wrong in our relationship with reality, then we must all reflect seriously on the whole situation and we are all prompted to question the very foundations of our culture. Allow me to dwell a little longer on this point. The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly.

Sorry but you are totally wrong Edwin. The Pope in NO WAY disagrees with the OP.

Here is the OP:

From the green website : Sin: Ditching Birth Control Climate change is the last thing you want to think about in the heat of the moment. But if you forget (or choose not to use) birth control, you’re risking more than an itchy, embarrassing STD. Babies are adorable, but all those gurgling genetic replicas can be major carbon sins. Each one of those “extra” children adds 9,441 metric tons of carbon to the planet.

Rahn’s comment: If babies are considered “major carbon sins”, how long will it be until the elderly, or those who oppose climate change, will be, too?

Pease show how the text you quoted from Pope Benedict’s address agrees with the statement from the green website and disagrees with Rahn?

Do you really think the Pope think of human beings as carbon sins? Did Pope Benedict say that we must therefore control population growth because of the danger children pose to the ecology? Did Pope Benedict consider the very existence of human life a hazard to the environment? Nothing could be further from the truth! You are misrepresenting the Pope and attributing to him something that was not said explicitly nor in any way implied.

If you read the rest of the speech, the Pope argues against a functionalist view of the world. The extract from the green website says exactly that - that the Green Movement holds a functionalist view of the world or more specifically a functionalist view of humanity.

In that speech, the Pope stresses the “inviolable and inalienable human rights as the foundation of every human community, and of peace and justice in the world”.

I suggest that you read the entire text so as to place that little section that you quoted in its right context. Otherwise you end up doing exactly what the secular media does all the time – misrepresenting and misinterpreting the Pope.

In the end it is not population growth that is the problem, it was and always will be greed.

As with any secular movement, without God, the ecology movement becomes nothing more than a deification of the environment - in short idolatry.

The Nazi and the Environmentalist basically end up in the same camp.

 

[NeesyBeth]

The Nazi and the Environmentalist basically end up in the same camp.

Seriously? No sane person could possibly draw a parallel between Nazis and environmentalists. That’s like comparing the Mona Lisa with a pile of dung. You are way off base. I will never understand why everyone keeps calling/comparing people they disagree with to Nazis and Hitler. It’s ridiculous.

The Pope would, based on the above referenced text, disagree with the notion that environmentalism calls for controlling nature. “Climate Control” is what you do when you adjust the thermostat in your house. Planting a tree is not controlling nature anymore than being responsible enough to only have the children you can support financially.

My opinion is that if we concern ourselves with the small, local picture, the global statistics will sort themselves out. As I mentioned before, I live in a desert town that can support only a limited population. It would be irresponsible of me, and a burden on my community, to have 18 children. There are just not enough resources for a huge local population, not just food, but also water and fuel. I think it is selfish to have to have so many children that your family becomes a burden on the community. Sure, “every sperm is sacred,” but that doesn’t mean we should just have kids left and right. We should be responsible in our family planning. If beliefs dictate that you can’t use contraceptives, then abstain when the wife is fertile. If that’s too difficult for you to figure out, then just stop having sex altogether. Whatever works. The point is, a family should only bring into the world the children they can take care of. To do otherwise is not fair to the community in which they live, nor to the children whose life is impoverished by the ratio of people to resources. Sure our lives are enriched with each child, but you can’t get your daily three from love alone.

The global population is increasing, just not as much as before. Throughout the history of mankind, this number has gone up and down.

Stewardship of the earth is a responsibility that falls on every human, not just Catholics. Just because a cause is championed by the secular world that doesn’t necessarily have the same beliefs as us doesn’t make it the work of the devil. Unfortunate wording on one website doesn’t mean all environmentalists hate children and see no value in them. Most environmentalists probably have children. This whole debate is ridiculous to me. To condemn a whole movement, which has the Vatican’s blessing, based on one small group’s take on population growth, is illogical to me.

worldometers.info/
actionbioscience.org/environment/hinrichsen_robey.html?fb_page_id=10001867493&
nia.nih.gov/NR/rdonlyres/9E91407E-CFE8-4903-9875-D5AA75BD1D50/0/WPAM.pdf
eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?nfpb=true&&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED334065&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED334065

I’m unsubscribing from this thread. I don’t relish debating with people who had made their minds up before actually researching the facts. I don’t get my information from biased “news” networks. I like finding the information and interpreting it myself. I suppose restricting how much pollution a corporation emits from its factories is another form of controlling nature, thus the attack on the EPA by short-sighted politicians. Whatever. I doubt Jesus would endorse letting the planet go to pot.

 

[SanAgustin]

Stewardship of the earth is a responsibility that falls on every human, not just Catholics.

Interestingly this was the theme we were to discuss in our 5th grade Catechism class yesterday. It went well, and gave us an opportunity to do a fun activity with the creation story in Genesis, while the book provided a narrative of Chico Mendes and the work he did to protect the Brazilian rain forest.

I pray we did the subject some justice.

 

[benedictus2]

Seriously? No sane person could possibly draw a parallel between Nazis and environmentalists. That’s like comparing the Mona Lisa with a pile of dung. You are way off base. I will never understand why everyone keeps calling/comparing people they disagree with to Nazis and Hitler. It’s ridiculous.

The Pope would, based on the above referenced text, disagree with the notion that environmentalism calls for controlling nature. “Climate Control” is what you do when you adjust the thermostat in your house. Planting a tree is not controlling nature anymore than being responsible enough to only have the children you can support financially.

My opinion is that if we concern ourselves with the small, local picture, the global statistics will sort themselves out. As I mentioned before, I live in a desert town that can support only a limited population. It would be irresponsible of me, and a burden on my community, to have 18 children. There are just not enough resources for a huge local population, not just food, but also water and fuel. I think it is selfish to have to have so many children that your family becomes a burden on the community. Sure, “every sperm is sacred,” but that doesn’t mean we should just have kids left and right. We should be responsible in our family planning. If beliefs dictate that you can’t use contraceptives, then abstain when the wife is fertile. If that’s too difficult for you to figure out, then just stop having sex altogether. Whatever works. The point is, a family should only bring into the world the children they can take care of. To do otherwise is not fair to the community in which they live, nor to the children whose life is impoverished by the ratio of people to resources. Sure our lives are enriched with each child, but you can’t get your daily three from love alone.

The global population is increasing, just not as much as before. Throughout the history of mankind, this number has gone up and down.

Stewardship of the earth is a responsibility that falls on every human, not just Catholics. Just because a cause is championed by the secular world that doesn’t necessarily have the same beliefs as us doesn’t make it the work of the devil. Unfortunate wording on one website doesn’t mean all environmentalists hate children and see no value in them. Most environmentalists probably have children. This whole debate is ridiculous to me. To condemn a whole movement, which has the Vatican’s blessing, based on one small group’s take on population growth, is illogical to me.

worldometers.info/
actionbioscience.org/environment/hinrichsen_robey.html?fb_page_id=10001867493&
nia.nih.gov/NR/rdonlyres/9E91407E-CFE8-4903-9875-D5AA75BD1D50/0/WPAM.pdf
eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?nfpb=true&&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED334065&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED334065

I’m unsubscribing from this thread. I don’t relish debating with people who had made their minds up before actually researching the facts. I don’t get my information from biased “news” networks. I like finding the information and interpreting it myself. I suppose restricting how much pollution a corporation emits from its factories is another form of controlling nature, thus the attack on the EPA by short-sighted politicians. Whatever. I doubt Jesus would endorse letting the planet go to pot.

You obviously did not read properly the rest of my post.

The Nazi and the kind of environmentalist that wrote the quote that Rahn posted are indeed in the same camp.

They both adhere to the functionalist view, they both end up subordinating man to their ideologies.

As for not relishing debating with people who had made up their minds, well that closed mindset actually applies to you. If it didn’t, you would have understood my post and where I am coming from.

There is a Godly stewarding of the earth and it is not the kind that this stupid quote from trhis green website proposes. That is just downright idiotic and hideous.

And if you can’t see that, then obviously your mind is even more “closed” than the ones you decry.

 

[benedictus2]

Whatever. I doubt Jesus would endorse letting the planet go to pot.

Tha one that is even more doubtful is that Jesus would call human beings “Carbon sins”. Or that He would propose contraception to safeguard the planet from these carbon sins.

I don’t know what kind of Jesus you believe in but it is obviously not the one the Bible speaks of. Your Jesus is your own construct.

 

[benedictus2]

As evidenced by the Columbia River Pastoral Letter, the Church is deeply concerned with the moral implications of actions that have an environmental impact. That does not mean that the Church is going to automatically agree with every solution that other “green” advocates suggest.

If we never allowed ourselves to be active in any political movement that had partisans who opposed essential tenets of our faith, we’d be rendered entirely impotent. Abdicating our real duties because of barriers posed by those with similar goals but a different moral formation is not an option.

The Church has an obligation to substantially advocate for justice and peace. That doesn’t mean that we’re in bed with everything spouted by someone who purports to be advancing “peace and justice.” Rather, it is our responsibility to make certain that peace and justice are arrived at by moral means, and not by any means “deemed necessary.”

The same goes for care of God’s creation. We have a duty to advocate for a morally sound stewardship of the natural resources. We also have a duty to do this is a way that never neglects the care of the eternal in order to render the necessary care of that which should be found in good order at the Second Coming, but will not last beyond that. That others have taken up this cause without taking up our understanding of moral law is just one more aspect to the work we have cut out for us.

Excellent! :clapping::clapping::clapping:

 

[benedictus2]

My opinion is that if we concern ourselves with the small, local picture, the global statistics will sort themselves out. As I mentioned before, I live in a desert town that can support only a limited population. It would be irresponsible of me, and a burden on my community, to have 18 children. There are just not enough resources for a huge local population, not just food, but also water and fuel.

No Neesy, there are more than enough resources. As Gandhi has so rightly put, there is more than enough for need but never enough for greed.

There was a year when the dairy industry threw out thousands of litres of milk into the sea to prevent the price from going down.

There was a time when egg farmers threw out eggs to prevent the price from going down.

Take a look at your house, your wardrobe and your lifestyle. How much of what you have do you really need? The world is the way it is today, not because of the population but because of greed. Opulent countries pillage the earth more than poor countries. Opulent countries pile more waste than poor over populated countries.

I gave a link earlier and here it is again.

It is called the Light Bulb conspiracy. And it goes to the heart of my argument.

dotsub.com/view/aed3b8b2-1889-4df5-ae63-ad85f5572f27?at_xt=4d45f107b0c33219%2C0&sms_ss=twitthis

I think it is selfish to have to have so many children that your family becomes a burden on the community. Sure, “every sperm is sacred,” but that doesn’t mean we should just have kids left and right. We should be responsible in our family planning. If beliefs dictate that you can’t use contraceptives, then abstain when the wife is fertile. If that’s too difficult for you to figure out, then just stop having sex altogether. Whatever works. The point is, a family should only bring into the world the children they can take care of.

And who is able to determine that? Isn’t God the only who can determine what can be sustained?

To do otherwise is not fair to the community in which they live, nor to the children whose life is impoverished by the ratio of people to resources.

That is pure hogwash. It is not the ratio of people to resources that is the problem, it is sin, particularly the sin of greed. Those who are already here want to maintain the status quo of consumerism and the affluent, selfish lifestyle and woe to the child that threatens that lifestyle.

Sure our lives are enriched with each child, but you can’t get your daily three from love alone.

But you can from God who is ultimately the giver of that child. In the end it is a question of whose will is done - yours or God’s.

 

[manualman]

As usual, muddled definitions lead to needless bickering. I think if we properly discerned the difference between “Conservationism” and “Environmentalism” we’d not have so much disagreement on this thread.

The conservation movement is not recent. It is more than a century old and was born of the recognition that man can and has at times been negligent about the effects his activities have on the rest of the world (what has since been called ecosystems). In this movement, humans seeks to identify actions that have negative effects and find alternatives to the actions that had previously been causing the harm. This is where we got National Parks and Forests, sustainable forestry, soil conserving agricultural practices, regulation of contaminated materials disposal, etc. But conservationism still retains (or at least is compatible with) the idea that humanity is special and distinct from other forms of life.

Environmentalism is a more recent phenomenon. This philosophy errs by making the assumption that “nature” is a static condition and that man is a foreign presence on the earth whose activities have only neutral effects at best, and more commonly those activities are harmful. In this worldview, no effort to mitigate impact is ever really “enough.” What must be achieved is a reversal (or at least a halt) of all the ‘damage’ caused by man, which is defined as anything humans actually do.

The distinction is better explained by the author Alston Chase in his excellent book “In a Dark Wood.”

 

[tafan]

Sure, the industrialized world is seeing an decline in population. Not so in the more populous parts of the world.

I have no idea what the impact will be.

Technology will play a role.

There are not enough jobs for most of the world, and living is tough. Starvation and disease are playing a large role right now. Parts of Africa have an average life expectancy in the low 40’s.

A lot of people around here seem to think that they can predict things with certainty, which in my opinion there are just too many variables, and too little information to predict.

My point was that some people think that population growth is our most pressing problem. I know this to be true, because I had one of them as a neighbor who worked in international relations at the UN on the topic.

Complete and utter garbage. Except for subsahara Africa, almost all third world countries are seeing a significant rise in standard of living over the last 20 years or so. Steady progress is being made.
Africa has problems, not due to population problems (there are many countries with much large population densities) but because of government corruption, horrible imposition of green regulations by the EU, and a very bad education system. I will add that the US has a immoral stance policy of converting large amounts of food into fuel; which does not help either.

Not enough jobs? That is not an issue with over population, that is an issue with economics.

There is absolutely no evidence the world is overpopulated. There was not in the late 40s and 50s, when the idea first started reaching prominence amoung intelectual circles; there was none in the 1970s when it gain wide spread prominence, and there is even less evidence today.

There are fewer jobs available, largely because we have gotten so dang efficient we don’t need as many workers to produce our goods and services; and we haven’t figured out what to do about that yet (although the solutino is actually quite simple, it stares us in the face, and we have been steadily applying it for the last 100 years, we have just forgotten about it over the last 2 or 3 decades).

 

[Hastrman]

I am reminded of something Chesterton reported Hilaire Belloc as saying, about making predictions.

[Belloc reconstructed] the outlook on the future, in the mind of a Greek official in Byzantium, at the beginning of the sixth century, calculating and combining all the forces of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. He noted how much a man might think he had accounted for all the possibilities, the danger of a religious split between East and West, the danger of the barbarian raids on Gaul or Britain, the situation in Africa and Spain, and so on; and then say he had in his hand all the materials of change.

“At that moment, far away in a little village of Arabia, Mahomet was eighteen years old.”

 

[benedictus2]

As usual, muddled definitions lead to needless bickering. I think if we properly discerned the difference between “Conservationism” and “Environmentalism” we’d not have so much disagreement on this thread.

The conservation movement is not recent. It is more than a century old and was born of the recognition that man can and has at times been negligent about the effects his activities have on the rest of the world (what has since been called ecosystems). In this movement, humans seeks to identify actions that have negative effects and find alternatives to the actions that had previously been causing the harm. This is where we got National Parks and Forests, sustainable forestry, soil conserving agricultural practices, regulation of contaminated materials disposal, etc. But conservationism still retains (or at least is compatible with) the idea that humanity is special and distinct from other forms of life.

Environmentalism is a more recent phenomenon. This philosophy errs by making the assumption that “nature” is a static condition and that man is a foreign presence on the earth whose activities have only neutral effects at best, and more commonly those activities are harmful. In this worldview, no effort to mitigate impact is ever really “enough.” What must be achieved is a reversal (or at least a halt) of all the ‘damage’ caused by man, which is defined as anything humans actually do.

That is an excellent distinction. I think what has happened with environmentalism is that the devil has hijacked a good idea.

We were created to be stewards but have ended up being pillagers. We need to return to being stewards. And what always underpins the pillaging is selfish and greed.

 

[Hastrman]

That is an excellent distinction. I think what has happened with environmentalism is that the devil has hijacked a good idea.

Well, in terms of the Green movement with a capital G, not so much the devil as Marxists—the Green parties in many European countries are dominated by intellectuals who were formerly notable as apologists and advocates of Communism.

There is a reason the movement is nicknamed “watermelonism”—green on the outside, red on the inside.

 

[benedictus2]

Well, in terms of the Green movement with a capital G, not so much the devil as Marxists—the Green parties in many European countries are dominated by intellectuals who were formerly notable as apologists and advocates of Communism.

There is a reason the movement is nicknamed “watermelonism”—green on the outside, red on the inside.

Well I still maintain that the devil has hijacked the idea. Marxism is the devil’s baby.

And hey, I like that term “watermelonism”.

Thank you as well for that quote from Belloc. It captures the idea so well.

 

[MarkInOregon]

Sure, the industrialized world is seeing an decline in population. Not so in the more populous parts of the world.

I have no idea what the impact will be.

Technology will play a role.

There are not enough jobs for most of the world, and living is tough. Starvation and disease are playing a large role right now. Parts of Africa have an average life expectancy in the low 40’s.

A lot of people around here seem to think that they can predict things with certainty, which in my opinion there are just too many variables, and too little information to predict.

My point was that some people think that population growth is our most pressing problem. I know this to be true, because I had one of them as a neighbor who worked in international relations at the UN on the topic.

So you think the starvation issue is because there isn’t enough food in the world? You don’t think it has anything to do with poor distribution of the food we have? Of part of the world eating more than they need (look at the obesity rates in many countries)? Of our waisting so much food? In Portland Oregon they are giving people curbside recycling cans for food waste, taking away the large garbage can and replacing it with a smaller one. They tell people that something like 40% of garbage is food waste. There was a time when we used everypart of an animal, when we wouldn’t have dreamed of throwing out a banana because it had a black spot on it And look at all the fast food that is thrown out because it is cooked ahead of time and then sits and has to be thrown out after a certain amount of time passes. Or of the wars that continue to ravage many of these areas? Or of the fact that we tried to make them grow European crops not suited to the area?

We have more than enough food–we just don’t want to change the way we live in order to make sure that food is distributed where it is needed. We don’t have the will to see that food gets to places where it is needed and that it is distributed to those who need it and not stole by blackmarketiers when it does get there.

Peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[benedictus2]

So you think the starvation issue is because there isn’t enough food in the world? You don’t think it has anything to do with poor distribution of the food we have? Of part of the world eating more than they need (look at the obesity rates in many countries)? Of our waisting so much food? In Portland Oregon they are giving people curbside recycling cans for food waste, taking away the large garbage can and replacing it with a smaller one. They tell people that something like 40% of garbage is food waste. There was a time when we used everypart of an animal, when we wouldn’t have dreamed of throwing out a banana because it had a black spot on it And look at all the fast food that is thrown out because it is cooked ahead of time and then sits and has to be thrown out after a certain amount of time passes. Or of the wars that continue to ravage many of these areas? Or of the fact that we tried to make them grow European crops not suited to the area?

We have more than enough food–we just don’t want to change the way we live in order to make sure that food is distributed where it is needed. We don’t have the will to see that food gets to places where it is needed and that it is distributed to those who need it and not stole by blackmarketiers when it does get there.

Peace of Christ,
Mark

Brilliant!! :clapping::clapping::clapping:

 

[Jocko_VT]

If babies are considered “major carbon sins”, how long will it be until the elderly, or those who oppose climate change, will be, too?

I think the enormous leap to the argument that we should limit population growth to arguments that someone will eventually mandate abortion and killing the elderly is nothing less than fear-mongering. There is no slippery slope here!! Stop it, please!

Yes, we may be able to fit everyone alive into the state of Texas, but how pleasant a life would that be? Do you want to live in that world? Can we really feed everyone today on earth without modern technologies that are unsustainable?

I think a good Catholic would have a sincere concern for the environment–for God’s creation. They would recognize our power to destroy it. I don’t see much of that concern in here.

 

[Hastrman]

I think the enormous leap to the argument that we should limit population growth to arguments that someone will eventually mandate abortion and killing the elderly is nothing less than fear-mongering. There is no slippery slope here!! Stop it, please!

…In which you admit you don’t know anything about China. “Eventually” nothing, they’re already doing it. Also there’ve been several scandals of the WHO sterilizing people without their consent in pure countries.

You’re right. No slippery slope. Already at the bottom.