Is Pope Francis right on climate change?

[lynnvinc]

Oh how the predictable cognitive biases of socially conservative Catholics captured by the electoral machinery of American politics raise their heads in this discussion.

Here’s how that works…

1. 
   *]Induced abortion is evil…
   
   …Bottom line: the electoral coalitions represented by current parties create a cognitive bias in favor of global warming skepticism among devout Catholics. There is no inherent rational linkage between a pro-life ethic and free market thinking (think Franco’s Spain, for example). Not that devout Catholics can’t come to their own opinions about global warming in an objective way, but our overriding political strategy for ending abortion has made us look at climate information with a preference for skepticism.

1. 
   I agree with your analysis.
   
   A few more points. Catholics used to be Democrats when there were lots of Catholic blue collar immigrants and when the divide was more between blue collar workers and business people (which included a lot of small business people bec the multinational monsters had not yet gobbled them up). These latter tended to be Protestants. I came from that small business, Protestant, Republican background.
   
   As 2nd and 3rd generation white Catholics moved up the social and economic ladder out of the blue collar world, with industrial jobs going to Mexico then overseas (damaging their lands and human health there, helping America to be a bit cleaner and less harmful to the health), they shifted more to voting Republican – sort of a squeeze the poor and poor minorities, put leaching toxic waste dumps in minority communities, and let the rich have the wealth strategy.
   
   Meanwhile, my own story. I got married in 1969 to a Catholic man from India and became Catholic and slowly shifted from Republican to Democrat due to the racism (which had always been an anathema to me) – it seemed more rampant among Republicans than Democrats, but it was everywhere, and still is to some extent today. My Republican parents had carefully taught me NOT to be racist and touted Republican Lincoln who freed the slaves…especially my mother did so and she was from about the only Republican family in Texas at that time.
   
   However, I have also always been against abortion, well before becoming a Catholic, so in 1976 I campaigned for Ellen McCormack – the anti-abortion Democrat.
   
   I was also aware pre-1972 of women around me getting illegal abortions. As you point out, it was quite common. Young women would pass out abortionists’ phone numbers with secret code words to their friends. My grandmother also told me around that time that during her 1st pregnancy (which would have been pre-1908) granddad had taken her to the doctor to get it “fixed”; she said she was a stupid little thing then and didn’t understand that it meant aborting the baby, but when he wanted her 2nd pregnancy “fixed,” she dug in and refused – and my father was born.
   
   Basically I knew that simply making abortion illegal was no solution to reducing abortion; we would also in addition need more Democrat type of strategies, like universal health care, free professional child care, paid maternity leave (without loss of job), etc., plus a campaign to halt abortion…like anti-smoking campaigns or something (which seem to have been somewhat effective). I also understood the racist underpinnings of some anti-abortion people, fearing minorities would come to outnumber whites.
   
   As for AGW I learned about the greenhouse effect in extra science readings in high school in the early 60s, and had been very concerned about peak oil in the 70s (and the need to save resources for future generations) and other environmental issues. I had no problem at all in the late 80s accepting AGW science. What I really hate is the extreme waste of my tax dollars by people who just don’t pay attention in school and learn the needful to be truly “pro-life” and make wise decisions to protect creation for future generations. And I can never ever accept that any AGW skeptic could be truly anti-abortion – that just doesn’t compute, Captain Kirk. To me the abortion issue for those folks is just a horrible excuse for voting for a racist Republican who will tear families apart, sending the father back to Mexico, so the mother will have no one to share caring for their 3 small kids, so she has to quit her job and go on welfare…and if pregnant at the time, will probably have an abortion, even though she staunch Pentecostal Christian and anti-abortion. OTOH she may also be deported back to Cuba even tho she was born in the U.S., bec her parents had fled Cuba (and are now U.S. citizens).
   
   Maybe it would be best for the world if the Tejanos and Chicanos should take back their native place, Aztlan (Calif, Nevada, NM, Utah, Colorado, and Texas) and kick out us Anglos I mean, if the Jewish people can take back Israel, why not? And Hispanics have been found to be much better on the AGW issue than any group in America, way above Anglos (the majority of whom, I’m ashamed to say, seem to be out to destroy life on earth), but also above African-Americans. That way, they could gain control over a good part of the U.S. and do the right things to protect life …
   
   https://www.tracy.k12.ca.us/sites/whs/web/Clubs/mecha/images/map.png

 

[sps49]

Perhaps I just presented my edited version of history with the expectation that the implications would be clear.

Most people would be content to present the evidence, and let the observer make what they will of it. Having an expectation that you expect that someone to see the same implications as you seems farfetched, especially with only a list. The only implication that is thus far clear is that you wish others to believe what you do.

Actually, it’s a scientific hypothesis. I believe it to be largely consistent with evidence I’ve seen. For example, I once had a conversation with a woman who told me that the EPA is a front organization that is really just intended to promote contraception, sterilization, and population control.

The fundamental problem with using cognitive bias as a central argument is that your opponent may do the same, rendering that line of dialog moot. Unless of course you believe that only your cognitive bias is correct, then that would mean another thing altogether, not at all flattering to your good self.

I think the hypothesis can be tested with data. For example, Roe v. Wade happened before the first global modeling study on climate change, and the first NAS report on the subject. In 1976, the Republican Party platform was not unified on abortion, and as I already noted above, it was Ronald Reagan who signed the law that made abortion de facto legal in California:
“There are those in our Party who favor complete support for the Supreme Court decision which permits abortion on demand. There are others who share sincere convictions that the Supreme Court’s decision must be changed by a constitutional amendment prohibiting all abortions. Others have yet to take a position, or they have assumed a stance somewhere in between polar positions.”

Your hypothesis relies on some facts that may have a temporal relationship, but no causal relationship other than “republicans” is proposed. You are associating the behavior of a group of people, comprised of dozens of subgroups to be in coherence with your hypothesis with nothing more than “you believe it to be.” That demands much more evidence than what your intuition suggests.

My frame of reference is one of political theology. I am a neo-Augustinian, who believes that the City of God and City of Man are two separate but interlinked spheres that will never be unified until the Second Coming of Christ. Most other devout Catholics I know are neo-Thomistic, which tends to assert that the role of the state is to order society toward the good. I firmly believe that as Christians, we are not to aim to seize political power, but to spread the gospel (e.g., Mk 10:35-45; Mt 28:18-20; Rm 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:11-17). I’ll be at tomorrow’s anti-Planned Parenthood rally, but that will probably be the most overt thing I do in temporal politics. I just don’t think partisan politics is going to stop abortion.

Your frame of reference aside, the question was about climate change. The hypothesis that republican Catholics resist climate change due to cognitive bias looks DOA.

 

[sps49]

So no, there is no fundamental connection between free-market economics and social conservatism. In fact, the Industrial Revolution alone probably created more disruption to traditional family values than anything else before or since (with the exception of the Agricultural Revolution).

The government of Spain made questionable fiscal and monetary decisions, and barring the same economic shocks everyone else was subjected to, is responsible for the consequence of those acts.

There have been many disruptive events in the past 5000 or so years that have affected the family, pick one, any one. If the value is regarded as intrinsic, then it would in theory be somewhat resistant to external effects. Everyone has a choice. The choices may not be easy, but they are choices nonetheless. Literally scores of papers on social conservatism have been written, along with just about any other anthropological subject you could list. From what I can see from human and natural history from books, journals and papers is that disruptions are rather common.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree with your analysis.

A few more points. Catholics used to be Democrats when there were lots of Catholic blue collar immigrants and when the divide was more between blue collar workers and business people (which included a lot of small business people bec the multinational monsters had not yet gobbled them up). These latter tended to be Protestants. I came from that small business, Protestant, Republican background.

As 2nd and 3rd generation white Catholics moved up the social and economic ladder out of the blue collar world, with industrial jobs going to Mexico then overseas (damaging their lands and human health there, helping America to be a bit cleaner and less harmful to the health), they shifted more to voting Republican – sort of a squeeze the poor and poor minorities, put leaching toxic waste dumps in minority communities, and let the rich have the wealth strategy.

Meanwhile, my own story. I got married in 1969 to a Catholic man from India and became Catholic and slowly shifted from Republican to Democrat due to the racism (which had always been an anathema to me) – it seemed more rampant among Republicans than Democrats, but it was everywhere, and still is to some extent today. My Republican parents had carefully taught me NOT to be racist and touted Republican Lincoln who freed the slaves…especially my mother did so and she was from about the only Republican family in Texas at that time.

However, I have also always been against abortion, well before becoming a Catholic, so in 1976 I campaigned for Ellen McCormack – the anti-abortion Democrat.

I was also aware pre-1972 of women around me getting illegal abortions. As you point out, it was quite common. Young women would pass out abortionists’ phone numbers with secret code words to their friends. My grandmother also told me around that time that during her 1st pregnancy (which would have been pre-1908) granddad had taken her to the doctor to get it “fixed”; she said she was a stupid little thing then and didn’t understand that it meant aborting the baby, but when he wanted her 2nd pregnancy “fixed,” she dug in and refused – and my father was born.

Basically I knew that simply making abortion illegal was no solution to reducing abortion; we would also in addition need more Democrat type of strategies, like universal health care, free professional child care, paid maternity leave (without loss of job), etc., plus a campaign to halt abortion…like anti-smoking campaigns or something (which seem to have been somewhat effective). I also understood the racist underpinnings of some anti-abortion people, fearing minorities would come to outnumber whites.

As for AGW I learned about the greenhouse effect in extra science readings in high school in the early 60s, and had been very concerned about peak oil in the 70s (and the need to save resources for future generations) and other environmental issues. I had no problem at all in the late 80s accepting AGW science. What I really hate is the extreme waste of my tax dollars by people who just don’t pay attention in school and learn the needful to be truly “pro-life” and make wise decisions to protect creation for future generations. And I can never ever accept that any AGW skeptic could be truly anti-abortion – that just doesn’t compute, Captain Kirk. To me the abortion issue for those folks is just a horrible excuse for voting for a racist Republican who will tear families apart, sending the father back to Mexico, so the mother will have no one to share caring for their 3 small kids, so she has to quit her job and go on welfare…and if pregnant at the time, will probably have an abortion, even though she staunch Pentecostal Christian and anti-abortion. OTOH she may also be deported back to Cuba even tho she was born in the U.S., bec her parents had fled Cuba (and are now U.S. citizens).

Maybe it would be best for the world if the Tejanos and Chicanos should take back their native place, Aztlan (Calif, Nevada, NM, Utah, Colorado, and Texas) and kick out us Anglos I mean, if the Jewish people can take back Israel, why not? And Hispanics have been found to be much better on the AGW issue than any group in America, way above Anglos (the majority of whom, I’m ashamed to say, seem to be out to destroy life on earth), but also above African-Americans. That way, they could gain control over a good part of the U.S. and do the right things to protect life …

https://www.tracy.k12.ca.us/sites/whs/web/Clubs/mecha/images/map.png

As with MMGW and other left wing notions, “Aztlan” is a myth. To the extent the early Aztecs had an “Aztlan” it was almost certainly on the west coast of Mexico, and rather small.

When the U.S. began moving into the states you think ought to be “Aztlan”, Texas and much of New Mexico and Colorado were ruled by Comanches and Kiowa along with some other, smaller, tribes like the Tonkawa. Much of Arizona and N.M. were ruled by Apaches and Navajo. Much of the southern portions of the latter two were populated by Yaquis. Not one of them would have tolerated Aztec (or each other’s) claims to a square inch. Northern and Central California were a bone of contention between England and Russia.

This “Aztlan” is like Himmler’s mythical “Thule”; supposedly the origin of the Aryan “race”. It’s just as big a crock. And so is MMGW.

 

[fnr]

Most people would be content to present the evidence, and let the observer make what they will of it. Having an expectation that you expect that someone to see the same implications as you seems farfetched, especially with only a list. The only implication that is thus far clear is that you wish others to believe what you do.

I’m not saying that others should believe what I do without looking at the evidence. I’m saying look at the science. My theory is based on the data such as those that I listed. Another theory may be just good, as long as it agrees with the data. If you’ve got other information and data, it would help to see whether my theory is correct, and I absolutely welcome any type of information to do that.

The fundamental problem with using cognitive bias as a central argument is that your opponent may do the same, rendering that line of dialog moot. Unless of course you believe that only your cognitive bias is correct, then that would mean another thing altogether, not at all flattering to your good self.

I agree with you 100%. I’ve got a quote on my wall that underscores that problem that everyone has, myself included: “Humans also excel… at neglecting inconvenient facts and convincing themselves to accept arguments that are demonstrably false.” (Lemper, Popper, and Banks, Shaping the Next Hundred Years, The RAND Corporation)

Your hypothesis relies on some facts that may have a temporal relationship, but no causal relationship other than “republicans” is proposed. You are associating the behavior of a group of people, comprised of dozens of subgroups to be in coherence with your hypothesis with nothing more than “you believe it to be.” That demands much more evidence than what your intuition suggests.

True. What I’m saying is that when I look at the comments in this discussion about climate change per se, many of my fellow Catholics are appearing to say that AGW is false and/or not a big problem for our society.

In fact, I know a lot of Catholics, and can say truly that very few Catholics that I would describe as devout and conservative agree that AGW is a problem. Many of them with whom I’ve spoken in the last 2-3 years mention, for example, almost on script, the so-called (but non-existent) “hiatus”, the so-called Hadley Center scandal as evidence that all climate science is a lie put forward by bureaucrats, that controlling GHG emissions will destroy our economy, and a number of other common citations (e.g., Judith Curry).

Why, when the Pope is telling us that climate change and environmental problems are something Catholics should reduce (as both JP2 and B16 did before him), are devout and socially-conservative American Catholics so outraged? To me, the simple explanation is that Catholics have ingested the lie that everything can be reduced to a debate between two opposing ideologies that our two-party system and the media continue to want us to believe: a religious, social-conservative, capitalist-oriented right and a secular, social-liberal, socialist-oriented left. I’m neither of those. I’m Catholic. So are you. And that’s more important than any politicians grabbing at temporal power, which is all political parties really are.

Your frame of reference aside, the question was about climate change. The hypothesis that republican Catholics resist climate change due to cognitive bias looks DOA.

Sorry, it’s entirely impossible for me to set my frame of reference aside when describing climate change or any other thing in the universe, as it is for you and for every person. I would hope that every person who calls on the name of Christ would not attempt to lay that aside when engaging with the world.

To me, one of the reasons for that is that along with most lay conservative Catholics, a number of our leading bishops, including Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI hold a political theology that the purpose of government is to order society toward the “capital-G” Good. As I’ve said, I am not a believer in that type of theology, but in what St. Augustine wrote in his City of God and what I believe the New Testament uniformly says about temporal political engagement by Catholics.

In Mt 28:18-20, Jesus said he has been given all power in heaven and on earth. So was his first move to say, “so go build a Catholic government?” No, he said “go make disciples of all nation and baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe what I have commanded you.” “Go make disciples,” “baptize,” and “teach” – that’s what we are called to do. Not, “go vote for a conservative!”

Even the Apostles didn’t get that. Even as Jesus was just about to ascend to Heaven, they asked him, “Lord, are you now going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) His reply was that they’d have power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and that they would be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.

That’s my frame of reference. What’s yours?

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hi Lynn:

Meanwhile, my own story. I got married in 1969 to a Catholic man from India and became Catholic …

As I mentioned in passing before, we will be travelling in India in November, visiting among other locations, Goa and Kerala. Any suggestions in general or specifically?

ferd

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hi fnr,

Why, when the Pope is telling us that climate change and environmental problems are something Catholics should reduce (as both JP2 and B16 did before him), are devout and socially-conservative American Catholics so outraged? To me, the simple explanation is that Catholics have ingested the lie that everything can be reduced to a debate between two opposing ideologies that our two-party system and the media continue to want us to believe: a religious, social-conservative, capitalist-oriented right and a secular, social-liberal, socialist-oriented left. I’m neither of those. I’m Catholic. So are you. And that’s more important than any politicians grabbing at temporal power, which is all political parties really are.

My initial outrage, speaking as a “religious, social-conservative, capitalist-oriented Catholic,” stems from several things. First, having studied the development of modern climate science, I do not trust the climate science establishment led by the IPCC. You will have to go back to the beginning of this thread for the details. Second, we can speak broadly of a global warming social movement comprised of many different interests: population controllers, radical environmentalists, anti-capitalists of all stripes, one-world governance types, commies, and so on. I have asked this questions before but the Holy Father and no one else has answered me: If nasty folks such communists, population controllers, etc. find that global warming alarmism advances their agendas, why is the pontiff so eager to jump on that band wagon?

 

[sps49]

As with MMGW and other left wing notions, “Aztlan” is a myth. To the extent the early Aztecs had an “Aztlan” it was almost certainly on the west coast of Mexico, and rather small.

When the U.S. began moving into the states you think ought to be “Aztlan”, Texas and much of New Mexico and Colorado were ruled by Comanches and Kiowa along with some other, smaller, tribes like the Tonkawa. Much of Arizona and N.M. were ruled by Apaches and Navajo. Much of the southern portions of the latter two were populated by Yaquis. Not one of them would have tolerated Aztec (or each other’s) claims to a square inch. Northern and Central California were a bone of contention between England and Russia.

This “Aztlan” is like Himmler’s mythical “Thule”; supposedly the origin of the Aryan “race”. It’s just as big a crock. And so is MMGW.

I run into this kind of thing often where I live. Thanks, nice concise description of the issue.

 

[sps49]

I’m not saying that others should believe what I do without looking at the evidence. I’m saying look at the science. My theory is based on the data such as those that I listed. Another theory may be just good, as long as it agrees with the data. If you’ve got other information and data, it would help to see whether my theory is correct, and I absolutely welcome any type of information to do that.

Your theory is not even an outline of what would be necessary to even explain the reason why anyone would consider your hypothesis, let alone pursue research. It is a thinly veiled social commentary that targets a specific group. In this case, the data you present are not nearly enough to determine anything.

True. What I’m saying is that when I look at the comments in this discussion about climate change per se, many of my fellow Catholics are appearing to say that AGW is false and/or not a big problem for our society.

Perhaps you are not listening closely. Most people I know would say that there are problems with the catastrophic AGW scenarios, as well with models and analysis. The only scenarios presented are worst case scenarios, not plausible or realistic scenarios, so of course these are not taken seriously, for reasons I just mentioned.

In fact, I know a lot of Catholics, and can say truly that very few Catholics that I would describe as devout and conservative agree that AGW is a problem. Many of them with whom I’ve spoken in the last 2-3 years mention, for example, almost on script, the so-called (but non-existent) “hiatus”, the so-called Hadley Center scandal as evidence that all climate science is a lie put forward by bureaucrats, that controlling GHG emissions will destroy our economy, and a number of other common citations (e.g., Judith Curry).

Well, it sounds like you are not getting what you are expecting from your conservative Catholics. Instead of doubling down on messaging, perhaps you should reconsider your position.

Why, when the Pope is telling us that climate change and environmental problems are something Catholics should reduce (as both JP2 and B16 did before him), are devout and socially-conservative American Catholics so outraged? To me, the simple explanation is that Catholics have ingested the lie that everything can be reduced to a debate between two opposing ideologies that our two-party system and the media continue to want us to believe: a religious, social-conservative, capitalist-oriented right and a secular, social-liberal, socialist-oriented left. I’m neither of those. I’m Catholic. So are you. And that’s more important than any politicians grabbing at temporal power, which is all political parties really are.

That the Pope has an opinion about catastrophic AGW that is different than what I believe is not a concern, since it is not required for me to believe in it. Personally, I think he got some poor advice on the subject.

That’s my frame of reference. What’s yours?

One that includes reason, God, and my faith. It’s Fascinating how I come to a completely different conclusion than you do, isn’t it?

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Other reasons for my outrage: 1) It is intellectually dishonest to imply that the scientific consensus in favor of the carbon dioxide theory of climate change is so great as to put the issue beyond debate. Simply not true. 2) The pope’s climate periti and dogmatic enforcers show no openness at all to dialogue. 3) Pushing the CAGW agenda will kill people and harm the environment.

 

[lynnvinc]

As with MMGW and other left wing notions, “Aztlan” is a myth. To the extent the early Aztecs had an “Aztlan” it was almost certainly on the west coast of Mexico, and rather small…

You are correct that there was no big nation state of Aztlan, but many of the peoples of the Aztec civilization and modern-day Mexico came from the north from that area, and there are still some tribes there that speak an Aztecan language, such as the Hopi.

Let us not forget that the U.S. is based on the robbery of lands from the Native Americans and genocide against them. It is in our history and our cultural roots to plunder and kill…which fits pretty well with how we are doing so to the world today, causing environmental harms around the world, ruining others’ subsistence bases, including but not limited to AGW.

I have to admit as a typical middle class American I have been beneficiary of the material fruits of this evil, and also that my great-grandparents in Texas were involved in killing Native Americans, who had to flee Texas bec it was legal in Texas until recently (around 1970) to kill Native Americans, and some are still afraid to come back to their native lands in Texas.

It is always good to look at our own sins, flaws, implications in various evils, the evils in the historical roots of our culture/way-of-life and do the best we can to make amends and keep our noses clean on into the future. Granted that is not pleasant process – it is worse than having to clean up the sewers.

It’s very easy to laud and brag about the positive things in ourselves and our culture; but very difficult to face the negative things there and work to root them out.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You are correct that there was no big nation state of Aztlan, but many of the peoples of the Aztec civilization and modern-day Mexico came from the north from that area, and there are still some tribes there that speak an Aztecan language, such as the Hopi.

Let us not forget that the U.S. is based on the robbery of lands from the Native Americans and genocide against them. It is in our history and our cultural roots to plunder and kill…which fits pretty well with how we are doing so to the world today, causing environmental harms around the world, ruining others’ subsistence bases, including but not limited to AGW.

I have to admit as a typical middle class American I have been beneficiary of the material fruits of this evil, and also that my great-grandparents in Texas were involved in killing Native Americans, who had to flee Texas bec it was legal in Texas until recently (around 1970) to kill Native Americans, and some are still afraid to come back to their native lands in Texas.

It is always good to look at our own sins, flaws, implications in various evils, the evils in the historical roots of our culture/way-of-life and do the best we can to make amends and keep our noses clean on into the future. Granted that is not pleasant process – it is worse than having to clean up the sewers.

It’s very easy to laud and brag about the positive things in ourselves and our culture; but very difficult to face the negative things there and work to root them out.

There have been various estimates of the actual number of Indians killed by Whites in what is now the U.S. Most are between 6,000 and 20,000. The number of whites killed by Indians is comparable. That’s not to say the Indian death toll wasn’t much larger. It was. But virtually all were due to disease brought, yes, by Europeans and Africans. But it was inevitable anyway. One boatload of people from Europe, Asia, or Africa to the U.S. or one boatload from the Americas to any of those places and returned, the result would have been the same.

Indian-on-Indian deaths were massively larger. Did you know, for example, that Texas was once occupied by Apaches until the Comanches killed most and drove the rest into the western deserts? The Ozarks, where I live, and almost all of Kentucky were without Indian populations because aggressive tribes to the north killed the native populations in order to have zero population hunting grounds.

Linguistic similarities do not make a “tribe” or a people. English is related to all other European languages except Finnish. It’s related to all Eastern European languages as well as, Iranian, Pashto and Hindi. Are you really saying Americans and Pashtuns are one people?

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Let us not forget that the U.S. is based on the robbery of lands from the Native Americans and genocide against them. It is in our history and our cultural roots to plunder and kill…which fits pretty well with how we are doing so to the world today, causing environmental harms around the world, ruining others’ subsistence bases, including but not limited to AGW.

I have to admit as a typical middle class American I have been beneficiary of the material fruits of this evil, and also that my great-grandparents in Texas were involved in killing Native Americans, who had to flee Texas bec it was legal in Texas until recently (around 1970) to kill Native Americans, and some are still afraid to come back to their native lands in Texas.

I get the strong impression that you do not like America.

This is the reason you vehemently support the AGW hoax. You want to see America brought down. You believe America does not deserve to be the World Power.
You would rather see the American Southwest ruled by a corrupt, drug running Mexican government or a cartel of wealthy Indian casino owners.

Your anti-Americanism does nothing more than strengthen my AGW skepticism.

 

[lynnvinc]

Hi Lynn:

As I mentioned in passing before, we will be travelling in India in November, visiting among other locations, Goa and Kerala. Any suggestions in general or specifically?

ferd

So far we have not really done much site-seeing, mainly visiting relatives and arranging marriages for his brothers and sisters years ago.

However Kerala should be a great place, aside from it being a tropical paradise, for its very long Christian history, where St. Thomas, the Apostle, went and made his 1st conversions on the subcontinent, who became the Thomas Christians and later came under the See of Antioch and joined the Syrian Rite.

Goa, a former Portuguese colony, has the remains of St. Francis Xavier, companion of St. Ignatius Loyola, and became a 15th c. missionary to India & China.

I’m more familiar with Tamil Nadu, where they have St. Thomas Mound (where he was supposedly martyred) near Chennai, San Thome Basilica (near the beach in Chennai), where his remains are, and other Christian (as well as Hindu) sites of interest, including the Basilica of Our Lady of Vailankanni near Nagapattinam. There were several miracles by Our Lady there in the 15th c. – Portuguese sailors off the coast saved from a ship wreck, a lame Hindu boy cured, and a Hindu milk boy, who’s milk pots on his head started pouring down milk – and many more cures & miracles over the centuries. We used to go there on pilgrimage with our Hindu friends, who considered “Our Lady,” a powerful healing goddess And even Protestants and Muslims go there to get cured or to give thanks for their cures …

There are interesting stories about how when the 2005 tsunami came, a young woman with long flowing black hair went around warning people – the little trinket shops and those who stayed on the beach (& probably up to no good) were washed away, but those who went to morning Mass were spared, as the water only came up to the first step of the church. Likewise in Chennai, the water came up past San Thome Basilica, but did not enter it (some strange feat of God suspending the laws of physics or something).

We are retiring in about 10 days, so we plan to go to a few more tourist places, but mainly nearby in S. Texas, where we’ve been too busy to go places at all. We’re planning to go at least once a week to Our Lady of San Juan (some 8 miles away – another miracle place), go to weekday Mass there, then walk around the Stations of the Cross spread around the grounds as a “spiritual exercise.” Already Pope Francis’s LS has inspired me to diet and lose 17 lbs … only 22 more to go to get within my health range and for the sake of doing what I can to reduce my harms to His creation…

 

[estesbob]

hotair.com/archives/2015/08/19/leading-science-publisher-retracts-dozens-of-papers-for-fake-peer-reviews/

 

[fnr]

Hi fnr,
My initial outrage, speaking as a “religious, social-conservative, capitalist-oriented Catholic,” stems from several things. First, having studied the development of modern climate science, I do not trust the climate science establishment led by the IPCC. You will have to go back to the beginning of this thread for the details.

I am appealing not to individuals, but to science. “Nullius in verba” (on on one’s word) is the old watch-word of the Royal Society of London. Works well here.

While I realize the problems in computer models of climate (having developed computer models and tested them for other issues), I have yet to see a single model that is consistent with our current understanding of atmospheric chemistry and physics, oceanography, and astronomy that predicts that the global mean temperatures will not increase with increasing CO2 values. Sure, there are the favorite anectodes (i.e., cherry picked data unrepresentative of all the available evidence) based on this or that favorite measurement… the Vostok ice core, the debunked pause/hiatus, the debunked surface/satellite discrepancy, etc., but that relies on preferentially selecting those data, rather than taking all the available data and drawing inference from them. That is an ideological position, not a scientific one.

Second, we can speak broadly of a global warming social movement comprised of many different interests: population controllers, radical environmentalists, anti-capitalists of all stripes, one-world governance types, commies, and so on.

That’s interesting, because I’m pretty libertarian, if you can’t tell by my scriptural citation. Among the “global warming social movement,” there’s also poor people, people concerned about the poor, anarchists, small-government green-party types, public health professionals, the nuclear industry, the U.S. Department of Defense, scientists, and a whole lot of people who just want to live their lives in a way that doesn’t cause problems for others.

My approach to reducing climate change would be to stop providing government money to subsidize people living in the desert and remote rangeland, building their McMansions in distant townships by adding more and more lanes to highways, dredging the St. Lawrence Seaway, subsidizing corn and soybeans below market prices, and a whole lot of pretty libertarian-oriented things that address all the myriad ways in which the rich and powerful have harnessed the power of government to increase their bankrolls. Maybe do as just about every mainstream economist suggests and put a tax on carbon to reflect the costs it imposes (which you’re free to suggest adjusting downward to account for uncertainty – akin to acuarially-based insurance rates).

I have asked this questions before but the Holy Father and no one else has answered me: If nasty folks such communists, population controllers, etc. find that global warming alarmism advances their agendas, why is the pontiff so eager to jump on that band wagon?

I reject the premise of your question. In 1975, when the first global climate model predicted that increasing CO2 was an issue, was the USSR bankrolling it? What about when Svante Arrhenius suggested that CO2 was a cause of climate variation – that was 1896, by the way.

It sounds like you don’t believe in global warming because you believe your own conspiracy theory. My point is made. Conservative Catholics have totally forgotten about issues other than abortion and family issues. So everything else gets melted into the “gay, secular, government-funded abortion mill as the driver of the left” mentality.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Thanks Lynn!

God bless you and your retirement. I am envious, as I won’t be able to retire until I am 75. 80?

ferd

 

[Ridgerunner]

I am appealing not to individuals, but to science. “Nullius in verba” (on on one’s word) is the old watch-word of the Royal Society of London. Works well here.

While I realize the problems in computer models of climate (having developed computer models and tested them for other issues), I have yet to see a single model that is consistent with our current understanding of atmospheric chemistry and physics, oceanography, and astronomy that predicts that the global mean temperatures will not increase with increasing CO2 values. Sure, there are the favorite anectodes (i.e., cherry picked data unrepresentative of all the available evidence) based on this or that favorite measurement… the Vostok ice core, the debunked pause/hiatus, the debunked surface/satellite discrepancy, etc., but that relies on preferentially selecting those data, rather than taking all the available data and drawing inference from them. That is an ideological position, not a scientific one.

That’s interesting, because I’m pretty libertarian, if you can’t tell by my scriptural citation. Among the “global warming social movement,” there’s also poor people, people concerned about the poor, anarchists, small-government green-party types, public health professionals, the nuclear industry, the U.S. Department of Defense, scientists, and a whole lot of people who just want to live their lives in a way that doesn’t cause problems for others.

My approach to reducing climate change would be to stop providing government money to subsidize people living in the desert and remote rangeland, building their McMansions in distant townships by adding more and more lanes to highways, dredging the St. Lawrence Seaway, subsidizing corn and soybeans below market prices, and a whole lot of pretty libertarian-oriented things that address all the myriad ways in which the rich and powerful have harnessed the power of government to increase their bankrolls. Maybe do as just about every mainstream economist suggests and put a tax on carbon to reflect the costs it imposes (which you’re free to suggest adjusting downward to account for uncertainty – akin to acuarially-based insurance rates).

I reject the premise of your question. In 1975, when the first global climate model predicted that increasing CO2 was an issue, was the USSR bankrolling it? What about when Svante Arrhenius suggested that CO2 was a cause of climate variation – that was 1896, by the way.

It sounds like you don’t believe in global warming because you believe your own conspiracy theory. My point is made. Conservative Catholics have totally forgotten about issues other than abortion and family issues. So everything else gets melted into the “gay, secular, government-funded abortion mill as the driver of the left” mentality.

I am increasingly persuaded that CO2 increases and, to the extent there is any climate change, it as well, are due to terrible agricultural practices that have desertified huge portions of the earth. I’m persuaded as well that government mismanagement of very large tracts in the American west add to whatever global warming there might be, or at least reduce the global cooling some believe we should be having.

I recall reading a study done by some Ag professors at Texas A&M. They maintained that if all of the U.S. grasslands were managed properly, they would consume more CO2 than U.S. industry, home heating and vehicles produce.

One of the problems with people accepting MMGW theory, though, is that nobody actually experiences it. Where I live, I am very near a climatic transition zone. As a consequence, some plants we can grow where I live cannot be grown much farther north. Also, some creatures that thrive here can’t live much farther north. From the time I was a little kid to today, the zone boundary hasn’t moved an inch. In the face of that, am I really supposed to believe in MMGW just because some people have punched numbers into a computer and projected that it should already have wrought significant changes, changes they keep deferring when the predictions don’t pan out?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I would like to correct my Post #848. English is related to all European languages except Finnish, Basque and Georgian. I only named Finnish. They are not called “Indo-European” languages for no reason. Everything from Gaelic to Hindi, and everything in between except Arabic and Turkic languages, all derive from the same root language. Basque and Georgian do not seem to be related to any other known languages.

 

[sps49]

While I realize the problems in computer models of climate (having developed computer models and tested them for other issues), I have yet to see a single model that is consistent with our current understanding of atmospheric chemistry and physics, oceanography, and astronomy that predicts that the global mean temperatures will not increase with increasing CO2 values. Sure, there are the favorite anectodes (i.e., cherry picked data unrepresentative of all the available evidence) based on this or that favorite measurement… the Vostok ice core, the debunked pause/hiatus, the debunked surface/satellite discrepancy, etc., but that relies on preferentially selecting those data, rather than taking all the available data and drawing inference from them. That is an ideological position, not a scientific one.

Your statement is of course true for an “all things being equal” case, such as a controlled, closed vessel absorption spectroscopy experiment. But in the real world, with its numerous interconnected physical systems, this is not known if it is indeed the case. “Debunked” is a curious word to use for a person interested in the science. Usually, a proposition is accepted or rejected and sent back for more work. I would remind you that the term “hiatus” was used and acknowledged in the AR5 WGI report. The Vostok ice cores temporal resolution would seem to preclude any serious attack on the hiatus, or claims of temperatures “rising faster than ever before,” so I am not sure what you mean.

I too have worked with models which simulate various physical systems, and because of this experience I realize that unless the simulation state space is tightly constrained, nothing but gibberish comes from them.

It sounds like you don’t believe in global warming because you believe your own conspiracy theory. My point is made. Conservative Catholics have totally forgotten about issues other than abortion and family issues. So everything else gets melted into the “gay, secular, government-funded abortion mill as the driver of the left” mentality.

Ahh yes, the accusation of conspiracy theories finally rise up in the dialog again. Your point is as muddy as ever. The only useful information about conservatives that you seem to have is your dislike of them, and their methods. Take a number; get in line.