Obama Announces New Climate Plan

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Darryl1958 said:
People need to eat, and tractors need fossil fuels in order to supply the food.
Good Stewards who drive up the price of food by artificially driving up the cost of fossil fuels are saving the earth through emptying the stomachs of the most poor and needy.
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Who will suffer most from climate change?

The impacts of climate change, and the vulnerability of poor communities to climate change,
vary greatly, but generally, climate change is superimposed on existing vulnerabilities. Climate
change will further reduce access to drinking water, negatively affect the health of poor
people, and will pose a real threat to food security in many countries in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America.

oecd.org/env/cc/2502872.pdf
  1. The Magisterium underscores human responsibility for the preservation of a sound and healthy environment for all. “If humanity today succeeds in combining the new scientific capacities with a strong ethical dimension, it will certainly be able to promote the environment as a home and a resource for man and for all men, and will be able to eliminate the causes of pollution and to guarantee adequate conditions of hygiene and health for small groups as well as for vast human settlements. Technology that pollutes can also cleanse, production that amasses can also distribute justly, on condition that the ethic of respect for life and human dignity, for the rights of today’s generations and those to come, prevails”.
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#New lifestyles
 
Michael_Mayo said:
We do not need a model to tell us right from wrong. We know we are contaminating the environment. Or is there denial there also?
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We dont need proof before taking drastic actions to solve a non-existent problem!!!
An accurate model will only tell us about the consequenses.
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This kinda reminds me of the Red Queen in Alice ion Wonderland “Sentence first, Trial later”
Is it thought that if the consequences are not bad enough then the act is not wrong?
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No one has been able to prove there are consequences to this non-existent problem
If anyone has read the Plan in the title of the thread they would see a very gradual implimentation (ex, 17% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020).
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Killing them slowly still has them end up dead. The proposals to end so called global warming would have devastating effects on the poor-especially in third world countries.
 
Michael_Mayo said:
If anyone has read the Plan in the title of the thread they would see a very gradual implimentation (ex, 17% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020).
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The “Plan” also envisions reducing CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050. That’s a lot of mighty cold folks up north, not much refrigeration and maybe not much food to refrigerate anyway as costs of growing and transporting food “skyrocket”.

80%

The “Plan” as expressed is not a plan. It’s a set of goals; assertions really, without any underlying factual underpinnings. No feasibility studies. No impact studies. No reality. As an example of unreality, it posits “working” with India and China about reducing their emissions. India has already decoupled its climate research program from the IPCC because it didn’t think the latter credible. China builds a new coal-fired plant every 10 days.

It’s well known that “amelioration” in the U.S. won’t change overall CO2 levels in the atmosphere at all, partly because other nations are simply not willing to put their populations through the suffering this administration is willing to put Americans through. Nations like Germany and Spain that went all-out for “alternative energy” are backing away from it now because those things are so expensive.

And yet, the Plan depends on other nations going environmentally radical at the expense of their own people. They won’t do it, and there is nothing in “the Plan” that gives the slightest reason to believe they will.

And, of course, the majority of Americans no longer believe in the disaster scenarios promoted by the left and the billionaires who seek to reap fortunes from their investment in “alternative energy” (and taxpayer subsidies and loans to get there). Nor do the majority of scientists.

It’s just ideology gone wild, which happense to enrich a very few. Obama and his party get a lot of campaign money from the environmentalist groups and the billionaires. The environmentalist groups get a lot of money from the taxpayers and from people they scare with their fear-mongering. And the super-wealthy who have invested heavily in “alternative energy” but don’t live as if they believe in any of it, are entirely willing to see the rest of us suffer.

But as with Obama’s “Syria Plan”, the rest of the world isn’t buying into it. But Obama is willing to force the only people who are under his power…us.
 
2011-11-28 Vatican Radio
On Sunday Pope Benedict expressed the hope that “all members of the international community might reach agreement on a responsible, credible response,” to the phenomenon of climate change, which he described as “complex” and “disturbing”.

In remarks, which followed the Angelus, the Holy Father also asked that leaders’ response be consonant with the spirit and requirements of solidarity, taking into account the needs of the poorest people and future generations.

news.va/en/news/durban-climate-change-conference-underway

A working group of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, one of the oldest scientific institutes in the world, issued a sobering report (5/6/11) on the impacts for humankind as a result of the global retreat of mountain glaciers as a result of human activity leading to climate change.

catholicclimatecovenant.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Pontifical-Academy-of-Sciences_Glacier_Report_050511_final.pdf
 
So I asked the Vatican about global warming… Special Report
By Marshall Connolly, Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
3/15/2013

The bishops and the Church aren’t out to score votes, which is part of the reason why I trust their conclusion. Personally, I have conservative viewpoints on many issues, but I am a Catholic before I am anything else politically.

I know at the end, it’s an appeal to authority, but I promise you, it is backed by genuine science.

For those of you who still doubt, might it be time to reconsider?

catholic.org/green/story.php?id=50128
 
This information is derivative, and from a very poor underlying source (IPCC)

From the last article:

"“There is now a growing consensus that human activities are having a discernible effect on the Earth’s climate (IPCC, 1996). An enormous amount of effort has gone into the scientific research that forms the basis for this judgment. There is also growing concern that such human-influenced changes to the Earth’s climate could have negative effects on human societies and on the Earth’s ecosystems and therefore that these changes should be avoided or slowed.”

This was written in 2011, based on information generated in 1996. If, in 2011 there was a “growing consensus”, it is now a “shrinking consensus”, among both scientists and the American public. Further, the IPCC has been so thoroughly tainted by false “evidence” that it cannot be used anymore as a credible resource. That’s why other countries no longer accept its conclusions or foundational material, either one.
 
Michael_Mayo said:
Who will suffer most from climate change?

The impacts of climate change, and the vulnerability of poor communities to climate change,
vary greatly, but generally, climate change is superimposed on existing vulnerabilities. Climate
change will further reduce access to drinking water, negatively affect the health of poor
people, and will pose a real threat to food security in many countries in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America.

oecd.org/env/cc/2502872.pdf
  1. The Magisterium underscores human responsibility for the preservation of a sound and healthy environment for all. “If humanity today succeeds in combining the new scientific capacities with a strong ethical dimension, it will certainly be able to promote the environment as a home and a resource for man and for all men, and will be able to eliminate the causes of pollution and to guarantee adequate conditions of hygiene and health for small groups as well as for vast human settlements. Technology that pollutes can also cleanse, production that amasses can also distribute justly, on condition that the ethic of respect for life and human dignity, for the rights of today’s generations and those to come, prevails”.
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#New lifestyles
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Reduce, reuse, recycle.
But don’t for a minute think that driving the price of fossil fuels out of the range of poor people to afford food is in any way a good moral choice.
 
lynnvinc said:
Like these radical things:
  • inflate tires, keep engine tuned
  • hypermile – gentle on the breaks and accelerator, stay below 60 mph on the freeway.
  • run multiple errands
  • mover close to work/schools on next move
  • turn out lights not in use
  • don’t run water while brushing teeth, shaving
  • use both side of paper
  • reduce, reuse, recycle
  • buy recycled paper
  • buy used things – at garage sales, from classified ads, on Craig’s list, etc.
  • reusable plates, cups, Xmas trees (have a “green Christmas”)
  • go on alt energy when feasible
  • carpool
  • water garden in evening or early morning & not on windy days; xeriscape
  • off engine in drive-thrus
  • cycle, walk, bus when feasible
  • insulate home
  • build a passive solar home
  • use a solar clothes dryer (clothes line or rack) 🙂
  • buy energy efficient products such as LED & CF lights, appliances, EVs, PHEV, hybrids, fuel efficient vehicles
  • low-flow showerhead, toilet
  • reduce meat consumption, reduce impact on land & energy use, & improve health
  • eat organic
  • eat raw produce, good for health & earth.
  • become a “locavore” & eat locally grown produce
  • pray for ways to reduce one’s environmental and other harm to people and others of God’s creation
  • spend more time in prayer, and less in profligate living
  • return rubberbands to newspaper man at end of month (got that idea from Pope Francis).
  • listen to Steve Silva’s “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” on YouTube – youtube.com/watch?v=CZZFO9F8FWU – and go around singing it in your heart all day 🙂
Totally rad! 🙂
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I can agree with a lot of what you list here, but not all.

I disagree with any action that is at the expense of others. Since things like solar panels and hybrid vehicles aren’t really competitive in producing energy, they are heavily subsidized by taxpayers. So, in using them, one is simply burdening one’s neighbor. Thumbs down on that one.

I utterly disagree with eating organic and reducing meat consumption. Organic food (veggies generally) use more energy in production than does, say, beef or mutton. If the beef or mutton is grass fed, it uses far, far less energy and utilizes land that isn’t good for any other kind of food production. Organic food is not infrequently contaminated because they substitute animal manure for other fertilizers.

An exception to organic food contamination is food that’s covered with skin and has its own anti-bacterial mechanisms internally. That would include cattle, sheep, and goats.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I can agree with a lot of what you list here, but not all.

I disagree with any action that is at the expense of others. Since things like solar panels and hybrid vehicles aren’t really competitive in producing energy, they are heavily subsidized by taxpayers. So, in using them, one is simply burdening one’s neighbor. Thumbs down on that one.

I utterly disagree with eating organic and reducing meat consumption. Organic food (veggies generally) use more energy in production than does, say, beef or mutton. If the beef or mutton is grass fed, it uses far, far less energy and utilizes land that isn’t good for any other kind of food production. Organic food is not infrequently contaminated because they substitute animal manure for other fertilizers.

An exception to organic food contamination is food that’s covered with skin and has its own anti-bacterial mechanisms internally. That would include cattle, sheep, and goats.
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Agreed.

As pointed out in my post above energy is the main cost associated with production. Organic foods are more expensive because they use more energy in their production. More trips across a field with less output are the prime drivers of the high cost of “organic” foods.
 
**Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene, A Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences **
Anthropocene: Aggressive exploitation of fossil fuels and other natural
resources has damaged the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we inhabit.
To give one example, some 1000 billion tons of carbon dioxide and other climatically
important “greenhouse” gases have been pumped into the atmosphere. As a result,
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air now exceeds the highest levels of the
last 800,000 years. The climatic and ecological impacts of this human interference
with the Earth System are expected to last for many millennia, warranting a new name,
The Anthropocene, for the new “man-made” geologic epoch we are living in. p.3

An expert group of scientists met under the auspices of the Pontifical Academy
of Sciences at the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican from 2 to 4 April 2011 to discuss the
fate of mountain glaciers in the Anthropocene and consider the responses required
to stabilize the climate change affecting them. This group’s consensus statement is a
warning to humanity and a call for fast action—to mitigate global and regional warming,
to protect mountain glaciers and other vulnerable ecosystems, to assess national
and local climate risks, and to prepare to adapt to those climate impacts that cannot be
mitigated. The group also notes that another major anthropogenic risk to the climate
system is from the threat of nuclear war, which can be lessened by rapid and large
reductions in global nuclear arsenals. p 7

Because of the time lag between mitigation action and climate response, vulnerable
ecosystems and populations will face significant climate impacts and possibly unacceptable risks even with ultimately successful mitigation. Therefore, in addition to
mitigation, adaptation must also start now and be pursued aggressively. p 13

casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/glaciers.pdf

A comprehensive approach for reducing anthropogenic climate impacts including risk
of abrupt climate changes*

Successfully addressing long-term climate change requires fast and aggressive
cuts in CO2 emissions, but that is not enough. In the face of uneven
regional warming and increasing climate impacts that are already occurring
and that may be accelerating, fast and aggressive cuts in SLCFs also are essential p. 8

Faced with serious and largely irreversible changes to large components
of the Earth’s climate system, a comprehensive climate policy can benefit
from considering all sources of warming and all mitigation options. The
scale and speed of climate change impacts requires comprehensive fast-action
mitigation strategies, including strategies to reduce both CO2 and non-
CO2 climate forcers, and to protect and expand existing and new carbon
sinks. p 12

casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv118/sv118-molina-zaelke.pdf

and more from The Pontifical Academy of Sciences:

casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/publications/scriptavaria/glaciers.html

casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/publications/scriptavaria/interactions.html

CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv106/sv106-sachs.pdf
 
SamH said:
How does water power run a tractor in a field?
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You are changing the subject. I was answering your statement, “Shift to what? Right now fossil fuels are the cleanest forms of energy that man kind has devised.” Clearly, fossil fuel is nowhere near the cleanest form of energy, but it is the cheapest, except for waterpower.

In answer to your second statement above, I submit that water power is used to create electricity and, as the Tesla company has nicely demonstrated, electric vehicles are not a fantasy. If they can advance the technology so that the middle class individual can afford one, it will be a great day. BTW, have you seen the new Tesla? I’d love to own one, but alas, I’m a bit too conservative with my spending, I’ll stick with my Prius, which at least conserves on the use of fossil fuel.

Another form of energy is the fuel cell. Some are very clean, producing only water as a byproduct. General Electric in partnership with Toledo Edison had produced a fuel cell for the home ten years ago, which they claimed was economically feasible at that time and allowed a home to be completely self-sufficient. You can imagine the forces against such a solution, I’m sure. Their website is probably still out there. I’m not sure whether theirs was/is powered by hydrogen or natural gas, but if the latter, it is still a far cry from the conventional use of natural gas, since its use in a fuel cell produces no unwanted atmospheric gases to the best of my knowledge. And don’t get me wrong. I am not a greenie. I would welcome a switch to burning natural gas for running automobiles (it’s cleaner than gasoline), and I would also favor continued advancements in sequestration (I think that’s the term) in the burning of coal for electric generation. As for oil, it is only used in a few places for electric generation, I believe, New England and Florida.

An error of the current administration seems to have been the idea that throwing money at the alternative energy industries would force innovation and discovery, which it has not. We have been working on making alternative fuels economically feasible since the 70’s and before with some success, but not near enough. I’m sure one day it will come, and we can enhance its chances of coming sooner, but we can’t “make” it happen as the current administration seems to have thought. One advancement I am looking for is the small, cheap to produce battery with a very large capacity. That will solve a litany of problems, including the electric car and the solar/wind-powered home. But while we’re doing research and development, we need to continue with the cheaper, dirty fuels, although as I said above, switching to natural gas and fuel cells seems to me to be implementable at the present time if the industries want to make it happen.
 
estesbob said:
We have an energy boom in the US. The only thing stopping us from being self reliant on energy is environmentalist spreading misinformation about fracking. Good stewards don’t starve people to death in third world countries while trading carbon credits like monopoly meony
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The energy boom in the US is the result of free enterprise. Obama’s plan stifle energy production.

The overt efforts of the Good Stewards of the environmental movement spare no expense and effort in their drive to make fossil fuels as unaffordable as possible.

It does not matter if all bureaucratic plans to develop an alternative energy grid outside of fossil fuels have not delivered sufficient results to drive the tractors forward.
God is in the back pocket of the environmentalists, and the popes too, according to their faith.

But in the meantime, tractors don’t run on water, as much as we all might wish that they did.

The model that recognizes that the expense of delivering food to the tables of the poor varies directly with the cost of energy is not a complicated one. It doesn’t require fancy graphs and super computers and billions of dollars of grant money to understand, or to obscure understanding, as the case may be.
 
Michael_Mayo said:
**Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene, A Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences **
Anthropocene: Aggressive exploitation of fossil fuels and other natural
resources has damaged the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we inhabit.
To give one example, some 1000 billion tons of carbon dioxide and other climatically
important “greenhouse” gases have been pumped into the atmosphere. As a result,
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air now exceeds the highest levels of the
last 800,000 years. The climatic and ecological impacts of this human interference
with the Earth System are expected to last for many millennia, warranting a new name,
The Anthropocene, for the new “man-made” geologic epoch we are living in. p.3

An expert group of scientists met under the auspices of the Pontifical Academy
of Sciences at the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican from 2 to 4 April 2011 to discuss the
fate of mountain glaciers in the Anthropocene and consider the responses required
to stabilize the climate change affecting them. This group’s consensus statement is a
warning to humanity and a call for fast action—to mitigate global and regional warming,
to protect mountain glaciers and other vulnerable ecosystems, to assess national
and local climate risks, and to prepare to adapt to those climate impacts that cannot be
mitigated. The group also notes that another major anthropogenic risk to the climate
system is from the threat of nuclear war, which can be lessened by rapid and large
reductions in global nuclear arsenals. p 7
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Yes, European glaciers are receding. However, in the southern hemisphere, they’re growing.

They’re kind of mixing things here, leaping from MMGW due to CO2 emissions to something-or-other due to a nuclear war that hasn’t happened, and calling for arms reductions. Seems a bit ideologically tainted to me.
 
JamesCaruso said:
You are changing the subject. I was answering your statement, “Shift to what? Right now fossil fuels are the cleanest forms of energy that man kind has devised.” Clearly, fossil fuel is nowhere near the cleanest form of energy, but it is the cheapest, except for waterpower.
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I was not changing the subject I was asking you to explain how that shift takes place. I take the above as an admission that you don’t know.
 
Michael_Mayo said:
This is what we must change. We, the entire world, has become dependent on fossil fuels. Oil companies love it. But it is toxic. We depend on it for our transportation, jobs, heating and cooling. Out energy strategy has always enslaved us to oil, coal, and natural gas. It is killing us and our planet.

Look at the air and look at the water.
If you live in a big city it is worse.
Is there a natural waterway near you that you would drink from?
Is this what we want to pass on to future generations?
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You do realize that God created this fossil fuel which you and our President hate so much, right? Chicken Little comes to mind…:rolleyes:
 
RandomRhino said:
Um, I’m pretty sure that dealing with climate change is the Catholic thing to do. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI were very vocal about climate change…

To say that you don’t believe in climate change… it worries me that Catholics are appearing crazier and crazier to everyone else even on things that people SHOULDN’T think we’re crazy for.

I’ve been taught that climate change is very real and we need to work towards a sustainable solution. If you want to blame anyone for the way I think, then blame the Catholic schools and Jesuit education that taught me.:rolleyes:
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It is also and more importantly a shame that many Catholics allow and vote for pro-abortion candidates. That should scare you more than those who disagree with MMGW statements by popes. Abortion is intrinsically evil; MMGW is not even scientific fact, much less infallible teaching.

Not in the same ball park…
 
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