Pope Francis' upcoming climate change encyclical 'Laudato Sii' (Praised Be)

[lynnvinc]

Even according to the IPCC there is virtually nothing man can do to keep CO2 levels down to “acceptable” levels…

Not familiar with that part of the IPCC reports, but just as well since my husband and I were able to lower our CO2 emissions by over 60% below our 1990 levels over the past 25 years (which doesn’t include the fact since our marriage in 1969 that we’ve always made it a point to live within 1 or 2 miles of work & shops so as to save resources for future generations). And there is much more we can and will be doing…

What I heard from a recent speaker is that the younger generation is being told there is nothing they can do, so they do nothing to mitigate climate change…but once they understand there is plenty they can do, they will step up to the plate and do it (I have my doubts tho).

 

[lynnvinc]

Lest we forget…
MMGW is not the only issue on the environment. There are lots of others including the most important question of all:

What is our relationship to the rest of creation?

Are we overlords? Are we gardeners? Are we equal citizens in Eden?
Are we enemies of Eden? Should we work in tandem with nature, or should we just continue to smash, rent and destroy it and ourselves into oblivion?

This is a moral issue, and is as important as what is our relationship to God? The leader of the Catholic Chuch has not only a right, but a duty to address it. Is it fair, wise and good that we are destroying the earth and her systems, not just for ourselves, but for everyone?

I for one have been looking forward to this encyclical for a while now. I’d like to see humans reinstated as fellow creatures in creation rather than overlords. I’d like to see that we have responsibilities to other creatures and to creation rather than being given permission to simply rape and pillage at will.

I’d like to know that at least someone else is speaking and thinking carefully about my children’s future on this beautiful earth, as well as the present and future welfare of all of God’s handiwork. Global warming is just a small part of this.

Pope Francis has the ear of the world. Let him speak!

And one of the important points is that we are not only harming “nature” – something external to our human lives; we are harming and killing people.

Right now they are planning to frack under my home and a large urban residential area that includes two elementary schools. There are lots of risks and dangers from fracking, and if the air pollution gets bad, we will simply have to sell our home (at a grossly reduced price, since no one will want to buy a home on top of fracking operations) and move somewhere else, hoping it won’t have pollution and contamination issues. My husband has serious health issues with air pollution – he may not be able to survive additional pollution.

Considering that we have been doing much to reduce our environmental harms over the past 45 years and now have an electric car and get all our electricity from wind and solar, I feel it is really rotten we should be suffering from others’ fossil fuel gluttony. The people here on CAF have no sympathy at all for people like my husband and would just shrug and say, oh there is not such thing as environmental harms to people.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Not familiar with that part of the IPCC reports, but just as well since my husband and I were able to lower our CO2 emissions by over 60% below our 1990 levels over the past 25 years (which doesn’t include the fact since our marriage in 1969 that we’ve always made it a point to live within 1 or 2 miles of work & shops so as to save resources for future generations). And there is much more we can and will be doing…

What I heard from a recent speaker is that the younger generation is being told there is nothing they can do, so they do nothing to mitigate climate change…but once they understand there is plenty they can do, they will step up to the plate and do it (I have my doubts tho).

I’m put to mind of Solzhenitsyn’s account of a Gulag camp rebellion. The communists cut off all the power to the camp and were then astonished to see that somehow the inmates had managed to keep the lights on. Not only that, they electrified a fence to keep the KGB out. It took the commandants quite awhile to figure out that the prisoners (some were highly skilled people) had turned on all the water taps full blast and rigged generators for electricity. Then the authorities turned off the water after they figured out how to do it.

In similar manner, if the government installed a nice waterfall for me in my back yard and pumped enough water to keep it going, I could generate my own electricity from it.

I recall your previously describing how you managed to reduce your fossil fuel energy use. It wasn’t all by turning off the lights when leaving a room. It required massive government subsidies for equipment and an electric powered vehicle; both of which, of course, required a great deal of fossil fuel energy to manufacture. That’s really not an answer for the whole population.

Someday or other, “alternative energy” may be the required recourse. But it isn’t today, because fossil fuels are so much less expensive and are still abundant. What, unfortunately the elites are pushing is making them artificially expensive, which will cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

 

[Robert_Bay]

MODERATOR NOTE

Please try to keep this thread on the topic of the upcoming encyclical.

 

[Ridgerunner]

And one of the important points is that we are not only harming “nature” – something external to our human lives; we are harming and killing people.

Right now they are planning to frack under my home and a large urban residential area that includes two elementary schools. There are lots of risks and dangers from fracking, and if the air pollution gets bad, we will simply have to sell our home (at a grossly reduced price, since no one will want to buy a home on top of fracking operations) and move somewhere else, hoping it won’t have pollution and contamination issues. My husband has serious health issues with air pollution – he may not be able to survive additional pollution.

Considering that we have been doing much to reduce our environmental harms over the past 45 years and now have an electric car and get all our electricity from wind and solar, I feel it is really rotten we should be suffering from others’ fossil fuel gluttony. The people here on CAF have no sympathy at all for people like my husband and would just shrug and say, oh there is not such thing as environmental harms to people.

Nobody wishes you or your husband harm. But when one attributes unproven hazards to things like fracking, one may legitimately remain skeptical, however much you believe in it yourself.

 

[estesbob]

I’m put to mind of Solzhenitsyn’s account of a Gulag camp rebellion. The communists cut off all the power to the camp and were then astonished to see that somehow the inmates had managed to keep the lights on. Not only that, they electrified a fence to keep the KGB out. It took the commandants quite awhile to figure out that the prisoners (some were highly skilled people) had turned on all the water taps full blast and rigged generators for electricity. Then the authorities turned off the water after they figured out how to do it.

In similar manner, if the government installed a nice waterfall for me in my back yard and pumped enough water to keep it going, I could generate my own electricity from it.

I recall your previously describing how you managed to reduce your fossil fuel energy use. It wasn’t all by turning off the lights when leaving a room. It required massive government subsidies for equipment and an electric powered vehicle; both of which, of course, required a great deal of fossil fuel energy to manufacture. That’s really not an answer for the whole population.

Someday or other, “alternative energy” may be the required recourse. But it isn’t today, because fossil fuels are so much less expensive and are still abundant. What, unfortunately the elites are pushing is making them artificially expensive, which will cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

Millions of people live on or near fracking operations with no negative impact on them. I would hope you would not let anti-fracking hysteria drive you out of your home

 

[ucfengr]

Anyone who truly believes in MMGW will turn off his computer immediately and never turn it on again. It requires a lot of energy to manufacture, is largely made of petroleum products and requires a significant amount of energy to operate. And, it’s not essential to life.

I have to leave fairly soon here, but I’ll probably look in tomorrow to see how many people have disappeared.

If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

 

[Dawnia]

If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

 

[Ender]

… my husband and I were able to lower our CO2 emissions by over 60% below our 1990 levels over the past 25 years…

Individuals can surely cut their emissions, just not in any way that is meaningful. Your actions are like taking a teaspoonful of water out of a lake. Yes, you have reduced the amount of water there, but it just doesn’t matter. The real point is that nations cannot reduce their emissions with current technologies. The Germans are the latest country to try it, and they have to support their renewable technologies with government subsidies that are simply unsustainable. The worst part is that even their contributions are at the teaspoonful level. They have no useful impact.

Ender

 

[Ridgerunner]

Individuals can surely cut their emissions, just not in any way that is meaningful. Your actions are like taking a teaspoonful of water out of a lake. Yes, you have reduced the amount of water there, but it just doesn’t matter. The real point is that nations cannot reduce their emissions with current technologies. The Germans are the latest country to try it, and they have to support their renewable technologies with government subsidies that are simply unsustainable. The worst part is that even their contributions are at the teaspoonful level. They have no useful impact.

Ender

If you look into it a bit, you’ll find that Germany has started burning brown coal to supplement the “alternative energy” (the vaunted Baltic windmills) because it’s so expensive and inefficient.

Apparently a saying has had some currency in Germany “You can make windmills with steel, but you can’t make steel with windmills”

 

[weller2]

Someday or other, “alternative energy” may be the required recourse. But it isn’t today, because fossil fuels are so much less expensive and are still abundant.

 

[weller2]

Millions of people live on or near fracking operations with no negative impact on them.

Except for an occasional earthquake.

 

[Ridgerunner]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Ultimatereserveoilprojections.gif

There have been warnings about “peak oil” since the early 20th Century.

 

[estesbob]

Except for an occasional earthquake.

Myth No. 4: Fracking can cause earthquakes. Federal officials and geologists have confirmed that fracking itself — as distinct from wastewater disposal — is not responsible for recent tremors felt in Ohio and several other states where fracking takes place. William Leith, senior science adviser for earthquake and geologic hazards at the U.S. Geological Survey, told National Public Radio recently: “Fracking itself probably does not put enough energy into the ground to trigger an earthquake. That’s really not something that we should be concerned about.”

Oil and gas waste water disposal wells, on the other hand, do have a history of causing tremors, most recently in Youngstown, Ohio. However, by reducing the volume of water injected, the depth of wastewater injection wells, and avoiding earthquake-prone areas, the risk of inducing tremors, however small, can be reduced.

freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2877477/posts

 

[lynnvinc]

Nobody wishes you or your husband harm. But when one attributes unproven hazards to things like fracking, one may legitimately remain skeptical, however much you believe in it yourself.

The fracking will not begin until late this year, but if they find increased air pollution in our area consistent with fracking after it has been going on for some time then I most certainly WILL blame it on the fracking and fossil fuel gluttony of people who really are more pro-machine than pro-life.

Some people will go on rejecting everything that is inconvenient to their ideological minds or lifestyles. There is absolutely no level of proof that will ever satisfy them. There are absolutely no words any pope can say that will dissuade them from their thinking, lack of concern, and lack of mitigating actions.

Unfortunately our Texas TCEQ puts its air monitoring stations some 20 miles away from operations, and thus also does not find any problems – see “Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil and Bad Air on the Texas Prairie” at stories.weather.com/fracking

We live in a very evil time, not so much that human nature is worse – it’s probably about the same as it’s always been since Cain killed Abel, then denied it – but that the technology to harm has grossly increased, along with “look-the-other-way” ideologies and various self absorptions.

The point is I’m sure no one truly wishes my husband harm, but they will never admit they are contributing to that harm in their words and in their deeds.

 

[lynnvinc]

Individuals can surely cut their emissions, just not in any way that is meaningful. Your actions are like taking a teaspoonful of water out of a lake. …

Which is because very few others are doing likewise. Materially speaking our efforts don’t amount to anything, but there is the spiritual dimension people tend to forget about.

Mother Teresa once said, “It doesn’t matter how much or how little you do, as long as you do it with love. Your love makes it infinite.” Based on that, my readings of St. Therese, and some other experiences, I developed “The Little Way of Environmental Healing”:

We are faced with enormous environmental problems that harm and kill people, and destroy property and wildlife. Everyone needs to help solve these.

St. Therese of Lisieux teaches us the Little Way of Spiritual Childhood. She felt she could not perform the big mortifications of the saints. We also feel we cannot go back to a lifestyle without cars and modern conveniences.

St. Therese, though, was determined to become a saint. She read, “Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God as a little child will not enter into it.” Following this, St. Therese in childlike simplicity offered God all of her small deeds of ordinary life, and placed all her trust in God to help her scale the cliffs of perfection and avoid temptations. This is the Little Way. “Not everyone can fast, or wear hair shirts, or spend hours in prayer,” she used to say, “but everyone can love!” One thing alone is needful: all must be done for love of God.

What is needed to solve the big environmental problems is a life of many small deeds done out of love for God. We need to offer many small prayers to help us understand the problems and find solutions, and then more prayers to carry out our actions in daily life.

We need faith that our small deeds will, with God’s grace, amount to more than a meaningless drop in the bucket, just as Jesus multiplied the fish & loaves. We need hope that we will one day be rejoicing with God in heaven, so we need not be too concerned with worldly riches, comforts, and honors. We need the charity of joyfully sharing God’s bounty and beauty with others around the world and in the future by helping to save the Earth.

 

[sps49]

Nobody wishes you or your husband harm. But when one attributes unproven hazards to things like fracking, one may legitimately remain skeptical, however much you believe in it yourself.

Attribution is a serious issue with these claims. While being called a denier is annoying, I’m happy to remain skeptical. Legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder, and if I am not accusing people of denial, murder, general planetary destruction and stick to the facts, my conscience is clear.

 

[sps49]

If you look into it a bit, you’ll find that Germany has started burning brown coal to supplement the “alternative energy” (the vaunted Baltic windmills) because it’s so expensive and inefficient.

Apparently a saying has had some currency in Germany “You can make windmills with steel, but you can’t make steel with windmills”

You can’t make windmills from windmills.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The fracking will not begin until late this year, but if they find increased air pollution in our area consistent with fracking after it has been going on for some time then I most certainly WILL blame it on the fracking and fossil fuel gluttony of people who really are more pro-machine than pro-life.

Some people will go on rejecting everything that is inconvenient to their ideological minds or lifestyles. There is absolutely no level of proof that will ever satisfy them.

This works both ways, Lynnvinc. You are ready to think of people who do not share your ideology as “gluttons” and “not prolife” if you become persuaded that sometime later the air pollution in your area has increased, and perhaps even if you aren’t. As with a lot of things in the environmental arena, though, someone or other will definitely claim it, whether right or wrong.

 

[Catholic_Press]

The Holy See Press Office has announced that Pope Francis’s second encyclical letter will be released on June 18.The Pontiff’s first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), was …

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