Putting Catholic faith into action on climate change

[Ender]

4elise:

“Poverty overseas means not just stretching food budgets,” he said, but also “starvation and malnutrition.” It means people dying early because of preventable diseases, farmers trying to “coax a harvest from fields devastated by drought or floods related to climate shifts.”

The poor are being hit doubly hard, by both the global economic and the looming climate change crises, he said.

“Ironically, poor people have contributed the least to the economic crisis facing our world, but their lives and livelihoods are likely to suffer the greatest devastation,” it said. “In a similar way, poor countries and peoples who have contributed the least to the human factors driving global climate change are most at risk of its harmful consequences.”

Despite statements like this one, I don’t foresee the Church ever saying that there is a moral requirement to believe in man made global warming.

Ender

 

[4elise]

Despite statements like this one, I don’t foresee the Church ever saying that there is a moral requirement to believe in man made global warming.

Ender

sigh… no, you may be right. No ‘moral requirement’ to take action that may (yes I said may) have a greater impact on the future - no, you and other Catholics who are waiting for it to be written in stone may (again, I say may) be off the hook - for me, I’ll err on the side or personal action that I believe can have an impact.

Peace to you.

 

[4elise]

The right thing for the poor is to deny the lie that CO2 contributes to climate change.

These leftist leaders are attempting to add massive taxation and regulatory burdens to energy production.

We need energy for producing food, shelter, and medical care, ESPECIALLY In the developing world.

CO2 is plant food, not pollution, and it is time to stand up and expose the frauds.

Stephen Colecchi, director of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Office of International Justice and Peace - yup… sounds like a leftist leader to me…
EXCESSIVE CO2 is I believe what most scientists point to - along with other green house gases - commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/16-8 - as being the problem

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

I appreciate Sailor that this is the issue you always believe is ‘behind’ care of creation - ***however apparently our Church leaders disagree with you. — ***

Again, you misrepresent.

What if your ‘feelgoodism’ actually hurts people? What if your turning a blind eye to the political agenda of eugenics will (as is inevitable) contribute to its cause?

The left is wrong on every single issue. Their agenda has harmed Holy Mother Church. Their agenda kills.

Their policies of government intervention costs lives. They initiated the holocaust against unborn babies. Their feelgoodism hurts the poor while allowing people to trumpet that they are ‘saving’ them.

Be not like the Pharisees who pray and give alms in order to reflect their own glory.

Save souls, not the planet.

 

[4elise]

Again, you misrepresent.

What if your ‘feelgoodism’ actually hurts people? What if your turning a blind eye to the political agenda of eugenics will (as is inevitable) contribute to its cause?

The left is wrong on every single issue. Their agenda has harmed Holy Mother Church. Their agenda kills.

Their policies of government intervention costs lives. They initiated the holocaust against unborn babies. Their feelgoodism hurts the poor while allowing people to trumpet that they are ‘saving’ them.

Be not like the Pharisees who pray and give alms in order to reflect their own glory.

Save souls, not the planet.

So… your belief is that Holy Mother Church has been mislead on the subjects of (1) care of creation? (2) putting the needs of poor first? (3) or just topics you disagree with?

The Pharisees and the Sadducees also wanted no change to the status quo - felt threatened by Jesus’ associating with sinners, putting people before *their ‘law’ *that had been laid upon God’s law.

Save souls??? … while this thread has over 1000 posts - I’ve started several threads on the mission of the Church ad gentes and had few or NO replies!

As for ‘feelgoodism’ ---- what I’ve proposed in this thread is actually PERSONAL SACRIFICE - ---- others may chose to ‘feelgoodbyavoidingchange’ ---- I value that our Holy Mother Church speaks on this issue to be the voice of the voiceless - and I will and do listen and do not suspect some hidden agenda just because it may be a change to the status quo.

 

[joeNJ]

The fact is no one can possibly be sure one way or the other about climate change. Our planet is such a complex, fluid interaction of systems that no can definitively say what is causing the climate change. Climate has been changing throughout time and will continue to do so. Mankind has been relatively fortunate to have lived the past several thousand years in a relativley stable climate pattern. To survive drastic climate changes with our population level we must be more adaptable. But we know that adjusting to the changes will result in lower food production.

We can also be much more proactive in reducing our effect on the environment because in all likelyhood we are creating an impact that may influence climate change. But knowing that climate does change, and knowing that drastic change will cause hardship, we must work together to minimize that hardship when it finally comes.

 

[Ender]

sigh… no, you may be right.

In this case I think the chances are quite high.

No ‘moral requirement’ to take action that may (yes I said may) have a greater impact on the future

There is no moral requirement (or even a “moral requirement”) to believe in a highly problematic scientific theory; there is no moral superiority in choosing one side over the other.

• no, you and other Catholics who are waiting for it to be written in stone may (again, I say may) be off the hook -

We are not off the hook because there was never a hook for us to be on. Nor are we waiting for it to be written in stone; we are waiting for the facade to crumble revealing nothing but imaginative nonsense and leaving a trail of red faces. One side is neither more nor less moral than the other; you follow the piper, we don’t. One of us is correct, the other is incorrect. That is not a moral question.

for me, I’ll err on the side or personal action that I believe can have an impact.

Good for you … that’s what I am doing. By opposing the theory and by pointing out the scientific inadequacies I hope to slow down any response sufficiently so that we won’t wreck our economy responding to hysterical superstition before sufficient evidence is found to finally put a stake through the heart of this delusion.

Ender

 

[Ender]

So… your belief is that Holy Mother Church has been mislead on the subjects of (1) care of creation? (2) putting the needs of poor first? (3) or just topics you disagree with?

This is a bait-and-switch argument. We are not discussing the need to care for creation or for the poor; the topic here is whether there is a Catholic response to climate change. The question of whether man **has **affected the climate is not the same as whether he **should **care for the earth. I don’t think anyone here is arguing that we should be unconcerned with our impact on our environment - which is what you imply by you question. Holy Mother Church may have a position on the care of creation but she has none at all on the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

If I say we should fish upstream and you hold that we should fish downstream you obviously have no basis to charge me with unconcern for feeding the hungry. So when I say the theory of AGW is wrong and you say it is right, on what rational basis can you infer that I am unwilling to care for creation or meet the needs of the poor? Our disagreement over the correctness of the theory provides no more basis for making that charge than a disagreement over whether Texas has a better football team than Alabama.

Ender

 

[qui_est_ce]

Stephen Colecchi, director of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Office of International Justice and Peace - yup… sounds like a leftist leader to me…
EXCESSIVE CO2 is I believe what most scientists point to - along with other green house gases - commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/16-8 - as being the problem

Okay if excessive co2 is a problem, what problems are we experiencing today that we didn’t experience 100 years ago, since the co2 in the atmosphere has increased exponentially during that time period?

I know the air in St. Louis is a lot cleaner than it was even 50 years ago.

 

[qui_est_ce]

We are not off the hook because there was never a hook for us to be on. Nor are we waiting for it to be written in stone; we are waiting for the facade to crumble revealing nothing but imaginative nonsense and leaving a trail of red faces. One side is neither more nor less moral than the other; you follow the piper, we don’t. One of us is correct, the other is incorrect. That is not a moral question.

Good for you … that’s what I am doing. By opposing the theory and by pointing out the scientific inadequacies I hope to slow down any response sufficiently so that we won’t wreck our economy responding to hysterical superstition before sufficient evidence is found to finally put a stake through the heart of this delusion.

Ender

I’m joining you.

 

[qui_est_ce]

sigh… no, you may be right. No ‘moral requirement’ to take action that may (yes I said may) have a greater impact on the future - no, you and other Catholics who are waiting for it to be written in stone may (again, I say may) be off the hook - for me, I’ll err on the side or personal action that I believe can have an impact.

Peace to you.

I think recycling and composting are the better. And it gives people jobs.

 

[4elise]

Okay if excessive co2 is a problem, what problems are we experiencing today that we didn’t experience 100 years ago, since the co2 in the atmosphere has increased exponentially during that time period?

I know the air in St. Louis is a lot cleaner than it was even 50 years ago.

Well good for St. Louis! If only your clean air were the only thing to be concerned about

sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090127163403.htm

“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”

 

[4elise]

This is a bait-and-switch argument. We are not discussing the need to care for creation or for the poor; the topic here is whether there is a Catholic response to climate change. The question of whether man **has **affected the climate is not the same as whether he **should **care for the earth. I don’t think anyone here is arguing that we should be unconcerned with our impact on our environment - which is what you imply by you question. Holy Mother Church may have a position on the care of creation but she has none at all on the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

If I say we should fish upstream and you hold that we should fish downstream you obviously have no basis to charge me with unconcern for feeding the hungry. So when I say the theory of AGW is wrong and you say it is right, on what rational basis can you infer that I am unwilling to care for creation or meet the needs of the poor? Our disagreement over the correctness of the theory provides no more basis for making that charge than a disagreement over whether Texas has a better football team than Alabama.

Ender

I don’t follow football and also know that commercial fishing is the number one cause water pollution - so I’ll pass on the fishing too.

Ender - I know you enjoy having the last word, and wonder if this is the source of your name here at CAF - but as much as you want to avoid this - the fact is that the Catholic Church in it’s bishops, and in it’s communication with the world does speak about climate change and our need to respond as individuals and to advocate for policy that keeps the needs of the poor (not just in the US but in the entire world) at the heart of the discussion. ---- So, for anyone new to this VERY long thread - they may be interested in taking a look at the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change on this Feast of St. Francis!
catholicsandclimatechange.org/

So… yes the discussion on the need to care for creation and to care for the poor means to me taking personal action to reduce my personal carbon footprint and the advocate for measures that I believe keep the all the poor at the heart of the discussion.

 

[WinterWH]

This is a classic case of science by press release.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090127163403.htm

It falls into the same category as what we now see is the faked tree ring data that was used to justify the global warming hoax that was deliberately morfed into the climate change hoax. See my thread on the fabricated tree ring episode.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=382825

Now, it’s NOAA doing something that is unscientific or bad science. They are using computer models to make heavier than air carbon dioxide to suddenly “mix” and rise instead of sink. It defies common sense. Not much different than the slight of hand produced inside a computer game.

Carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide. There aren’t different “kinds” of carbon dioxide. [Someone was trying to make a point elsewhere and showed a black/brown smoke stack and went on about carbon dioxide which is colorless.]

Carbon dioxide is heavier than air and all the “mixing” in the world isn’t going to make it “stay up” for very long. Carbon dioxide is also such a very small miniscule percentage of the gases that make up the atmosphere that its effect is tiny compared with other gases such as water vapor.

 

[WinterWH]

This is a classic case of science by press release.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090127163403.htm

It falls into the same category as what we now see is the faked tree ring data that was used to justify the global warming hoax that was deliberately morfed into the climate change hoax. See my thread on the fabricated tree ring episode.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=382825

The tree ring data by a legitimate scientist was accepted by just about everyone for a long time. Now it turns out to have been totally totally false. Really bad science.

Now we are given this Solomon press release in which they are using computer models to make heavier than air carbon dioxide to suddenly “mix” and rise instead of sink. It defies common sense. Not much different than the slight of hand produced inside a computer game.

Carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide. There aren’t different “kinds” of carbon dioxide. [Someone was trying to make a point elsewhere and showed a black/brown smoke stack and went on about carbon dioxide which is colorless.]

 

[WinterWH]

Here’s a link to an article that details how the tree ring data was grossly misused.

wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/02/a-hands-on-view-of-tree-growth-and-tree-rings-one-explanation-for-briffas-yad061-lone-tree-core/

We need some folks to go after NOAA for abuse of science in using computer models to show that there are special kinds of carbon dioxide that are being shown to linger in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years.

I wish I had the time and budget to go after these people.

And it needs to be done in less than the ten years it took to unearth the truth about the tree ring data fraud.

[These people should be forced to give back their government grants and then to be indicted for some sort of perjury or a felony and given prison time.]

 

[Ender]

the fact is that the Catholic Church in it’s bishops, and in it’s communication with the world does speak about climate change and our need to respond as individuals and to advocate for policy that keeps the needs of the poor (not just in the US but in the entire world) at the heart of the discussion.

The opinions of a few bishops do not equate to teachings of the Church. They have their own political projects and we have no obligation whatever to agree with them. The statements of individual bishops on global warming no more represent Church teaching than do yours.

---- So, for anyone new to this VERY long thread - they may be interested in taking a look at the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change on this Feast of St. Francis!
catholicsandclimatechange.org/

Nor is the opinion of the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change any more significant than the Catholic Coalition Rejecting AGW … which anyone with a web site can start.

I think the bishops do us a real disservice by getting involved with issues that quite literally have nothing to do with ethical questions. They are no more qualified to teach about global warming than they are to suggest changes to banking laws. Debates about such questions are in regard to which actions will be beneficial and which will not and there is no moral component whatever in determining the correct answer.

On the one hand you are willing to admit that the Church has no teaching on global warming but even as you concede that point you still insist that, because some bishops have (injudiciously) spoken out, there is some implied moral obligation to accept their opinion. This is untrue. There is no Catholic side to this debate.

Ender

 

[Calliso]

This is a classic case of science by press release.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090127163403.htm

It falls into the same category as what we now see is the faked tree ring data that was used to justify the global warming hoax that was deliberately morfed into the climate change hoax. See my thread on the fabricated tree ring episode.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=382825

Now, it’s NOAA doing something that is unscientific or bad science. They are using computer models to make heavier than air carbon dioxide to suddenly “mix” and rise instead of sink. It defies common sense. Not much different than the slight of hand produced inside a computer game.

Carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide. There aren’t different “kinds” of carbon dioxide. [Someone was trying to make a point elsewhere and showed a black/brown smoke stack and went on about carbon dioxide which is colorless.]

Carbon dioxide is heavier than air and all the “mixing” in the world isn’t going to make it “stay up” for very long. Carbon dioxide is also such a very small miniscule percentage of the gases that make up the atmosphere that its effect is tiny compared with other gases such as water vapor.

Huh? You do realize there are other things that come out of smoke stakes then co2 right. What your saying there is like saying a volcano doesn;t emit co2 when it erupts because the eruption isn;t clear. \

Actually the thing is without co2 this planet would be much much colder. Even with the water vapor which btw would drastically go down if we removed all the co2 from the atmosphere. Water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas but unlike co2 you can;t just add a bunch of it too the atmosphere and have it stay there it would fall back as rain. And if you somehow managed to remove all the water vapor from the atmosphere it would return in the form of evaporation pretty quickly. Also warmer air can hold more water vapor. Anyway more on the water vapor feed back effect can be found here. yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2008/02/common-climate-misconceptions-the-water-vapor-feedback-2/

And what do you mean about co2 sinking? About different kinds of co2 well you might wanna read this about how we are able to differentate between antropogenic sources of co2 and natural sources of co2 it has to do with isotopes. realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/

Oh and I have already posted this but I will again for the whole tree ring conspiracy. realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/#more-1184

Also one of the comments here realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/comment-page-7/#comment-137150

I found this interesting as well deepclimate.org/2009/10/04/climate-auditor-steve-mcintyre-yamal/

Briffa responds…cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2000/

ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html seems he is ignoring the newer better graph made in 2008 as well here.

Really I could post more but the point is there is no tree ring controversy. The claims made about global warming being totally based off some massive tree ring conspiracy are totally false. Of course do I expect these accusations to ever end? No especially when it comes to the hockey stick or hockey sticks now considering multiple proxies have been done now skeptics really get heated about that!

 

[qui_est_ce]

Well good for St. Louis! If only your clean air were the only thing to be concerned about

I don’t like your assumption that I only care about my own city. Don’t you think that if the air in St. Louis is cleaner, it’s cleaner elsewhere in the US? Lot’s of pollution controls are in effect nationwide. Cars now have catalytic converters. Most houses are now heated with electricity or natural gas.

the fact is that the Catholic Church in it’s bishops, and in it’s communication with the world does speak about climate change and our need to respond as individuals and to advocate for policy that keeps the needs of the poor (not just in the US but in the entire world) at the heart of the discussion. —
catholicsandclimatechange.org/

You keep referencing this group. This is not a USCCB site. It’s a group of Catholics who think THEIR version of the world will help the poor. I staunchly disagree and think the poor will suffer greatly if cap and trade happens.

So… yes the discussion on the need to care for creation and to care for the poor means to me taking personal action to reduce my personal** carbon footprint **and the advocate for measures that I believe keep the all the poor at the heart of the discussion.

Buzzwords which mean nothing.

Here’s a link to an article that details how the tree ring data was grossly misused.

wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/02/a-hands-on-view-of-tree-growth-and-tree-rings-one-explanation-for-briffas-yad061-lone-tree-core/

We need some folks to go after NOAA for abuse of science in using computer models to show that there are special kinds of carbon dioxide that are being shown to linger in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years.

I wish I had the time and budget to go after these people.

And it needs to be done in less than the ten years it took to unearth the truth about the tree ring data fraud.

[These people should be forced to give back their government grants and then to be indicted for some sort of perjury or a felony and given prison time.]

Absolutely outrageous.

 

[Calliso]

Here’s a link to an article that details how the tree ring data was grossly misused.

wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/02/a-hands-on-view-of-tree-growth-and-tree-rings-one-explanation-for-briffas-yad061-lone-tree-core/

We need some folks to go after NOAA for abuse of science in using computer models to show that there are special kinds of carbon dioxide that are being shown to linger in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years.

I wish I had the time and budget to go after these people.

And it needs to be done in less than the ten years it took to unearth the truth about the tree ring data fraud.

[These people should be forced to give back their government grants and then to be indicted for some sort of perjury or a felony and given prison time.]

Take a deep breath and read this nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html It might help you understand more about co2 life time in the atmosphere and what we know and donlt know. But nope no conspiracy here either sorry to disapoint.