To the global warming nay-sayers

[TheRealJuliane]

I used to live in Michigan, albeit under the bridge. Maybe this year was a bit colder in your area, but it may very well be localized and not representative of the overall trend.

And really, global warming or not, spewing out pollution from cars and factories cannot be good for the environment and people’s health, regardless of its effects on temperature.

As usual, confusing two related but very different issues. The AGW people have purposely merged the two issues so that people believe that taking care of the earth means stopping “global warming,” as if we ever even could do that.

AGW is a separate issue from good stewardship of the earth. AGW has been disproven and in fact, is driven by an agenda which involves a few people making a heck of a lot of money and the concentration of power by governments. Good stewardship of the earth means that we have better controls on pollution all the time; we try to recycle and not use more of the world’s resources than we need, while not denying that we do need energy to lead productive lives.

 

[lynnvinc]

If the Pope or the Catholic Church publicly advocated its stance to combat global warming, would you still deny it?

Catholic Church Goes Green To Counter Global Warming

Of course, they are referring to BXVI (not our current pope), and his admonitions to combat climate change. And the verdict has been out for some time – skeptics and denialists have roundly refused to accept whatever BXVI has to say about climate change, some pointing out that BXVI is NOT a scientist and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Some even refuse to engage in climate change mitigation measures that save them money without lowering their living standards; and some even go to the extent to striving to emit more GHGs, even tho it is at greater cost to them (also emitting more of other pollution in the process, which also harms and kills people).

It will be interesting to see if Pope Francis, who majored in science, calls on us to combat climate change how skeptics and deniers react.

Will they reject what he says, because (I’m guessing) he is NOT a climate scientist and doesn’t know what he’s talking about; and the other climate scientists of the world (except a few on oil/coal payrolls) are in some vast conspiracy to fool us all for some nefarious purposes. And Pope Francis, like BXVI and JPII before him, is just a dupe of the conspiracy.

Cafeteria Catholic comes to mind.

 

[lynnvinc]

Check the current temperature in southeast Michigan and explain it to me.

Peace,
Ed

Strongly negative arctic oscillation, which is expected to get worse with climate change.

 

[lynnvinc]

The Pope did not say that global climate change is caused by humans and the Pope specifically avoided endorsing a particular course of action with regards to global climate change. What the Vatican says is that a change in climate will unavoidably be a social justice issue that Catholics may not ignore.

IOW, it doesn’t matter whether or not this or that activity can be blamed, but it does matter a lot whether this or that activity is going to give one group or another an advantage at the cost of suffering to someone else. Since it is possible that suffering can be abated by looking at what changes may be happening in the climate in the future, Catholics cannot ignore the possibility that they may be asked to undertake prudent courses of actions before the worst disaster strikes.

We don’t have to agree, provided we are being honest about what the science may be saying. We do have to care, and we do have to care about someone other than ourselves. We have to care about taking care of God’s creation and we have to care about how our actions affect that creation and our fellow human beings. We also have to care about how our public policies affect our fellow human beings. This is all very important, and a moral issue. That doesn’t mean that the Vatican is saying that there is only one course of action that a moral person or a moral nation can support.

Then one has to wonder why the Vatican is striving to become “carbon neutral,” putting up solar panels, etc. See: treehugger.com/renewable-energy/solar-roof-brings-vatican-closer-to-becoming-worlds-first-carbon-neutral-state.html

 

[styrgwillidar]

Michael Crichton made an interesting observation in 2003. I think it only partly explains why the science has been corrupted so badly by those pushing AGW (the other part being those trying to leverage the issue for economics both personal gain by creating a tradeable commodity via cap-and-trade as well as wealth redistribution):

"I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form:”

You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday—these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain*, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christis the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them.

These are not facts that can be argued.

These are issues of faith."

And followers of that faith definitely try and silence the heretics, or discount them as biased.

However, the core guidance of the Church of being good stewards, as another poster mentioned, remains - conserving resources and minimizing waste to ensure the earth’s resources are shared as fairly as possible now and preserved for the future generations.

 

[Ridgerunner]

OK, but if the Pope had told the Church that the bubonic plague was spread by fleas carried by rats, would that mean a Catholic of good conscience could ignore the possibility? Or maybe he thought something else caused it that didn’t cause it. In either case, I think what a Catholic could not do would be to ignore that someone might be able to give them information about how bubonic plague was spread. Yes, a good Catholic could say, “I don’t think it is rats” or else “I don’t think it is this other thing the Pope says that it is, I think it is fleas on rats”, but I don’t think Heaven will be impressed with, “Well, the Pope is no scientist, and since he wasn’t speaking ex cathedra, I decided the problem of bubonic plague was no worry of mine.”

IOW, the Pope might not be the authority to tell you what causes bubonic plague, but the Pope could tell you that as a Catholic bubonic plague is your problem to concern yourself with, even if your village hasn’t seen any yet, and you’d better have a very good reason for ignoring him.

Interesting example, since some scientists dispute that the “Black Death” was bubonic plague at all.

When scientists tell us something, we should pay attention if it’s something clearly threatening. We should also listen to those who say it isn’t.

Certainly, if the Pope or some other churchman tells us we should be concerned about something threatening people, we should pay attention. Without question there are a lot of environmental hazards going on in the world. But whether MMGW due to CO2 emissions is one of them is not at all certain.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Cafeteria Catholic comes to mind.

No need to call people names, Lynnvinc, and especially since the term “Cafeteria Catholic” refers to people who reject Church DOCTRINE. MMGW is not a doctrine of the Church.

 

[lynnvinc]

As usual, confusing two related but very different issues. The AGW people have purposely merged the two issues so that people believe that taking care of the earth means stopping “global warming,” as if we ever even could do that.

AGW is a separate issue from good stewardship of the earth. AGW has been disproven and in fact, is driven by an agenda which involves a few people making a heck of a lot of money and the concentration of power by governments. Good stewardship of the earth means that we have better controls on pollution all the time; we try to recycle and not use more of the world’s resources than we need, while not denying that we do need energy to lead productive lives.

Actually nearly all the measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, also reduce a lot of other well-accepted harms, environmental and other.

AGW can serve as an umbrella issue in that it inspires people to reduce their GHGs, thereby also leading them to reduce other harms. So in the end if y’all are correct and AGW is not happening, but we do many things to mitigate it, we will have mitigated many other problems. It is a win-win-win-win thing to accept AGW and strive to mitigate it.

I’ve been an environmentalist nearly all my life, and I remember a big issue in the early 70s was using up finite resources too fast. Because of that I made sure we always lived close to work & shops, etc…within 1 or 2 miles. I understand that may not be feasible in many places/situations, but since my husband was pretty picky about NOT accepting jobs in those types of places (e.g., big cities) for other reasons, we’ve been able to pull it off.

Think of all the benefits:

• less time on the road, more time for family, job, gardening, recreation, etc.
• less stress
• less chance of accidents
• less toxic fumes from auto pollution (including indoor auto pollution), which can cause all sorts of health hazards, including miscarriages and birth defects, heart disease, etc – less doctor’s visits and health care and funeral costs
• more money saved, not only in using less gasoline, but also less wear & tear on the car (maintenance, depreciation, etc)
• lower car insurance bills
• less taxes for roads and road maintenance (if enough people also live closer to work/shops/schools)
• less harms from extracting and processing oil – cancer alleys, oil & bitumen spill risks.
• less dependence on foreign oil and the military need to ensure it
• less acid rain and its lung, health, property, crop, and wildlife harm
• less ocean acidification and harm to sea life and seafood
• less greenhouse gas emissions, and the 1000s of harms from global warming

I suggested to my young niece to find a home close to her or her husband’s place of work, or between, for all these reasons, even if they have to get a smaller, older home for the same price. I suggested it would keep its value and when they are in a better financial situation and start having children, they could sell it and buy a bigger one, also close to work. And I mentioned there is a benefit of getting a house at least 5 to 10 years old, due to the formaldehyde outgassing from new homes, and serious health harms (at least to some people) from that.

But no one listens to me. So instead they bought a gigantic brand new home, big enough for 4 children to have separate bedrooms, on the far side of the city, and each has to drive 2 hours to get to work and 2 hours to get home. And they have been having problems getting pregnant & I sort of fear it might be partly due to the road & car pollution and/or physical/psychological driving stress from living so far away from work. Maybe the formaldehyde issue. And then what’s the use of such a gigantic home without the children they so desire.

Anyway, please pray for them that they have some children.

 

[lynnvinc]

No need to call people names, Lynnvinc, and especially since the term “Cafeteria Catholic” refers to people who reject Church DOCTRINE. MMGW is not a doctrine of the Church.

my bad

 

[lynnvinc]

Michael Crichton made an interesting observation in 2003. I think it only partly explains why the science has been corrupted so badly by those pushing AGW …

no need to call us corrupt

BTW Michael Crichton is NOT a climate scientist

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Michael Crichton made an interesting observation in 2003. I think it only partly explains why the science has been corrupted so badly by those pushing AGW (the other part being those trying to leverage the issue for economics both personal gain by creating a tradeable commodity via cap-and-trade as well as wealth redistribution):

"I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form:”

You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday—these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain*, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christis the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them.

These are not facts that can be argued.

These are issues of faith."

**And followers of that faith definitely try and silence the heretics, or discount them as biased.
**
However, the core guidance of the Church of being good stewards, as another poster mentioned, remains - conserving resources and minimizing waste to ensure the earth’s resources are shared as fairly as possible now and preserved for the future generations.

Excellent post. I could not have said it better myself. Environmentalists have FAITH in their god, whichever one they worship. We can never make a dent in that faith.

 

[lynnvinc]

…Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. …

I guess it is true that since atheists don’t believe in a better hereafter life, they’d be interested in maintaining a viable world in this life for themselves and their childre, and thus would be attracted to reducing environmental harms. At least the good atheists who have some spot of decency left; there are plenty of bad atheists who are not environmentalists in any way whatsoever (or they just give lipservice to it without any real efforts).

OTOH, if so-called religious people really were religious to the extent of believing in Hell, then you’d think they’d be striving to avoid Hell by (for one) reducing their environmental harms, but they obviously don’t believe in Hell, only in Heaven – or “hell is for others, heaven is for me.” Otherwise they’d be taking the prudent stance of provisionally accepting what 1000s of climate scientists say about AGW, and at the very least doing those things to mitigate AGW that save them money without lowering their living standards. But they are not; they only give a tad of lipservice (like those bad atheists) that we (that is, other people) need to be “good stewards” of God’s creation, without any mention of any actual environmental issues or mitigation solutions, except sometimes (very rarely) mentioning what other people should do, like factories needing to reduce water and air pollution, or other people stopping littering the highways, etc.

I’m not sure if that would be a form of cafeterial Catholicism, or “blind spot,” or self-righteous blindness, or what.

 

[Fairwinds]

OK, but if the Pope had told the Church that the bubonic plague was spread by fleas carried by rats, would that mean a Catholic of good conscience could ignore the possibility? …

if the medieval church gave any scientific/medical advice on the plague, it would have been wrong.

 

[SamH]

Fro mthe OP’s link
.

We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink, as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.

Must have missed the endorsement for AGW.

 

[EasterJoy]

if the medieval church gave any scientific/medical advice on the plague, it would have been wrong.

What is your point?

 

[dshix]

I am always so, so amused by the “global warming goobers.” The world is cooling off at the moment, not warming up. As a matter of fact, sunspot specialists say that we are entering a mini-ice age, because one of the sunspots is now beginning to aim straight towards us, cooling off the earth.

Even more amusing than the ignorance is the blind faith! Once a person is convinced that global warming is true, they never do seem to let go of it, no matter how cold it gets.

Oh, well, I suppose some people have to be deluded every once in a while.

-prepares to get flamed-

 

[Fairwinds]

What is your point?

you brought up the church/plague analogy. the medieval church could not have given given advice for controlling plague, and any advice it did give would have been wrong since the* y. pestis*-rat-flea cycle was unknown at the time. a Catholic then would have been better off ignoring whatever the religious authorities advised.

point: the field of global warming climatology is unsettled and driven by politics with demonstrable fraud in the collection and interpretation of evidence infecting the whole field. moreover, the issue is not one of faith and morals where we are obligated to obey. the Pope’s voice – based on the same body of unsettled and suspect evidence and interpretation is an opinion among many.

 

[lynnvinc]

if the medieval church gave any scientific/medical advice on the plague, it would have been wrong.

I think if at all one can help reduce death and harm, one has a bound duty as a Christian to do that. Life issues, as messy and uncertain as they may be, trump over-scrupulousness. I think we are bound to do our best to help others and prevent death.

Sometimes science and medicine are wrong, but I think we must do the best we can under imperfect conditions and and imperfect knowledge. And I think the Church has an obligation (or at least a right) to encourage us to save lives and not to kill people willy nilly. It has a role to play “in the world,” esp in ways that relate to the “hereafter.” It’s not just there for spiritual fluff of no consequence.

 

[russet1]

If the Pope or the Catholic Church publicly advocated its stance to combat global warming, would you still deny it?

Catholic Church Goes Green To Counter Global Warming

I have never understood this idea of the Church speaking about this. I also do not understand why it is such an important issue for some. A majority of Catholics have ignored the Church’s teachings on much more definitive moral issues i.e. Birth Control and life issues. Yet THIS is your issue?
I just don’t get it.

 

[MarkInOregon]

If the Pope or the Catholic Church publicly advocated its stance to combat global warming, would you still deny it?

Catholic Church Goes Green To Counter Global Warming

Can we all take a deep breath The earth has been both much hotter and much colder than it is now–all without the help of man. What we are experiencing now could be but a temporary blip in the earths climate (the earth doesn’t operate on our short time frame), or it could reflect a long term pattern of change–possibly one that man has no control over–I know that is hard to believe but there was change on the earth long before God got around to creating us on the sixth day. Not saying we couldn’t be the only cause–just that it is by no means certain and there are other possibilities.

We are all called to be good stewards of the earth – I am guessing that poluting and wasting resources don’t fall under that command. I will say this–given the experts track record on most things…well lets just say there was a time, in the not to distant past, when they didn’t think it was important to wash your hands between patients.

So perhaps instead of fighting with each other over whether or not it is occuring and what is causing it–we could all just be good stewards of the earth to the best of our ability. Let us set the example as Christians. I am guessing that the earth will not become uninhabitable–aren’t there still people living at the second coming?

The peace of Christ,
Mark