Vatican envoy: 'no further room for denial' on climate change [CC]

[KSU]

Maybe you didn’t understand me. Estesbob in post [3]07 implied that “warmists” only consider scientists to be credible if they believe in AGW. Your posting confirms that the skeptics are just as close-minded as they only consider scientists to be credible if they reject AGW.

That’s not how I read #307. Furthermore, my post #313, lists the names of known scientists who are skeptics, as you have been demanding. Your refusal to state why those scientists are not credible destroys the credibility of any contention that there are no credible scientists on the other side of the debate. That same false contention, BTW, also destroys the credibility of the “scientists” who signed the PAS/PASS report at issue in this thread.

By now, you probably have a good idea of how Pope Francis makes decisions about issues such as MMGW (see #318, for example). Francis does the exact opposite of the pro-MMGW crowd which surrounds itself with like-minded people and brooks no opposition, especially scientific opposition.

Remember what Pope Francis said:
QUOTE This encyclical… I’ve spoken about it at length with Cardinal Turkson, and with others, and I asked Cardinal Turkson to gather all the contributions which have arrived. And before this trip, the week before, no, four days before, Cardinal Turkson handed me the first draft. The first draft is this big…! I would say that it is a third bigger than Evangelii Gaudium! It’s just the first draft. But now there is a rather difficult problem, because, up to a certain point, one can speak with some assurance about safeguarding creation and ecology, including human ecology. But there are also scientific hypotheses [to be taken into account], some of them quite solid, others not. In this kind of encyclical, which has to be magisterial, one can only build on solid data, on things that are reliable. If the Pope says that the earth is the centre of the universe, and not the sun, he errs, since he is affirming something that ought to be supported by science, and this will not do. That’s where we are at now. We have to study the document, number by number, and I believe it will become smaller. But to get to the heart of the matter and to what can be safely stated. You can say in a footnote: “On this or that question, there are the following hypotheses…”, as a way of offering information, but you cannot do that in the body of the encyclical, which is doctrinal and has to be sound. END QUOTE news.va/en/news/press-conference-of-his-holiness-pope-francis-in-f

 

[weller2]

breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/12/vatican-speaker-on-climate-thinks-there-are-6-billion-too-many-of-us/

That has been known since 1970s. The population above the carrying capacity can be only fed because non-renewable resources (hydrocarbons and phosphorus) are being used to produce food. Once these are exhausted, there will be a violent collapse of population down to sustainable levels.

And that is exactly what the Apocalypse is about.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

That’s not how I read #307.

Here is post #307 in its entirety:

*Basically the warmist definition of credible scientists is anybody that believes in AGW *
and I said:

Estesbob in post [3]07 implied that “warmists” only consider scientists to be credible if they believe in AGW.

If you have some fundamentally different reading of #307, I would like to know what it was that caused you to say “That’s not how I read #307”.

Furthermore, my post #313, lists the names of known scientists who are skeptics, as you have been demanding. Your refusal to state why those scientists are not credible destroys the credibility of any contention that there are no credible scientists on the other side of the debate.

I can see how you might think that was my intention, but is a misunderstanding that is partly my fault and partly the result of arguing with 3 or 4 people at once. So let me explain what I did mean. Tarpeian Rock said in #304:

I’d be willing to listen to honest scientists, really, but the current crop of Al Gore acolytes is the Laurel and Hardy of climatologists and have lost all credibility in my view.

This prompted me to wonder how Tarpeian Rock decides if a scientist is credible. And so I asked in the next post:

I would interested to see what your list of “credible” scientists is.

Tarpeian Rock didn’t answer. But Ridgerunner answered instead, saying:

It won’t make any difference if he does or doesn’t.

As we have seen many times over the years in these MMGW threads, if someone touts a scientist’s view, the MMGW people have already generated a site that purports to discredit him. The left does not brook dissent.

I took this to mean that there is no use talking about which scientists are credible. That looked like a cop out, since Tarpeian Rock already got in the claim that those who believe in AGW are not credible. So when I said in #308:

And the skeptics definition of a credible scientist is - there are none.

I was paraphrasing Ridgerunner’s comment that it is no use talking about who is credible. It is as if no scientists are credible, since everyone was so reluctant to name credible scientists. Notice that my comment does not even specify anything about the scientist’s beliefs in AGW. Nor did I say the definition was mine. I was saying it was the skeptic’s definition - that there are no credible scientists - period. This is obviously an exaggeration, but an exaggeration for the purpose of getting someone to put forth a list of credible scientists - scientists of** any** stripe. Theo responded by giving an abstract definition - but without naming names. Then you came along and provided a list of names. That’s good. That’ exactly what I asked for of Tarpein Rock. Then I saw that the list was actually a list of scientists selected on no criteria other than the fact that they disagreed with the mainstream IPCC view. There was not a single scientist in that list who agrees with the IPCC view, which is not surprising, because the list was not designed to answer the question “which scientists are credible?”. It was designed to answer the question “which scientists disagree with mainstream AGW?”.

If you automatically exclude scientists from the list of “the credible”, not knowing anything of their work or methods, just knowing that they agree with AGW, how is that any different from “warmists” discrediting any scientist who disputes AGW? Since that was the point of estesbob’s post #307 and Ridgerunners #306, it seems only fair to ask the converse question too.

By now, you probably have a good idea of how Pope Francis makes decisions about issues such as MMGW (see #318, for example). Francis does the exact opposite of the pro-MMGW crowd which surrounds itself with like-minded people and brooks no opposition, especially scientific opposition.

Remember what Pope Francis said:
QUOTE This encyclical… I’ve spoken about it at length with Cardinal Turkson, and with others, and I asked Cardinal Turkson to gather all the contributions which have arrived. And before this trip, the week before, no, four days before, Cardinal Turkson handed me the first draft. The first draft is this big…! I would say that it is a third bigger than Evangelii Gaudium! It’s just the first draft. But now there is a rather difficult problem, because, up to a certain point, one can speak with some assurance about safeguarding creation and ecology, including human ecology. But there are also scientific hypotheses [to be taken into account], some of them quite solid, others not. In this kind of encyclical, which has to be magisterial, one can only build on solid data, on things that are reliable. If the Pope says that the earth is the centre of the universe, and not the sun, he errs, since he is affirming something that ought to be supported by science, and this will not do. That’s where we are at now. We have to study the document, number by number, and I believe it will become smaller. But to get to the heart of the matter and to what can be safely stated. You can say in a footnote: “On this or that question, there are the following hypotheses…”, as a way of offering information, but you cannot do that in the body of the encyclical, which is doctrinal and has to be sound. END QUOTE news.va/en/news/press-conference-of-his-holiness-pope-francis-in-f

I would be very surprised (and disappointed) if Pope Francis makes belief in the scientific truth of AGW a focus in the encyclical. I think he will find plenty to say on the moral issues without weighing in on the scientific debate.

 

[KSU]

In your post # 321 you are not actually taking a position regarding the credibility of my list of scientists who are skeptics of MMGW. I don’t think you know; neither do I, but I have no reason to doubt their sincerity and expertise.

More importantly, they meet the two criteria you set out in your demand to be given names of people who are, first, scientists and, second, doubters.

The point is that it is absurd and rude for climate alarmists with ideological agendas (I do not include you in that group) to keep gratuitously impugning the integrity of serious, experienced and competent scientists just because the said scientists disagree with them.

Everyone hears preposterous “scientific” claims such as these two:
“The massive fossil fuel use at the heart of the global energy system deeply disrupts the Earth’s climate”, and

"So the question is not whether we need to act…Ninety-seven percent of scientists…have now put that to rest "

But who hears claims on the other side? E.G.:
canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/56183

foxnews.com/opinion/2015/05/28/climate-change-and-truth-mr-obama-97-percent-experts-do-not-agree-with.html

 

[LeafByNiggle]

In your post # 321 you are not actually taking a position regarding the credibility of my list of scientists who are skeptics of MMGW. I don’t think you know; neither do I, but I have no reason to doubt their sincerity and expertise.

Exactly. That is a reasonable position to take - with regard to all scientists, regardless of their position on AGW.

I can believe it is possible (though not probable) that mainstream scientists are just wrong about global warming. What I utterly reject as pure fantasy is the notion that all scientists who agree with AGW are involved in a huge conspiracy, in league with the devil, or worse yet, with Al Gore. I also reject the notion that most scientists put conformity above truth. As you said, we should have no reason to doubt their sincerity and expertise.

More importantly, they meet the two criteria you set out in your demand to be given names of people who are, first, scientists and, second, doubters.

Yes, your list has scientists who are doubters of various degrees of AGW. Again, that is not what I was asking for. I just wanted to see a list of scientists deemed “credible”, to see if a skeptic’s list is much different from a “warmist’s” list, in order to determine how each type of person forms their idea of “credible”. Unfortunately, with laypersons on both sides of this issue, their lists tend to be formed only of scientists who agree with their ideology (present company excepted, of course). This is unfortunate because I think all scientists (yes, even the ones on your list) deserve to be assumed by default to be sincere and capable, until presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The point is that it is absurd and rude for climate alarmists with ideological agendas (I do not include you in that group) to keep gratuitously impugning the integrity of serious, experienced and competent scientists just because the said scientists disagree with them.

I can’t be held responsible for what everyone says who happens to sound like he agrees with me in some way.

 

[KSU]

I can’t be held responsible for what everyone says who happens to sound like he agrees with me in some way.

Agreed. Now we sit back and wait for the 18th. I hope that this time we English-speaking people get from the Vatican a competent, unbiased translation of exactly what the Holy Father says.

 

[Theo520]

Exactly. That is a reasonable position to take - with regard to all scientists, regardless of their position on AGW.

I don’t recall a single skeptical climate scientist that does not believe in AGW. They all believe in the theory of AGW but disagree on the scope.

Skeptics tend to estimate CO2 climate sensitivity is between 1-2C per doubling, a figure over 50% below the more alarmist projections

 

[weller2]

I don’t recall a single skeptical climate scientist that does not believe in AGW. They all believe in the theory of AGW but disagree on the scope.

Skeptics tend to estimate CO2 climate sensitivity is between 1-2C per doubling, a figure over 50% below the more alarmist projections

It’s less difference than people think:

1.5C per doubling = Hunger Games.
3C per doubling = Mad Max.

 

[Ridgerunner]

.,which neatly side-steps the question of who these scientists are. If they exist, I want names. If not, well, my statement stands: there are no credible scientists.

“The negative didn’t respond to Point 3(a)(ii). I win.” Wonder how many times I have heard high school debaters say that kind of thing.

One of the problems with this kind of “produce people so I can attack them, otherwise I win, even though we know others have done it countless times” approach is that there are variations in what different scientists believe. So, for example, the majority of meteorologists believe there is MMGW. But there are those who don’t. Most, however, don’t believe it’s a serious problem. (yes, yes, I know there are attacks on that poll, just like everything else)

William Happer at Princeton, Joe Bastardi, Alan Savory, for instance.

We already know Bastardi is a “commercial” guy and is “just” a meteorologist, so one expects a better attack than just that. Savory has been attacked by people who didn’t replicate what he was talking about, so we know that, and expect better. Possibly Happer has had a lot of traffic tickets.

Enjoy the attack.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The following cite is old, and I know I have seen it before. I am sure it has been attacked by MMGW proponents for any number of reasons.

But here’s a list of 31,000 skeptics. Possibly you would want to start the attack with those having PhDs in some kind of science or other.

petitionproject.org/

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here’s an explanation of the qualifications of the 31,000. Kind of heavy on engineers, so perhaps it is suspect for that reason alone. After all, what would an engineer know about physics?

petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php

 

[LeafByNiggle]

One of the problems with this kind of “produce people so I can attack them…”

I have not attacked anyone on the list that KSU provided. And as I said before, my purpose in asking the question was not to attack those on the list, but to point out that the close-mindedness of “warmists” implied by estesbob’s post #307 was not unique to “warmists”. That is all.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have not attacked anyone on the list that KSU provided. And as I said before, my purpose in asking the question was not to attack those on the list, but to point out that the close-mindedness of “warmists” implied by estesbob’s post #307 was not unique to “warmists”. That is all.

Ah, then. My apologies for assuming.

 

[Theo520]

It’s less difference than people think:

1.5C per doubling = Hunger Games.
3C per doubling = Mad Max.

LOL, the Hunger Games is bad news because you have an incompetent central govt of elitists deciding what is best. That’s the UN vision baby!

 

[KSU]

Laudato Si.

As a first blush impression, and only that, it appears we now have a Vatican Council II type of document. It will require years of study and debate, but, the Left will make hay because few will take the time and effort to understand it.

Here we go again.

 

[estesbob]

Laudato Si.

As a first blush impression, and only that, it appears we now have a Vatican Council II type of document. It will require years of study and debate, but, the Left will make hay because few will take the time and effort to understand it.

Here we go again.

I am sure they will ignore this part:

(188) There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

The Vatican’s representative at UN offices in Geneva has proclaimed that there is “no further room for denial” that "human-induced climate change is a scientific reality."Speaking to a …

More…

This is shameful. I am embarrassed by these Church leaders, including the pope. It seems as if the Church has been taken over by leftist activists.

Please pray for our Church.

 

[jtauke]

This is shameful. I am embarrassed by these Church leaders, including the pope. It seems as if the Church has been taken over by leftist activists.

Please pray for our Church.

Yes, heaven forbid we act as good stewards of God’s creation.

 

[Ender]

Yes, heaven forbid we act as good stewards of God’s creation.

This really does capture one of the serious problems this encyclical will encourage: the assumption that those who don’t believe AGW is scientifically supportable are indifferent to the health of the environment. This belief would be laughable if it wasn’t so widespread.

Ender

 

[KSU]

I am sure they will ignore this part:

(188) There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.

It must now be asked: Did the Holy Father forget to check with his envoy?