Friday
May152015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Pope Francis and Ben Tre
May 15, 2015 Climate: WG3 Ethics The Pope has apparently lent his approval to a petition by the Catholic Climate Movement, which wants to step up the pace on global warming policy. The petition's wording is as follows:
Climate change affects everyone, but especially the poor and most vulnerable people. Impelled by our Catholic faith, we call on you to drastically cut carbon emissions to keep the global temperature rise below the dangerous threshold of 1.5°C, and to aid the world’s poorest in coping with climate change impacts.
No fossil fuels for African people then. To save the poorest we had to abandon the poorest. It's Bến Tre all over again.
Reader Comments (42)
So when did the danger threshold slip down to 1.5K? Another number pulled directly from the posterior...
Clearly the Catholic Church's scientivists are superior to the UNIPCC scientivists, as they've managed to narrow down the point at which we're all going to die to 1.5°C, whereas the other lot could only reach 2°C as the point at which we all die! Now, in the knowledge that the last three Inter-glacials were warmer than today by between 3-5°C, & we're still here, how do they resolve that little gem?
It's Roman Catholicism, careful with the wording and ready to be reinterpreted. I read it as a call to give cash to Africans
Well, I don't know who or what the Catholic Climate Movement is but they certainly don't speak for me and I will tell them so in no uncertain terms.
Clearly the Pope wants to add 'climate crime' to the statistical fact that, per capita, the country with the highest crime rate in the world is The Vatican....
It is just another clue--albeit a high-profile one--that every supposed center of responsible authority in the world today is little more--if at all--than a center for unquestioned, and patently false, dogma. Time for Catholics to disavow the belief in an infallible Pope--a pagan idea--or even a human Pope who should still know better than to pontificate upon science, where he has no legitimate authority to intrude--just as it is a time for Muslims to disavow Mohammed and his millennium-old-and-long-dead calls for unending war against "unbelievers" (and just how do Muslims think their definition of "blasphemy" has any legitimate authority over a non-believer?). Dogma is ascendant, and the Insane Left is already at war. It is 1939 again, and You Are There.
I evoke the spirit of the (highly popular in Glasgow) Battle of the Boyne in 1690. LOL !
"William's reputation as a strong Protestant enabled him to take the British crowns when many were fearful of a revival of Catholicism under James. William's final victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is still commemorated by the Orange Order. His reign in Britain marked the beginning of the transition from the personal rule of the Stuarts to the more Parliament-centred rule of the House of Hanover."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England
"The Church" would immediately take the moral high ground if it addressed its advice to INDIVIDUALS, and said something like "cut your carbon emissions if you can afford to do so".
The simple fact is that the industrialisation of the world has been the single biggest change for good. From toilets, clean water and sewers that have all but eliminated some diseases - only made possible by huge engineering constructions. To affordable heating and medicine, the world today is far far better off than it was.
If anything, the only "Problem" is that the advantages of fossil-fuel powered industrialisation has not yet reached everyone.
So why on earth do some people seem to believe fossil fuel is evil?
Why not just say "food is evil" - because if there were no food, then there would be no-one left to commit evil - so QED food is the root of all evil. (and good)
According to wikipedia the Pope is travelling to Latin America in July, Cuba and the U.S. in September and Africa in November.
No doubt he'll soon be cancelling the trips to save on CO2 emissions.
Alex
The pope's plane does not emit CO2. It is is an Immaculate Contraption.
esmiff, LOL.
We've got to remember that poverty is blessed. The church has always advocated giving to the poor, they never said anything about letting them keep it.
Mike Jackson,
How about us Catholic global warming realists starting a petition stating that Carbon dioxide is good for mankind and the world. That readily available real energy is good for relieving poverty. That if socialists want to rob the poor to pay the rich, then instead of wasting billions on non existent global warming we give those billions to the deserving poor.
It would need to be a proviso for signing the petition that one needs to be a Catholic.
Then we may arrive at a "consensus" regarding how us Catholics feel about this popes playing with scientific fraud.
Sorry my Lord Bishop for turning your estimable web site into a religious rant - but the pope started it.
That's not the same as the encyclical.
It's more like a Catholic group meets the Pope and is told "Keep up the Good Work". Anything else would be newsworthy.
This is not as big a story as it first appears.
M Courtney, it is almost as though climate science is trying to demonstrate their improved communication skills.
Could be a bit of a problem if the Catholic Church seek to award credit for the halt in global warming, to all the good Catholics, and their combined prayers to God.
Obviously the pause started shortly after Mr and Mrs Blair arrived in Downing Street and ..... oh god .. I didn't think this through did I?
patrick healy
Interesting idea. It would need a bit of thought and some careful planning. A big name wouldn't hurt, if there's one to be found.
James G & Alan the Brit : The UNCFCC (1992) only required that goal of "avoiding dangerous climate change. When the issue of targets became serious at Cancun 2010 the COP decided that 1.5C was the dangerous level but would be exceeded so the target is to not exceed 2.0c but, after peaking, reduce to 1.5C. But of course, we must reach 1.5C first and will be able to see how dangerous this is. When I say we, on current temperature trends it will be our great, great grandchildren!
"…and to aid the world’s poorest in coping with climate change impacts."
Always 'aid in coping,' never eliminating poverty. How would the do-gooders feel good about themselves if there were no poor to have it done to them? The present Indian government has a better method.
…like the church's real attitude to the poor.
Is it permitted to burn a petition approved by the Pope, in order to provide energy for cooking, or warmth? Or will this result in excommunication?
lol
I suspect they haven't thought it through. If they keep on adjusting the 'death temperature' threshold ever downwards and closer (when they think people won't notice them doing it) then at some point it might actually happen. The world would go on functioning. Most probably thriving. Then what would they say?
They should be careful what they wish for when moving the goalposts.
" So when did the danger threshold slip down to 1.5K? Another number pulled
directly from the posterior..."
Every morning is catastrophic of course, especially going from say a global average 14 to maybe 20 on a typical nice(sorry apocalyptic) May day......
Pope,
We call on you to help reduce the growth rate of unwanted/unplanned populations that you currently seek to increase by your anti-science attitude to human birth control and to further, to some credible amount, a reduction in the rate of population growth by those who listen to you, by the use of hormones, GladWrap plastic kitchen film, or whater is at hand - stands a chance of less actual harm to the environment, another of your apparent aims.
Prresently, however, exploitive offshoots of the crime science perps from places like Germany are allowed, even encouraged by you as spokesman for the Italian anti-science mob, to spread fairy tales about Flimate doom to come.
Please raise your climate change prognostications higher. Seek better quality advice. It is apparent that you need it.
What is the carbon footprint of all the candles lit in church?
St Peters Rome, and the rest of Vatican City, must rank quite high in terms of carbon emitted, per head of population. In the eyes of the Hockey Team, the Catholic Church is only sacred, when consensus matters.
As headlines go , "The Vatican Blinks" seems to be up the Tiber without a paddle.
It was an odd assertion considering the Vatican claimed to have become the first Carbon Neutral state under Pope Benedict.
Laying click bait again Russ?
Land mines, actually
Careful where you step on the facts .
TinyCO2, I think vvussell has given up on the Sacred Science of the Holy Hockey Stick.
To the contrary., GC
vvussell, gosh, with evidence like yours, why didn't the Hockey Team get you to write the paper for Lewandowsky and Oreskes. It shows all that is best about climate science.
I expect some of your former students have not laughed and cheered so much, since you retired
It's a miracle! vvussell has learnt how to embed links properly.
It was an odd assertion considering the Vatican claimed to have become the first Carbon Neutral state under Pope Benedict.
Figures. The Vatican has always been big on neutrality.
Gosh, GC, why haven't you gotten around to reading Oreskes 2011 attack on me?
Only the truly committed read Oreskes... and they should be.
vvussell, I have avoided reading Oreskes, no matter what the subject. If she has attacked you, it proves that in climate scientology, not everyone is always wrong.
Pope Francis is selling out the Church and aligning it with people who have hated the Church and God.
GC, @ 12: 50 Am : "the paper for Lewandowsky and Oreskes. It shows all that is best about climate science..."
GC @ 9:39 AM: "I have avoided reading Oreskes, no matter what the subject."
There are times the commentariat gets closer to Lewis Carrol than Orwell.
Russell, which would make you what? The Mad Hatter? Or the Duchess?
vvussell, if you are trying to support the cause for global warming scientology, you are certainly drawing attention to some of its best thinking. Keep calm, and carry on.
If only Eve had flicked a cherry, and picked her nose, not an apple, things would all have turned out different.
Harry Passfield, in climate science, the goal posts move. Frequently.
Not only do goal posts move backwards and forwards, and left and right, but, and this is the genius, each post can move independently, so the size of the goal can grow or shrink at the touch of a button. The cross bar is also adjustable up and down too.
You have to look at the location of the Climate Research Unit, at the University of East Anglia, and Norwich. Norwich is the home of a football club, long associated with cookery expert Delia Smith, and just down the road is the headquarters of Lotus Cars, brainchild of the late Colin Chapman.
Lotus helped design the independent, flexible jointed suspension of the UEA CRU multi directional goal post, and in tests, Delia Smith just could not miss an open goal, from the half way line. The sharp cornering, braking and changes of direction won praise from the political speech writers association, as being a major contribution towards policy stability.
Delia, as an expert in cooking books, was also able to help, with advice on serving complete turkeys at the required temperatures. A local farmer, said at the time, that if all old birds cooked as well, life would be bootiful.
Unfortunately for Norwich Football Club, FIFA got wind of the goalposts, and said they were banned unless available for the next World Cup, with FIFA officials in full control, and it was discovered that CRU had tried to put the entire planet on a long slow roast, by fiddling with the records.
Dear Pope,
Bollocks.
Yours Sincerely...