Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga
On December 4th of this year Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga delivered a homily at a special Mass in Durban South Africa during The United Nations Climate Change Conference. With all due respect to the Cardinal I believe there are some problems for the Church in endorsing the belief in man made climate change, and in offering moral support to the UN in seeking binding commitments that would determine what nations may or may not do in manufacturing or farming.
"Caritas Internationalis President Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga says failure at UN climate talks in Durban is a “moral apartheid” that cannot be allowed to happen."
During a special Mass at Emmanuel Cathedral in Durban, Cardinal Rodriguez noted “Just as South Africa’s Apartheid era policies sought divisions along race lines, today the world’s environment and energy policies divide man from nature”.
“Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight ” (Mark 1:1-8) The liturgy of this Second Sunday of Advent seems to have been designed for this COP17 we are attending. The first Reading already called on us to “Console my people, console them”. Barely a week ago, torrential downpours caused a great deal of suffering and death in Durban. Don’t we realize that the climate is out of control? How long will countless people have to go on dying before adequate decisions are taken?"
“Living holy and saintly lives” means living in justice with creation and the environment, and especially with the poor people who are the primary victims of this serious problem. In the desert John “cried out” the need to prepare a way for the Lord. Today, in the desert of our planet Earth, and in the desert of our hearts, the same voice is ringing out. This conference of delegates from so many countries cannot remain as a voice silenced by economic power."
Is Cardinal Maradiaga more right than he knows when he states that; “Just as South Africa’s Apartheid era policies sought divisions along race lines, today the world’s environment and energy policies divide man from nature” in that the belief in man made climate change is really a means to effect political and social change regardless of whether it is true or not that man is changing the climate. As apartheid was a political act so too are the actions of believers in man made climate change to coerce nations to commit their citizens to legally binding commitments that affect their sovereignty, and economic well being.
"On Saturday the U.N.'s climate chief Christiana Figueres said she believes countries can snap the deadlock that has lasted for years and sign up to fresh and binding commitments to cut greenhouse gases, after a week of climate talks between nearly 200 countries. The main issue still on the table after one week of talks is the extension of the Kyoto protocol which sets legal limits on green house gas emissions. The world’s two major economies – and two biggest emitters - China and the United States, who are not signatories of the protocol have yet to commit to agreeing to a binding deal. Canada, Russia and Japan meanwhile have said they will not renew the 1997 Kyoto Protocol pledges that expire next year, while the European Union wants to broker a new, global pact." - from News.VA The Vatican Today December 7th, 2011
The US and China are singled out as the worlds two major economies and biggest emitters who did not sign the Kyoto protocol. The US is the third largest agricultural producer in the world, and is the number one exporter of agricultural products. China and India are number one and number two respectively in agricultural production but by necessity they are the largest consumers of their own agricultural products. The US is still the largest manufacturing nation in the world, although China is poised to overtake the US in manufacturing. The US is not the largest exporter of manufactured goods, but as the largest manufacturer of goods, the number three nation in agricultural production, and the leading exporter of food products it stands to reason that the US is one of the "biggest emitters of greenhouse gases".
The UN and the IPCC have the goal of creating a global centralized economy that will decide based upon the impact on the climate what will be produced and how it will be produced. Cardinal Maradiaga is understandably concerned with human suffering and he has a good heart. The good Cardinal should read The Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest. Mr. Conquest details the history of the famine in the Ukraine that was caused by the agricultural and industrial central planning of the Soviet government. An estimated 2 million to 8 million Ukrainians perished of starvation in one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. This humanitarian disaster took place between 1932 and 1933. Some call this genocide rather than an economic action. It is interesting that these "genocides" occur in totalitarian states that practice the centralized control of their economies. The Soviets created this disaster by trying to increase production. The IPCC is proposing to achieve control of the climate by decreasing production. When the cost of growing and exporting food is tied to economic commitments or sanctions concerning "greenhouse gas emissions" and it is no longer economically viable for US growers and shippers to export food the citizens of the worlds poorest nations will be the first to starve.
Cardinal George Pell
The following quotes are from the 2011 Global Warming Policy Foundation Annual Lecture at Westminster Cathedral Hall in London on October 26 given by Cardinal George Pell. Cardinal Pell has a different view of man made climate change.
"At a recent meeting of the priests' council in Sydney one parish priest asked me why I was commenting publicly on the role of carbon dioxide in the climate, because in the past the Church had made a fool of herself on a number of occasions."
"I replied that I was well aware of at least some of these instances and that one reason why I was speaking out was to avoid having too many Christian leaders repeating these mistakes and to provide some balance to ecclesiastical offerings."
"Science and technology have already achieved considerable mastery over nature, and massive local achievements. But where is the borderline separating us from what is beyond human power? Where does scientific striving become uneconomic, immoral or ineffectual and so lapse into hubris? Have scientists been co-opted onto a bigger, better advertised and more expensive bandwagon than the millennium bug fiasco?"
"Since the climate had been changing - as Professor Plimer puts it, ever since that first Thursday 4,567 million years ago when the Earth began and the atmosphere began to form - I am not a "denier" of climate change and I am not sure whether any such person still exists.
"Therefore the term "climate change denier", however expedient as an insult or propaganda weapon, with its deliberate overtones of comparison with Holocaust denial, is not a useful description of any significant participant in the discussion."
"In the 1990s we were warned of the "greenhouse effect", but in the first decade of the new millennium "global warming" stopped. The next retreat was to the concept of "anthropogenic global warming" or AGW; then we were called to cope with the challenge of "climate change". Then it became apparent that the climate is changing no more now than it has in the past. Seamlessly, the claim shifted to "anthropogenic climate disruption".
"These redefinitions have captured the discourse. Who would want to be denounced and caricatured as a "denier"?"
"Another more spectacular example of this successful spin is the debate on "carbon footprints", on the advisability or not of a "carbon tax". We all know that it is the role of carbon dioxide in climate change which is in question, not the role of carbon, but we continue to talk about carbon. The public discussion is almost entirely conducted in terms of "carbon footprints" and a "carbon tax", provoking colorful but misconceived images of carcinogenic burnt toast and narrow, Dickensian chimneys being cleaned by unhealthy young chimney sweeps. It is brilliant advertising. But it is untrue."
"Despite the fact that Wikipedia's entry on air pollution now includes carbon dioxide emissions in a list of "greenhouse gas pollutants", CO2 does not destroy the purity of the atmosphere, or make it foul or filthy (the Oxford Dictionary definition of a pollutant). It is not a pollutant, but part of the stuff of life."
"Animals would not notice a doubling of CO2 and obviously plants would love it. In the other direction, humans would feel no adverse effects unless CO2 concentration rose to at least 5000ppmv, or almost 13 times today's concentration, far beyond any likely future atmospheric levels."
I have provided links to both Cardinal Maradiaga's homily and Cardinal Pell's lecture.
Sins of Omission and Commission
The following quotes are from a Forbes online article that was published on November 23, 2011. These e-mails should be examined very closely by those Church officials that support the belief in man made global warming.
Quotes from the e-mails
“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process,” writes Phil Jones, a scientist working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a newly released email.
"Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”
"The new emails also reveal the scientists’ attempts to politicize the debate and advance predetermined outcomes."- from Forbes
“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out” of IPCC reports, writes Jonathan Overpeck, coordinating lead author for the IPCCs most recent climate assessment.
These new emails add weight to Climategate 1.0 emails revealing efforts to politicize the scientific debate. For example, Tom Wigley, a scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, authored a Climategate 1.0 email asserting that his fellow Climategate scientists “must get rid of” the editor for a peer-reviewed science journal because he published some papers contradicting assertions of a global warming crisis. - from Forbes
"More than revealing misconduct and improper motives, the newly released emails additionally reveal frank admissions of the scientific shortcomings of global warming assertions." - from Forbes
“Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary,” writes Peter Thorne of the UK Met Office.
“I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,” Thorne adds.
“Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive … there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC,” Wigley acknowledges.
This small sampling of e-mails speak for themselves. Skepticism of man made global warming or at least a public attitude of "we are not sure that the research has proven conclusively that man is the cause of climate change" I believe is the best course for the Church.
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9762
http://www.news.va/en/news/card-rodriguez-kyoto-failure-moral-apartheid
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/3
