Pope to preach on climate change
Published Sunday, 13th July 2008
Just a short one on this lovely Sunday evening. It may be a tiny bit late of his papalness but I guess late is better than never. According to the IHT Pope Benedict XVI (Benny for short) says he wants to wake up consciences on climate change.
Whilst the Church hasn’t exactly had the best reaction to science (evolution via natural selection and the big bang for example) it has at least decided that ‘him upstairs’ might not necessarily get us out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into and maybe the scientists are right on climate change.
The Pope has told reporters while flying to Australia on a 10-day pilgrimage that people need to be spurred into changing their lifestyles because of climate change.
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‘The Pope has told reporters while flying to Australia … that people need to be spurred into changing their lifestyles because of climate change.’
LOL. Subtle, guys!
The Church has never been exactly in the forefront of science. The Pope may know the word of God (if there is one) but I certainly wouldn’t take his word about global warming.
Many of us have been brainwashed into thinking that global warming is a serious threat to the planet; some politicians go so far as to make the immodest claim that they want to curb carbon dioxide emissions in order “to save the planet”.
Along with many well qualified scientists, I am persuaded that this is a false alarm. Global warming is a gradual process. It has been happening since about 1850 at a rate of about one degree per century. It brings benefits to many parts of the world in the form of longer growing seasons. More carbon dioxide and greater precipitation are good for plant growth. There were other warm periods at the time of the Roman empire and in the medieval period. In between there were cooler periods.
Nobody knows how much global warming is caused by industrial emissions of greenhouse gases and how much is due to other causes such as sunspots or cosmic rays.
For an explanation of both the “consensus” view and the “skeptical” view I recommend the web site http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ . Also there are many good books on the subject including “The Deniers” by Lawrence Solomon, which tells the stories of some skeptical climate scientists.