He has also insisted that science, not dogma, inform the investigations into climate change.
This announcement has not actually been given as a speech yet. It is the theme of the Pontiff’s yearly January 1st message. However, it was released ahead of time to coincide with UN climate change talks, which are taking place in Bali. For some reason they’ve chosen “the Indonesian holiday island” as their meeting place rather than, say, one of the fast-melting glaciers. Funny how that works with the U.N.Here’s an excerpt of Benedict’s speech, “The Human Family, A Community of Peace” in The Daily Mail:
Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow,” he said…
“It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.
“If the protection of the environment involves costs, they should be justly distributed, taking due account of the different levels of development of various countries and the need for solidarity with future generations.”
By the way, did you know that the Vatican held its own climate convention this year?
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In the spring, the Vatican hosted a conference on climate change that was welcomed by environmentalists.
But senior cardinals close to the Vatican have since expressed doubts about a movement which has been likened by critics to be just as dogmatic in its assumptions as any religion.
In October, the Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, caused an outcry when he noted that the atmospheric temperature of Mars had risen by 0.5 degrees celsius.
“The industrial-military complex up on Mars can’t be blamed for that,” he said in a criticism of Australian scientists who had claimed that carbon emissions would force temperatures on earth to rise by almost five degrees by 2070 unless drastic solutions were enforced.
Well, at least we know how frigid the relations between the Australian cardinal and the new government will be. Hint: put on your thermal jacket.
Meanwhile, the inmates from Oyster Bay are pulling their usual pouts and machinations at the meeting on Bali:
The climate-change stakes have just been raised a significant notch.
Today European nations attending a UN climate conference in Bali threatened to boycott US-led climate talks next month unless Washington bows to international pressure on global warming.
So far the United States, Japan, and several other governments have refused to accept language in a document being drafted at the Bali conference suggesting that industrialized nations consider cutting emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020.
They insist that setting specific targets for the deep reductions would limit the scope of future talks.
Translated, this means that the remaining hold-outs are sane and the inmates are going to make sure the refusers pay well for their sanity:
The EU challenge has launched new pressure on delegates from nearly 190 nations entering the final-hour talks in Bali. The Bali conference is aimed at launching negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
The European Union and others say the figures reflect the measures scientists say are needed to rein in global warming and head off predictions of rising sea levels, worsening floods and droughts, and the extinction of plant and animal species.
“No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting,” said Sigmar Gabriel, top EU environment official from Germany, referring to a series of separate climate talks initiated by US President George W. Bush in September.
“This is the clear position of the EU. I do not know what we should talk about if there is no target.”
The US invited 16 other major economies, including European countries, Japan, China and India, to discuss a program of what are expected to be nationally determined, voluntary cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions.
Needless to say, China and India are not included in the proposed new Henny-Penny climate rules. The gun is aimed at the U.S., as usual.
Envy sure is corrosive, but it’s not nearly so malignant as ignorant envy, which lies at the heart of all this holier-than-thou hypocrisy. So far this document continues as the Kyoto Joke.
How about first we fine all those countries who signed the Kyoto Haha and aren’t anywhere near reaching their goals, and then we talk about what the US is obliged to do.
For a different - and quite compelling - view, see this.
18 comments:
It is so interesting, yeah, even cool, that the Catholic church that some have criticized (and rightfully so, on occasion) for resistance to science, should anger the true believers through facts and logic...
In October, the Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, caused an outcry when he noted that the atmospheric temperature of Mars had risen by 0.5 degrees celsius.
“The industrial-military complex up on Mars can’t be blamed for that,” he said in a criticism of Australian scientists who had claimed that carbon emissions would force temperatures on earth to rise by almost five degrees by 2070 unless drastic solutions were enforced.
Well now, just how do we know that the industrial-military complex on Mars can't be blamed for that (tongue in cheek)?
yeah...who's to say they're not non-corporeal beings who create a whole lotta methane on Mars. They probably party on it...
It's funny to see people who have next to no scientific knowledge go around and insult and denigrate people who do based on personal venom. Sorry, you may quibble about Kyoto being unfair but to deny global warming, or deny any link to human activities is simply just a knee jerk, know nothing stupid response. Yeah, it's much easier to attack Gore or laugh at some tree hugger than it is to really examine the facts with a good grasp of the fundamentals. It seems most of the right has substituted petty ad hominem attacks and insults because, instead of pursuing reason cause most of them really can't think any deeper than that. As far as the Pope goes, who cares? He sounded like he wanted to have it both ways. Since when did he become a Scientist too?
I'm a scientist and I'll go ahead and join the people mocking Gore and other global warming alarmists.
(This may be posted twice, as it didn't appear the first time)
I have a Physics degree from one of the world's top universities and have 'examined the facts', which is precisely why I mock Gore and the global warming alarmists.
'Global warming' is just a means of giving the left control over the global economy, and nothing to do with science. The funny part is that it originated with Margaret Thatcher, who used it as an excuse to lay off all those annoying coal miners; at the time the left opposed it because it was being used against the unions they supported.
Now, that's not to deny that the world has warmed since the Little Ice Age ended, but that's nothing to do with SUVs; and with the recent lack of sunspots, we may be returning to a new Little Ice Age, as predicted by the 'global cooling' alarmists in the 70s.
Oh, and anyone who thinks that Kyoto will make the slightest bit of difference if the alarmists are correct is 'know nothing stupid'. Wasting the trillions of dollars it would cost the global economy would merely delay warming by a couple of years.
Right now temperatures here are around 10C lower than typical for the time of year, so I'd quite like to see some 'global warming' anyway.
Yeah, it's much easier to attack Gore or laugh at some tree hugger than it is to really examine the facts with a good grasp of the fundamentals
So only non-scientists that agree with the current global warming hysteria should be listened to?
Nobody says SUVs are the sole culprit. Why are right wingers so obsessed about them anyways? From my experience in the auto business, the people who had to drive really big cars were usually arrogant little people. But how can anyone say there is no link at all with man made pollution and global warming?
I have a good science degree and was certified to teach Physics and Chem on a high school level, but I don't pretend to be a Scientist. I always hedged my bet more on the destruction of the rainforests and desertification as being the main culprits of global warming and my solution is to fight the deserts and protect what is left of the rain forests. Green things eat CO2.
Personally, all this crap about this being some plot of the LEFT is just cheap paranoid thinking to justify selfishness and indifference. So all the scientists who do think there is a link are to be discarded because of their alleged link to some leftist conspiracy, cause that is what your responses boil down to. Finding an extremist and using him to judge the whole cuts both ways. Look at Limbaugh: he denies global warming, has a grade school or less grasp of science and is a known Republican operative. So using your logic I can plainly prove my point that global warming is true and made made based on Rush Limbaugh's personality and his denial it.
All I am trying to say is keep an open mind. You are the ones politicizing science
Most of the 'scientists' in teh IPCC aren't scientists at all: they're activists or political appointees.
You can often judge the falsehood of a statement by the shrillness and lack of any kind of qualification or nuance of those making it. No different here.
Dr. Joe D'Aleo, Dr. William Gray and Joe Bastardi all have degrees (or advanced degrees) in meteorology and climatology, and they have serious issues with anthropogenic global warming.
ed--
So does our state climatologist, who terms the climate "robust." It is the shrill advocates like jakenheimer who will be the laughing stocks when the next cooling period -- estimated to occur in about ten years -- arrives. But by then they will have adjusted to the MSM non-stop "we are to blame for the weather" meme. Such narcissism.
Warm periods make for prosperity in a global way, but in a purely selfish way, I will be glad to go ice-skating again. Or wait three days for the snow to melt so we can get out of the driveway.
SUVS? Eh...what a waste of energy talking about them…oh, I forgot, we right wingers obssess about them.
Oh, that's right. My whole post was about the harm of driving SUVs. I forgot about that. But why not? After all, they're the vehicle of choice for all those useless UN and ngo busybodies, there must be something creepy about them.
Me, I think cars are a useless waste of good money. Never drive one with less than 150,000 on it. They usually give out a few hundred thousand miles later.
*That's* my obsession, jakenheimer: drive old cars and blow smoke. I can only hope you're in back of me.
Wow there are too many physicists on this blog, but being a rare conservative environmental scientist, I would like to add to this debate that not only is Mars suffering from global warming, Neptune is also. Mt. Pinatubo released more "greenhouse gasses" than man did for the last 200 years during it's last large eruption. The most destructive "greenhouse gas" is a very important compound that we need to survive. It accounts for about 80% of the heat retained in the atmosphere from the sun. This hideous compound known as di-hydrogen monoxide. I doubt you physicist know what that is, but for everyone else, it is water.
The second worst "greenhouse gas" is..... Methane. Yes, soon the U.N. will want to regulate your flatulance, and get rid of all ruminants, since they contribute more methane to the atmosphere than anything else. Unfortunately, the deep ocean holds more than enough methane ice to obliterate the atmosphere so, I propose we ban the ocean also. The third offending gas is CO2. Unfortunately, every living animal pumps far more CO2 into the atmosphere than industry and cars do.
Human history, if you read it, has always gained from warming, and always suffered from cooling. It is a cycle, and it is not our fault, it is the fault of, most likely, that damned life giving sun.
Greenland is so named, because in the Middle Ages(ie warm ages) the Vikings colonized it because of the lushness and the potential for agriculture. At the same time, England was known in Europe for its wines. Have you seen any English wine lately?
Enough blabbering from me, but before you make a snap decision on the climate, the last century(which is all that we really have) does not give us enough data to make snap, life changing decisions.
The Earth used to be flat...
"Nobody says SUVs are the sole culprit. Why are right wingers so obsessed about them anyways?"
We're not. Most of us couldn't care less about them. It's the left who obsess about SUVs.
The right aren't calling for SUVs to be banned or taxed out of existence. The left want all private transport eliminated (as per the Communist Manifesto), and SUVs are an easy target. As we've seen many, many times before, they know that they can achieve their goals by 'divide and conquer', working one step at a time.
"Personally, all this crap about this being some plot of the LEFT is just cheap paranoid thinking to justify selfishness and indifference."
No, it's the truth. You demonstrate it yourself, by phrasing this argument in terms of 'selfishness and indifference'; that's pure left-speak, like 'racism' and 'sexism'.
Look, the simple reality is that 'Global Warming' (i.e. human-created warming through CO2 emissions, as opposed to the globe warming due to natural causes) is nonsense. Garbage data is fed into garbage models that spew out garbage predictions chosen to push a political agenda. It bears no resemblance to reality.
This is precisely why they've even had to abandon the name in favor of 'climate change'; climate changes, that's what it does... so absolutely any change, be it warming, cooling, less rain, more rain, less snow, more snow, can be blamed on evil, selfish, indifferent SUV drivers. That's not science.
Hey, this is the last post I'll make on your crummy, right wing c onformist excuse for a blog. You people don't really think at all, you have to put everyone into some ideological filter and if they don't match your ignorant conformist group think, you have to reject them. ALien and Dymphyna, you love your SUV's because you are so small, you need a big car to make you feel strong. How pathetic. Good, waste your money on gas and go broke.
Well, Jakenheimer sounds a little upset.
I'm not a scientist, but when the United Nations gets involved in anything, it turns out to either: a)denounce Israel, b) denounce both Israel and the United States, or c) render more power to the United Nations so they can finally do something about those pesky Israelis and Americans.
Scientific proof can be explained in such a way as the common man can understand it. Chemical reactions and such are repeatable by any of us. Claiming that some wise climatologist living atop a mountain in Denver should just be "trusted" because, after all, he's a scientist, isn't following the scientific method. Demand proof.
And then ask your weatherman why his forecasts are always wrong.
- Sodra
Jakenheimer,
You're absolutely right we are right wing, and we are conformists, in the sense that we do require that people who wants to be called our peers, think for themselves instead of letting some other self-appointed leader do it for us. That in a nutshell is the core of being right-wing. And if you don't conform to that simple requirement, then I regret to say that you don't live up to the minimum requirements to be a right winger (or worst case an individual).
So Godspeed, and I hope you'll find a blog that is more sympathetic to your needs for collective intelligence, instead of individual intelligence, and perhaps you'll discover what true conformism really is...
fare thee well, jakenheimer, the commenter whose intake button has been surgically removed --
You are reading thru a very opaque filter to have come up with this notion:
ALien and Dymphyna, you love your SUV's because you are so small, you need a big car to make you feel strong. How pathetic. Good, waste your money on gas and go broke.
Obviously, you didn't read what I said. I don't drive an SUV. I have never had an SUV and never will. I've never even ridden in an SUV.
Our current cars are a 1992 Taurus and a 1993 Chevette and they run fine...at the moment.
If someone gave me a new car -- never mind the dread SUV -- I'd sell that sucker real quick and find a nice car for about $2,000.00, pay the hefty tax on the new one, and put the rest of the money into a pension plan.
Besides being unable to take in another point of view, you're very cranky, jakenheimer. I hope it's not a terminal condition...
Oh, yeah...Merry Christmas to you, too.
I am a little surprised to see Global Warming here at GoV. This however is a topic that I follow fairly closely. If you are interested in this topic I would recommend Climate Audit. Most of the material is way beyond the lay people (like myself) of the general population. The comments section provides some insight into the workings of the various papers that are broken down.
It amazes me that this Global Warming Scam has gone this far.
A recent post at Spotting Weather Stations in SFO at Climate Audit illustrates how weather station placement has increased the recorded temperatures throughout North America.
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