The UN Conference of Parties annual Climate Action Meeting Scheduled to begin on 30 November in Paris has the objective of preventing global temperature from rising as a direct result of carbon dioxide ((CO2) emissions. One would think the science supporting the contention that CO2 would be center stage, but it wont. Instead, the real drivers of this movement are politics and culture.
Perhaps Pope Francis’ recent Encyclical “Laudado Si” would be a good way to begin. While the Encyclical covered a range of topics, the part that dealt with the supposed threat of global warming drew the most attention. Despite the Pope having repeatedly said that discussion with all parties is necessary to find the proper solutions not a single skeptical scientist was allowed to participate. His advisors, with or without the Pope’s knowledge, made a conscious decision to exclude skeptical scientists. The Pope’s advisors however, did included in the discussion, atheists, anti-capitalists, population limiting advocates, scientists with works so poor the even their fellow warmers have reputiated them and others that believe skeptics should be imprisoned.
The “books were cooked” so to speak. The conclusions, foregone.
Cartoon by Ramirez Investors.com
The American Spectator’s post “We’ll always have Paris” by Marita Noon discusses the ” joint appeal”.
For the first time, “Catholic leaders representing all regional and national bishops conferences” have come together in a “joint appeal.” According to reporting in the New York Times, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai, India, called the October 26 meeting at the Vatican a “historic occasion.” Together, (Cardinal Reinhard) Marx and his fellow leaders drafted a ten-point specific policy proposal for, as the document says “those negotiating the COP 21 [United Nations climate conference] in Paris,” November 30–December 11. Saying they are looking out for “the poorest and most vulnerable,” these church leaders want “a fair, legally binding and truly transformational climate agreement.” They call for “a drastic reduction on the emissions of carbon dioxide.”
Noon turns to Bjorn Lomborg’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to put this issue into context:
“In a world in which malnourishment continues to claim at least 1.4 million children’s lives each year, 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty, and 2.6 billion lack clean drinking water and sanitation, this growing emphasis on climate aid is immoral.” Yet, the Catholic leaders call climate change “a moral issue.” Citing a UN survey of more than eight million people, Lomborg says, “respondents from the world’s poorest countries” who were asked “what matters most to you?” ranked “action taken on climate change” dead last. Their top priorities included “a good education” and “better health care.” In response, Lomborg states: “Providing the world’s most deprived countries with solar panels instead of better health care or education is inexcusable self-indulgence. Green energy sources may be good to keep on a single light or to charge a cellphone. But they are largely useless for tackling the main power challenges for the world’s poor.” He calls the emphasis on climate aid “terrible news” and says it “effectively means telling the world’s worst-off people, suffering from tuberculosis, malaria or malnutrition, that what they really need isn’t medicine, mosquito nets or micronutrients, but a solar panel.” In addition to switching the focus from “decarbonisation” to priorities that will really help the world’s poor, Lomborg emphasizes: “The people need access to affordable, reliable electricity today.”
“The bishops want to protect the poor from climate risks, but the risks from poverty are much greater and more immediate than those from climate change, and the global treaty the bishops want would slow, stop, or reverse economic growth, destroy jobs, and raise energy costs, harming everyone—especially the poor and elderly. And, by depriving developing nations of the abundant, affordable, reliable energy they need to rise and stay out of poverty, they are condemning them to more generations of poverty, disease, suffering, and death.“
cbdakota
Notice: I am a practicing Catholic and this is not intended as an anti-Catholic posting. It is anti those who put together the misinformation that the Pope used in his Encyclical.
Climate Change Sanity 