This is what is known as hubris to the nth degree:
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, April 28 is hosting a workshop titled “Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity” to “raise awareness and build a consensus” among people of faith that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming. The Heartland Institute – the world’s leading think tank promoting scientific skepticism about man-caused global warming – is bringing real scientists to Rome next week to dissuade Pope Francis from lending his moral authority to the politicized and unscientific climate agenda of the United Nations. […]
“The Holy Father is being misled by ‘experts’ at the United Nations who have proven unworthy of his trust,” said Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast. “Humans are not causing a climate crisis on God’s Green Earth – in fact, they are fulfilling their Biblical duty to protect and use it for the benefit of humanity. Though Pope Francis’s heart is surely in the right place, he would do his flock and the world a disservice by putting his moral authority behind the United Nations’ unscientific agenda on the climate.
The arrogance and conceit are bad enough, but the lies are worse. The UN based IPCC tasked with reporting on the scientific research regarding climate change, have, if anything been overly conservative on its dangers and the rapidity at which it is occurring.
Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world’s most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent, say a growing number of studies on the topic. […]
“We’re underestimating the fact that climate change is rearing its head,” said Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a lead author of key sections of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports. “And we’re underestimating the role of humans, and this means we’re underestimating what it means for the future and what we should be planning for.”
And all the “real scientists” have spoken, and almost universally they attribute climate change to human activity. Even former deniers hired by the Kochs have reversed course and rejected their prior skepticism after examining the massive mound of support found in the scientific literature that climate change is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors such as the burning of fossil fuels for energy, as evidenced by this statement by Richard Mueller:
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. […]
Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.
These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming.
Yet, Heartland is right to fear the moral authority of Pope Francis who stated that respect for the environment and protecting creation “is a fundamental Christian value” in his first mass as Pope.
The vocation of being a “protector”, however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live.
The Papal summit on climate is critically important because of the influence the Pope wields as the head of a church with over 1 Billion members. To them, his word is the word of God, but even among other Christians and non-Christians, alike, the weight of his moral authority is huge. He understands the threat posed by climate change and he plans to act accordingly in the use of his “bully pulpit” to increase awareness of the danger we all face and to exert pressure on governments to take immediate action regarding this crisis, which affects all humanity in so many ways.
According to a preliminary schedule of events for the convening, attendees hope to offer a joint statement highlighting the “intrinsic connection” between caring for the earth and caring for fellow human beings, “especially the poor, the excluded, victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, children, and future generations.”
The gathering will undoubtedly build momentum for the pope’s forthcoming encyclical on the environment, an influential papal document expected to be released in June or July. The Catholic Church has a long history of championing conservation and green initiatives, but Francis has made the climate change a fixture of his papacy: he directly addressed the issue during his inaugural mass in 2013, and told a crowd in Rome last May that mistreating the environment is a sin, insisting that believers “safeguard Creation … Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!” The Vatican also held a five-day summit on sustainability in 2014, calling together microbiologists, economists, legal scholars, and other experts to discuss ways to address climate change.
The Heartland Institute is at its core an evil institution run by evil men who owe their loyalty to even more evil men who fund their disinformation campaign. They will not succeed in influencing the Pope’s decision. This insulting response to the Papal summit by the Heartland Institute is a blatant attempt to smear both the man himself, as well as call into question his role as leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Heartland and its minions seek to portray Pope Francis as an ignorant, uneducated and timid man, easily misled by a nefarious (and imaginary) conspiracy. In fact, the reverse is the case. Pope Francis is taking a strong stand against the powers who seek to destroy our planet in the greed for extracting more profits from increased carbon pollution. He is to be commended for his courage, and his wisdom. This is one voice the Koch brothers cannot silence, much as they will try.
