Moonage SpaceDream

I’m still scratching my head over this one:

The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

I definitely have to quote James Joyner again, “I never thought I’d see the day.”  Not so much that I never expected an opinion on this issue from Pope Benedict XVI, he’s from an industrialized nation that is wrestling with this issue as we are.  But, that he would be so vocal and so clearly against all the dogma surrounding this issue.  However, I probably shouldn’t be all that surprised at all.  This issue, like most, has morphed into a liberal vs conservative issue.  The liberals taking the side that man has created this mess that is our current environment, and we have the God-like ability to change it.  Conservatives, of which I fall on this issue, have taken the view that some of the environment is affected by man, but we don’t know to what extent.  By doing economically and environmentally friendly things, we’ll solve a lot of the problem without the necessity of destroying entire economies, which leads to more poverty, which leads to more wasteful ( read environmentally harmful ) activities.  I would have to assume Pope Benedict falls into the traditionally conservative mindset.  So, this really shouldn’t surprise me at all.

But it still does.

Didn’t take long for Robert Roy Britt of Livescience to go after this one.  I didn’t think it would.  Here’s his logic:

But what was lost, as is often the case with articles on this issue, is that scientists (labeled in this story “prophets of doom”) very much do rely on evidence rather than ideology to make assessments and forecasts of climate change. To suggest otherwise is simply to ignore the melting permafrost around the globe, the changing behaviors of animals and the altered bloom times for plants.

Those who believe climate change is not real—the Pope wisely does not seem to be among them (”Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow,” he says), nor is President George W. Bush any longer among them—have their ideological heads stuck in the giant crack at the North Pole.

Here’s a rant, it’s all Robert’s fault: 

It never ceases to amaze and annoy me how global warming advocates feel they can not make their point without insulting people.  This debate, which is centered on science, has devolved to the point where ideological leaders feel the need to tell us to be rational and look at the science, while most advocates of said science feel compelled to cram their opinion down people’s throats with purely ideological insults ( heads stuck in a crack, believe in UFO’s, flat-earthers ).  The Pope wants us to considers all science, Robert Roy Britt and Al Gore want us to only listen to the ones they choose.

Sounds a lot like a bizarro Spanish Inquisition.

Once again Robert Roy Britt.  No one is questioning whether or not the climate is changing.  It has changed constantly long before man was ever here.  It has been colder, it has been warmer.  What we are questioning is to what degree man is contributing to that change and whether or not the knee-jerk responses demanded by people like you and Al Gore are the right thing to do.  Most of them, to this point, have not been.  Switching to ethanol involves destroying rain forests.  Hydrogen fuel cells may destroy the atmosphere faster than carbon.  Damming rivers for cleaner energy destroys forests and wetlands.  Even those silly eco-friendly light bulbs of which I now have 30 of contain mercury.  So far, THERE IS NO ANSWER.  But, there is the constant alarmism and harassment by those who say it is heresay to question things like this.

All I have asked anyone to do, including Robert Roy Britt, is to tell me what the “normal climate” should be.  Man’s been here a long time, so the assumption would have to be made that it would be something pre-industrial man.  That, of course, was an ice age.  Is an ice age what Robert Roy Britt and Al Gore think is normal and desirable?

Huh?

Well is it?

It’s not for me.

Do they truly think the Earth gives a rat’s behind what Man thinks is normal and desirable?

My plan is to better understand Earth’s climate and how to live efficiently within what the Earth has to offer.  Messing with the climate has never produced anything good.  And given how well the last two hurricane seasons have been forecast, it’s more than obvious man still has no clue at all what controls the environment now.  And, if they have no clue what controls the environment now, messing with it is a dangerous proposition.

So there, Robert, there’s your science you don’t want to hear.  And, since it’s not my science, it’s obviously science you will not listen to.  Why I even bother reading Livescience any more is beyond me.  I may as get my insults Al Gore’s website.

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