We must “develop a sustainable relationship with our planet.”

Vatican Burns with Global Warming Enthusiasm

By William M. Briggs - William M. Briggs is a consultant and adjunct Professor of Statistics at Cornell University, with specialties in medicine and the philosophy of science.


The Pontifical Academy of Sciences had its one-day global warming conference yesterday. Not unlike a certain synod, it ended with the issuing of an anticlimactic pre-prepared climatic document “Climate Change and The Common Good: A Statement Of The Problem And The Demand For Transformative Solutions.”

Gist: we are soon doomed unless we “do something.”

More on that in a moment. First, the Big Question. Why? Why is the Catholic Church entering into the fray of doubtful global warming science? Why now and why with such shrill apocalyptic exaggerated rhetoric? Why strident calls for supranational government control at the same time the actual evidence for doom grows weaker and weaker?

Consider this. Used to be in the West when the Catholic Church spoke, people listened. Reporters and politicians would come calling before writing articles or making decisions and ask, “What say you, Mr. Bishop?” And the people, when they heard what the Church had to say, listened. They considered. Sure, they sometimes rejected, perhaps even more often than they heeded. But the Church was an influence. And it liked being one.

Not so now. The West has these past fifty or so years assumed an adversarial stance towards our ancient and venerable institution. The press, politicians, and people no longer care what the clergy has to say on designer babies (i.e. eugenics), abortion, homosexual acts, same-sex “marriage”, you name it. Not when a recalcitrant Church disallows female priests, divorce, and every other thing the secular salivate over.

This volte-face must sting, particularly for the old timers who lived during the Good Old Days of deference. The longing they feel probably accounts for why certain of our more mature clergy (and their recruits) work vigorously to steer the Church towards political shoals and away from deep spiritual water (who doesn’t love nautical metaphors?).

Now to the global warming conference. The reader should understand Yours Truly is a certified expert in these areas, a genuine climate scientist, with a specialty in the goodness and usefulness of models, the very kinds of models which predict our doom.

The models are wrong. And have been for decades.

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