www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Junk Science and the Catholic faith

I don't mean this impolitely, but I have no idea what you are talking about. As an aside, there have been plenty of ruminations on topics on this forum that I scratch my head over, wondering why they have any "useful place in Christian discourse."

I honestly don't know if we should be concerned about "global warming." Perhaps our recorded meteorological "history" is flawed because it was recorded during the world's "cool" period and we are now returning closer to "normal." This I know, if the continental trend continues I can plant my tomato plants in mid-May instead of late May.

What puzzles me about the alarmists is why they aren't screaming for coastal zoning to prohibit any constructiio on the future flood zones, i.e., all the coastal regions. They can't even impose it in New Orleans where there has been actual catastrophic damage. To me they are being stupid in the least; even hypocrites and they deserve no respect.

I want to address Carson's point further but will wait for the global warming discussion to cool.

Here's a fun read which will demonstrate the truth of the global warming alarmists to all who are disingenuous.

http://www.infowars.com/climate-alarmist-calls-for-burning-down-skeptics-homes/

I mean that neither side of the liberal-conservative spectrum has a monopoly on error, or evil, or stupidity, and appealing to either as a source of guidance is a mistake.

Serious and thoughtful people who are paying attention need not even consider the sins of either side of the political spectrum in order to determine that the primary proponents of fighting climate change are, charitably, hysterical fools.

I very much agree with JDC. I'm shocked that the Church, apparently, has said nothing about this scam.

Especially in light of the solutions that global warmists have proposed, including mandatory contraception, a universal one child policy, energy policies that would condemn most people in the third world to perpetual poverty, as well as their general attitude towards mankind as a plague upon the planet to be obliterated.

Oftentimes, it is such tributary issues as you identify, Stuart, that expose the darker, even diabolical side, of the original issue.

I still won't be trading in my bicycle for an SUV, though. I feel far too happily smug riding past the mile-long queues of mums taking their children the half-mile to school every morning in Range Rovers that have never seen a speck of dirt.

@Carson:

I suppose it depends on what you define as the Church saying something about the issues you originally raised. Philip Sherrard (not perfectly) tries to draw on patristic wisdom in addressing ecological questions, for example, in his 'Rape of Man and Nature'.

I mean that neither side of the liberal-conservative spectrum has a monopoly on error, or evil, or stupidity, and appealing to either as a source of guidance is a mistake.

Serious and thoughtful people who are paying attention need not even consider the sins of either side of the political spectrum in order to determine that the primary proponents of fighting climate change are, charitably, hysterical fools. [/quote]

Oh really? "Serious and thoughtful people," with a modicum of an attention span (?!) should easily dismiss the proponents of climate change as obvious buffoons huh? On what charitable basis, hmmm? You don't have to be a research scientist in this field to at least allow...to even presume...that scientists who are proponents of climate change, and apparently there are very many, did not get their scientific chops from , or are affiliated with, dubious institutions of higher learning. What are you saying.. that.they be talking whack stuff because they're obviously pseudo scientists who've received their credentials from learned schools of applied pataphysics and balloon animal husbandry?
I am not a climate change scientist. Are you? Is there anyone who is who is contributing to this debate? Are there any research scientists whatsover contributing to this thread. So, what is informing the dismissive hubris of this thread?
Maybe it really has nothing to do with science at all.

If Paul has an answer to my initial question I'm way past ready to read it. I'm well past discussing whether or not man-made global warming has any basis is fact. It does not. What I'd like to know is this: "Has the Church spoken about such junk science?"

The Church is not well positioned to speak on the issue of science per se; churchmen are not, as a rule, scientists, just as scientists, per se, are not theologians. Each functions in his particular realm and should respect the competency of the other. But the Church is well positioned to speak on the subject of truth and integrity, and the necessity of dealing honestly with each other in both the private and public spheres.

Moreover, the Church does have a moral obligation to speak out about the unique status of man in God's plan of creation, and against any and all schemes that place man in a subordinate position to nature, and above all, to those ideologies that would tolerate the abolition of man, or the condemnation of the vast mass of humanity, to abject poverty, suffering and death, for the sake of restoring some sort of pristine earth.

This sort of "Gaiaism" is nothing less than an idolatrous faith, a kind of pantheism in which all the material world--except mankind--is sacred and deserving of preservation. Man, and man alone, is held responsible for any and all perceived evils committed against Gaia, for which the only acceptable form of atonement is death.

Either you're being ironic or you haven't really been paying attention. At least you have read my remarks carelessly, reaching conclusions about my meaning, quite unsupported by the words I used. I say "charitably" because it's the best I can conclude about folks who propose, for instance, a one child policy on the basis of perfectly incorrect predictions.

I agree completely.

I well agree. The problem is that there has been so little positive commentary on the appropriate relationship between Man as the pinnacle of creation and the rest of the created order. As a result, Christians seem to fall into one of two extreme groups: those who oppose the environmental lobby for its disordered understanding of Man, and those who fall in line with it out of a well-intentioned desire to 'do right' by the rest of creation.

It behoves Orthodox and Catholics alike to resist the polemical and offer a considered, theological iteration of creation.

Not that I am an uncritical reader of Sherrard, but I mention his work a second time as it got either buried or ignored above:

The Rape of Man and Nature
An Enquiry into the Origins and Consequences of Modern Science

and

Human Image: World Image
The Death and Resurrection of Dacred Cosmology

The unfortunate thing is those who write against modern society and its technology do not realize that only modern society and its technology free man to be at all concerned about the environment. And, in fact, the environment today, in the United States, Western Europe and most of the rest of the developed world, is in far better condition than it was one hundred or two hundred years ago. The United States, for instance, is more forested today than it was in 1492, because we, unlike the Indians, do not engage in slash-and-burn agriculture. The wild heaths of Scotland were, up to the early Middle Ages, covered by the Great Caledonian Forest; all those trees, and most of the trees of the great forests that covered England, were sacrifices for timber and for firewood. By the early 19th century, a great energy crisis loomed as the wood was giving out--but James Watt gave us the steam engine, which allowed the mining of deep seams of coal.

Electrification has been perhaps the greatest boon to mankind and the environment alike, because it allows us to use less of the earth's surface to sustain our population. Today, the worst polluters of water and air are in the Third World (I include China), where wood and dung are burned on open hearths for heat and cooking, where modern sewers and water purification systems are unknown, and the burning of trees is the leading cause of desertification. Electrification--using coal-burning power plants--would rapidly lift the bottom billion out of squalor while resulting in a net improvement of the environment. And, as these people begin to prosper, and no longer need be concerned with the fundamentals of survival, they will--just as people in the West have--begin to think about the environment, because environmentalism is a rich man's hobby (and, yes, you are rich as compared to most of the people in the world).

Those, particularly a certain type of Christian, who think that the problems of the environment can be solved by turning our backs on our present economic system and modern technology, while at the same time also returning to the Biblical imperative of "be fruitful and multiply" want to have their cake and eat it, too. You must choose: if you want people to have children in abundance, you must accept modern agriculture and technology to support the population; if you don't people will either not have children, or they will have children who will live and die like flies.

The earth has been hotter than it is today; it has been colder than it is today. The temperature of the earth has been swinging dramatically for tens of thousands of years, since long before man was a factor on this planet. To believe that human activity can significantly affect the climate of the earth one way or the other is an exercise in hubris, which is why it attracts secularists so easily: man, being the center of all things, can do anything. If climate is changing, man made it so, and man can change it back. That's folly, and Christians should eschew it.