Climate Change

Worshipping Gaia

As much as Francis of Assisi loved nature, he understood that our first responsibility is to God and not to nature. It’s not clear if his namesake pope feels the same.

The False Prophets of Climate Change

Due to teenage activist Greta Thunberg’s thunderous—and divisive—speech to the United Nations last week, climate change is getting another moment in the sun. It may be tempting to brush off her comments as youthful hyperbole, but Thunberg’s speech does not stand alone. She’s the most prominent figure in a worldwide movement of young people who … Read more

Science Is Never Settled

In his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore promotes the view that anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW) is fact and has caused nearly every malady in recent history from hurricane Katrina to the spread of malaria. What’s more, things are going to get worse; it’s not a question of if but when and how … Read more

Climate Trumps the Unborn

Catholics and pro-lifers who were shocked at the “knighthood” of Dutch politician and abortion activist Lilianne Ploumen into the Vatican’s Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Francis, shouldn’t have been. True, Ploumen’s militant support of abortion and homosexual rights (which includes raising $400 million for a “reproductive health” NGO she helped launch) is … Read more

Does “Climate Change” Cause Hunger?

Though I was born on a farm, I was raised in small-town Iowa. Thus, I was never a farmer, though my grandfathers were. Several of my aunts, uncles, and cousins formed farming families. I remember seeing, due to mechanization, the size of farms that one family could handle pass in size from a quarter-section, to … Read more

Hurricanes, Climate Change, Pope Francis, and the Poor

Never letting a serious crisis go to waste, climate change advocates seized upon hurricanes Harvey and Irma as evidence that climate change is real and happening, its effects devastating, and without drastic remedial measures global cataclysm is inevitable. Joining in was Pope Francis. While Irma was hammering the Florida coast, El Papa warned against inaction, … Read more

Making Dogma Out of Unsettled Science

In the Broadway redaction of Pygmalion, Professor Higgins regretted how proper English is considered freakish, and “in America, they haven’t used it for years.” The problem glares in the speech of television commentators, for whom coiffures are more important than diction: while grammar is banished from the social media, our urban landscape has become a jungle … Read more

Humility and Hubris

Much has been written about the Pope’s humility, and he himself has often spoken about the need for humility. Yet it is possible to detect a certain amount of hubris in the positions he takes on political and scientific matters. For example, it takes a certain level of hubris for a man to take a … Read more

George Will’s Puerile Tantrum over Pope Francis

In a Washington Post syndicated column published last weekend, George Will went after Pope Francis and his coreligionists with phrases that might have been drawn from nineteenth-century liberal Protestant polemics. Among the Pope’s supposed vices are that “he stands against modernity, rationality, science, and ultimately, the spontaneous creativity of open societies in which people and their … Read more

Unreliable Eco Forecasts Produce Unnecessary Fear

During this latest period of heightened environmental interest given by a new round of international conferences, hoped for treaties and now also a papal encyclical, there is a rather curious embrace of the predictions of environmental science as forecasts that are to be believed, virtually at face value. “Studies show…”, “predictions indicate…”, “the established science … Read more

Mixing Up the Sciences of Heaven and Earth

A museum curator here in New York recently showed me some extraordinary documents and I touched them with awe, albeit with cotton gloves.  There was Benjamin Franklin’s annotated copy of the Constitution, and a long letter by Washington refusing to run for a second presidential term, because all he had to commend himself was his character, which was … Read more

Leaked Laudato Lamented

Here are some comments on the leaked version of Laudato Si’. As everybody knows, the final version may be different than the leaked version. Even if so, the comments I make are valid concerning the material we have. I also only concentrate on the section devoted to “climate change,” a.k.a. global warming.  The document is long … Read more

Bullies for Francis

A few weeks ago Stefano Gennarini of C-Fam sent a series of respectful questions to Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo about the inclusion of abortion advocates Ban Ki-Moon and Jeffrey Sachs at a Vatican conference on so-called climate change. Sanchez Sorondo heads the Pontifical Academy of Science, the organizer of the conference. Sanchez Sorondo’s response was … Read more

What Does “Sustainability” Really Mean?

The Pontifical Academy for Science’s summary of their recent conference on sustainability, itself anticipating our Holy Father’s (supposed) environmental encyclical, is suffused with scientific inaccuracies, some small, others large. But these are forgivable, considering the hearts of its authors are in the right place; and perhaps the theology of the document is sound. The PAS said, “Unsustainable … Read more

Vatican Burns with Global Warming Enthusiasm

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 … Read more

What Should the Pope’s Ecology Encyclical Say?

There has been some discussion of news reports that Pope Francis plans to write an encyclical letter on ecology and the environment. In anticipation of a possible papal letter on those subjects, two recent articles struck my attention. Robb Willer, in the New York Times opines that one reason for the divergent political responses over how … Read more

Prophecy and Prediction: Best Left to the Professionals

Some words spring up as the fashion “du jour” and linger longer than others. There are annoyances like the overwrought “awesome” and now the incessant “iconic” which betray a weak understanding of the meaning of those words and a limited vocabulary. A little more irritating a few years ago was “gravitas” which appeared in an … Read more

Don’t Lose Sleep Over Climate Change Encyclical

It’s official. Progressives love Pope Francis. Their magazines, from Think Progress to Mother Jones, are abuzz with excitement in light of the recent rumor that the pope is going to issue an encyclical on climate change sometime in the next few months. As a politically conservative American Catholic, I’m expected to throw a fit about … Read more

Of Brain Death and Climate Change

 “It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Now, mostly dead is slightly alive.”   ~ Miracle Max As you bundle up, you can’t suppress the wry grin. First, there’s the plummeting temperatures which never seem to make it back up … Read more

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