Friday, March 29, AD 2024 6:26am

PopeWatch: Morality and the Climate

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

Patrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute at National Review Online raises moral questions that PopeWatch is confident will not be addressed at the Pope’s conference on the moral dimensions of climate change:
Kudos to Pope Francis for calling a conference, scheduled for tomorrow, emphasizing the moral dimensions of climate change. It’s about time we took a clear and sober look at an issue that can cause so much harm to so many, especially the poor and downtrodden. The core problem for the conference is to balance the costs and benefits imposed by climate change against the costs and benefits of a major reduction in the use of fossil fuels, with the understanding that there are only two other sources of dense energy that can effectively replace them, nuclear power and large hydroelectric dams. 

Go here to read the rest.  One of the irritating features of contemporary life is the attempt to silence debate on policy questions by seizing an alleged moral high ground.  As Mr. Michaels demonstrates, in regard to most policy questions there are competing moral issues involved.  You want a pristine environment and wish to limit development?  The poor will end up footing most of the bill.  Hey poor people in the Third World, do not follow our path to development if the environment is harmed.    Producing a better environment will require limiting freedom and just not for big corporations.  Policy questions usually involve tradeoffs, and if morality is invoked, then let all the moral issues that arise from such tradeoffs be addressed, and not just those favored by the chattering classes.

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Paul W Primavera
Tuesday, April 28, AD 2015 4:49am

Let him who has ears hear! As a 30+ year nuclear power professional, I agree with this post.

Don L
Don L
Tuesday, April 28, AD 2015 5:23am

The real moral issue at hand here is the failure to condemn the reduction of scientific truth to the servitude of (leftist?) politics.
I find it more damaging to mankind that science is not assigned its proper place as a servant of a moral and civilized peoples and not a weapon of political convenience or a untethered monster unleashing its evil without firm moral control.
Unfortunately, I would place the salvation of souls as the real danger to mankind and avoid like the plague, these silly dog and pony shows so favored by fallen man.

Paul W Primavera
Tuesday, April 28, AD 2015 7:21am

No to Nuclear Weapons, Yes to Nuclear Technology – the Holy See’s Stance:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/no-to-nuclear-weapons-yes-to-nuclear-technology-the-holy-sees-stance-60763
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“While the Holy See praised the achievements of nuclear technology but discussion remains on how the use and production of nuclear energy should be fostered. Producing nuclear energy also produces nuclear waste, which needs to be placed in and kept under special conditions for decades.”
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Solution:
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http://gehitachiprism.com/
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I worked with the man who designed this – Dr. Eric P. Loewen.

Paul W Primavera
Tuesday, April 28, AD 2015 7:40am

Dr. Eric Loewen on GE-Hitachi PRISM:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po7D3G9EbKU
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He is still wearing the same sweater that I would always see him wear at the offices in Wilmington, NC.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, April 28, AD 2015 10:52am

Don L. People as pollution gives the tyrant total power over the human being.

Don L
Don L
Tuesday, April 28, AD 2015 2:52pm

Yes, Mary,and the climate change hoax works so well because climate transcends all borders, hence it becomes the perfect weapon to destroy sovereignty–the real goal of the “one-world” UN.

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Wednesday, April 29, AD 2015 8:56am

As the encyclical release comes closer, it is funny to see anthropological climate change believers, which are very often liberals, get excited about its release. For so long, they told us religion has no place in public policy and religion and science should not mix. Apparently they forgot to to amend their statements with “with it disagrees with my agenda.”
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I wonder if they’ll take up the Church’s “Save the Unborn” banner as quickly as they are to embrace this encyclical… if it turns out as expected.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, April 29, AD 2015 10:14am

Don L It is important to know that the “one world” UN is a God less society, a God less government. Where will our civil rights as sovereign persons be allowed if the Pope gives himself over to a Godless view of “one world” UN.
It takes an act of the will, the free will act of the soul to bend over and pick up a piece of trash for a better world. It takes a commitment of the sovereign person to steward the environment. The question must be asked: For whom? The answer and the only answer is: For all future generations, our constitutional posterity, the unborn human beings in the womb. If Pope Francis does not tie his encyclical to the human being, born and unborn, created and procreated and to be procreated, Pope Francis will fall short of the mark. Pope Francis will fall short of God telling Adam to name everything in creation…such as climate change and the existence of man.

Jeanne Rohl
Jeanne Rohl
Wednesday, April 29, AD 2015 2:41pm

Well Pope F might want to watch his back as there was just news alert that ISIS is IN Rome. As IN Rome Climate might have to wait. You’d think we were all a bunch of 4 yr olds. There is so much more pertinent issues!

Sydney O. Fernandes
Sydney O. Fernandes
Thursday, April 30, AD 2015 4:02pm

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world (finite) and suffers the loss of his (immortal) soul? What a travesty it is to see all the groaning and laboring to save planet earth; for most nations, “progress” is aping the loot of the “West”. Most of the readers have seen the darkness and misery of the alleys and the slums; meanwhile the better-stocked folks (including the Hollywood “stars” and moralizers) try to goad on a dying donkey. First seek the kingdom of God (G.M.Hopkins “The world is charged with the grandeur of God!”) in all creatures, and we will respect nature and treat it kindly. Or have we forgotten Christ’s admonition that no matter how much we worry, we cannot add an inch to our stature, and that He accounts for even every hair that exists?

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