Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 3:30pm

On Climate Change…Again

I may be out of touch, but I confess that the first time I ever heard the name Greta Thunberg was during a recent homily at our local parish. Our weekend associate pastor used the Gospel for September 29th about the rich man and Lazarus to make a point about climate change (see Lk 16:19-31). In the homily, the rich man represented the rich industrialized nations of the world and Lazarus represented the poor nations that suffer because of climate change, while the rich nations do nothing. The homily went on to suggest that we have a ray of hope found in a modern day teenaged prophetess named Greta who warns us of our impending doom.

I don’t think the average person in the congregation would consider questioning some of the base premises involved with such an analogy about climate change such as:

  1. Is the change (namely global warming) a deviation from normal considering Earths’ long history?
  2. If yes, is the change the root cause of additional suffering for poorer nations?
  3. If yes, is the root cause of the change the burning of fossil fuels (CO2 emissions)?
  4. If yes, is it certain that reducing or eliminating fossil fuels would alleviate the suffering?
  5. Is the science settled enough to make sweeping alterations to how we live?

Additionally…How much would forcibly reducing or eliminating fossil fuels hurt poor nations trying to industrialize? What about de-industrializing richer nations? Wouldn’t they become poorer, and therefore likely to reduce the aid they already send to the poorest nations?

Aside from the hidden presumptions needed to draw such an analogy from the Gospel, what I found most disconcerting was when the priest refereed to Greta as a prophet. Coincidentally, I then heard a similar concern on the Patrick Madrid show on October 2nd (go to minute 23). Patrick mentioned that the Church of Sweden (the Lutheran church in Sweden) announced that Greta is a successor to Jesus Christ. What could that possibly mean???

Given all the confusion, I wanted to link a post I wrote about climate change back in November of 2017. It’s written through the lens of a problem solving & decision making process we use where I work, so if someone is willing & able to set aside their emotional, political and even religious leanings, the post just might provide a detached point of view.

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Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 6:57am

I Really hope your associate Pastor knows the difference between Christian stewardship and pagan worship of the environment. Because Climate worship is paganism rebranded.

Mary De Voe
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 7:43am

God said: “I draw you with bands of love.”. Fear mongering and heresy are tools of oppression.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 8:03am

My priest’s talk on climate change:

https://prognosticis.blogspot.com/2019/02/oecologia-et-sanitas.html

I would have confronted that priest and publicly given him a piece of my mind, then I would never return to that parish as I slammed his sermon all over FB, the blogosphere and elsewhere.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 8:26am

If we’re going to compare Scoldilocks to anyone, by rights it ought to be Stephen of Cloyes.

Tito Edwards
Admin
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 9:22am

Change parishes. I would suggest an FSSP or Ordinariate parish, right off the top of my head, near you.

David WS
David WS
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 10:43am

Certainly a couple of degrees of warmth is not as bad as an ice age – that would be bad. We know cooling periods, warming periods and full ice ages have happened in the past. We’re not sure exactly how much of an effect human beings are having now.
It’s occurred to me that the more confusion there is in the Church the more:
1. People turn to other religions like climate change and…
2. The more Clergy become enamored with speaking on things that have nothing to do with eternal salvation.
3. The more confusion.
4. repeat,,, 1-2-3

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 11:09am

“the more confusion there is in the Church the more:1. People turn to other religions like climate change and…”
Bingo!
Nature hates a vacuum, even in our spiritual lives so if faith and the belief in the true God is allowed to die, then people will NEED something else to believe in, to replace the God they lost, something to aspire to, something in which they feel gives sense to their lives and if that something is playing a role in protecting Mother Earth, Gaia then it is not surprising how environmentalism now becomes the object of their desire.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 11:17am

Number 2 is marketing influenced church craft. The only way for the church to become less relevant to the lives of people enamored of climate change hysteria is by trying to become more relevant by signaling that it shares in the hysteria.

Dave Griffey
Dave Griffey
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 11:48am

Generally, if it comes up in a conservation and I’m asked my thoughts, I say I have no problem believing scientists when they say STEM has hurt the environment. I find that gets the conversation onto different trajectory.

Bob Kurland, Ph.D.
Admin
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 2:15pm

There are two simple facts that one can convey to non-scientists that belie the AGW pseudo-science claims. 1) The world was much warmer at times back when no man-made CO2 was produced: witness the Medieval Warm Period when Greenland was green. 2) H2O (water vapor) is also a greenhouse gas and present in much greater abundance than CO2; witness cloudy nights are warmer than clear nights other factors the same. They (the AGW pseudo-scientists) can’t contradict those, although they do spout nonsense–empirically disproved–about “feedback.”

ExNOAAman
ExNOAAman
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 3:14pm

I predict a bad end for your weekend associate. Any educated man gullible enough to fall for the global warming hoax can be tricked into anything. 30 years ago it may have been debatable, but after decades of failed predictions by the warministas there’s no excuse.
I’m serious. Look him up in 5 years and see if he hasn’t fallen into disrepute.

John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 3:35pm

Ernst, Scoldilocks is pretty good. I seen someone else describe her as Wednesday of the Adam’s Family.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, October 4, AD 2019 5:51pm

I thought so too, which is why I ripped it off.

Christopher Schaefer
Christopher Schaefer
Saturday, October 5, AD 2019 3:23am

Global warming is obviously the reason why 80% of Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Saturday, October 5, AD 2019 3:42am

We should praise Greta Thunberg for pointing out the incredible hypocrisy of the climate change advocates. All they seek is political power and self aggrandizement at the our expense

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Saturday, October 5, AD 2019 4:40am

I refuse to be lectured to by a prepubescent girl who doesn’t know what she is talking about.

The Christian Teacher
The Christian Teacher
Saturday, October 5, AD 2019 5:59am

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, October 5, AD 2019 8:06am

“I refuse to be lectured to by a prepubescent girl who doesn’t know what she is talking about.”
If Thunberg prayed to the Creator instead of the U.N. she would be well balanced.

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Saturday, October 5, AD 2019 9:16am

I don’t know if I would have been able to resist the temptations and the lies at her age and refuse to put myself out to the wolves. We are not all strong in our youth to resist the spotlight and know what is best for us at this age. That is why we need adults in our lives.

Neither Hogg (gun control) nor Thunberg were of majority age when they began their activism. Both are at an impressionable age whereby the adults in their lives have a very big responsibility in providing guidance and direction and they have failed miserably. The adults have put these children in harms way by pushing them onto center stage on two of the most controversial issues of our day, abortion being another.

Hogg has shown himself caught in a media trap that no longer cares what he does or what he says. They made him, they broke him. Thunberg will find out the same thing unfortunately but on an international level. The adulation thrust on these two puppets tells me more about the adults who feel that underage children have some valuable life lessons to teach us that they learned in their short lives or that they are useful tools to push their own agenda.

Yeah, I don’t like either one of those kids either, or what they espouse I should say, but we have to remember, left to their own devices they would not even have gotten out of the starters gate. They needed adults, money and media. We want to despise or be annoyed by someone let it be their keepers. If anything I am angered for the way they were used. It’s abuse pure and simple. They are being taught lies by those who should be loving them.

Yeah, Hogg may be older now but once someone of that age tastes what it feels like when being a celeb and people crowd around you and want to hear every word uttered out of your mouth it’s hard to push that away and not try to regain the stardom. The ones who are strong and mature like the student from the Covington School who faced the Native American Vet drumming in his face was a class act. Greta will soon find out she’s not.

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