Mrs. Dono's Letter to her Pastor on Climate-Change Action for Lent

Cold Climate PLUS Her own Fertile Brain ^ | March 14, 2019 | Mrs Don-o

[Mrs. Don-o]

Dear Fr. _______,

I find the re-theming of Lent by Climate Crisis this year-- apparently a "wholesale" international push (Global Catholic Climate Movement, Catholic Climate Covenant, etc. etc.) with local "retail" distributors --- deeply misplaced. It's hard for me to know how to express this. Getting a reasonable and godly perspective is a struggle, but let me give you my best.

I write as a spokes-person (ha) for my little circle of Church Ladies at this point. Several -- I won't name names -- have started this conversation with me, and what we all agree on is this:

1. Nobody here is indifferent to the Fate of the Earth. We understand that one of the first holy Commandments God gave us since Genesis is to care for the earth. This is what humans are supposed to do.

2. God made the earth for everyone, not only for the rich. And not only for the present generation, either, but for the unborn and for all generations to come. We "get" the whole-planet and future-horizon human responsibilities.

3. As far as Lent goes, there's certainly nothing "wrong" with suggesting that we turn our thermostats down a notch or two in the winter, button up our sweaters, hang the laundry out on the line, turn out the lights when we leave the room. etc. ("Yes, Mom.") Most of us have been doing this, and preaching it non-stop to the kiddoes, for decades.

But here's where we think the Climate Change Lent goes wrong:

• The recommended Climate Actions are way too little (on its own terms), suspiciously irrelevant science-wise, and --- from a Catholic /spiritual point of view ---- way off target.

I. Way too little (on its own terms): because *if* we believed what Big Climate Crisis Inc. demands that we believe --- that the world is going to become increasingly unlivable for vulnerable populations, and we have just 12 years to radically slash CO₂ emissions or face an unstoppable chain of disasters --- we wouldn't be putzing around saying "Hey, wear a sweater, and swap out beef for beans." That would be akin to saying, "You're malignantly obese, your cardio-pulmonary, renal, and muscular-skeletal systems are catastrophically failing, so... Splenda in your coffee. There you go. Good girl, do it for Jesus."

No, *if* if we believed in this looming Global Catastrophe, the action would be Giga-big, and Now: Start clearing millions of people out of the most endangered Coastal Zones like Manhattan, San Francisco Bay Area, Miami, New Orleans, Tampa and Boston; plus Guangzhou, China; Mumbai, India; Nagoya, Japan. Ban 99% of passenger air travel. No more excellent Pilgrimage and Tourism Adventures (unless you walk.) For God's sake, kill off the cattle herds!"

But nobody believes that. At least, nobody is acting as if they do.

Just two months ago, the deeply, deeply concerned multimillionaires and billionaires of the World Economic Forum gathered at Davos, Switzerland to take on global climate change as their topmost conscientious ethical priority. They declared to the world:

1. it's a moral imperative to curb hydrocarbon fuels (they said as they were getting off their 1500+ private jets);

2. it's essential for the just redistribution of global wealth (they said as they were fleeing from high-tax jurisdictions); and

3. human coastal habitats are going to be wiped out (they said as they went on plowing fortunes into seaside investments for fun and profit.)

OK, so it's way too little. It's also

II. Suspiciously irrelevant.

Let's do science! (If this seems tedious, this is how science is supposed to work.)

Here I've used the figures provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As you know, the IPCC is the main global driver of the reduce CO₂ movement: the Vatican relies on IPCC for their -doctrines numbers.

In scenario #4, the "If we do nothing" scenario, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report predicted that by 2100 the CO₂ concentration will rise by an additional 468 ppm. In the same scenario, the IPCC predicts a temperature rise of 3.4^o C. So under their assumption, to get a 1^o C temperature rise requires a 140 ppm rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentration (468/3.4 =140). (ppm=parts per million)

Again, using IPCC figures, a 1^o C rise requires CO₂ emissions of 2,198,000 mmt (mmt = million million tons). That’s two million- million- million tons of CO₂.)

According to the EPA, total human U.S. CO₂ emissions, from all sources (power plants, industry, all transport, cow farts, everything) were 6,103 mmt in 2007. If we stopped all U.S. emissions it "might" prevent a temperature rise of 0.003^o C.(6,103/2,000,000 = 0.003).

Let that sink in.

So stop driving your car! The average car emits 5.5 tons of CO₂ annually and is "responsible" for a temperature rise of 0.00000000000311º C, three one-hundred-billionths of a degree. Utterly irrelevant. But... but... what if everybody did the same? It would still be imperceptible.

Let that sink in.

Similar calculations from Paul Knappenberger of CATO:

Lukewarming: Climate Science Changes Everything (clickable link).

Bottom Line: This is suspiciously irrelevant: IPCC-related Carbon Crisis "experts" say we need to cut emissions drastically, when their own figures indicate that human CO₂ emissions do not produce a significant change in temperature.

We should not waste resources quixotically claiming that we can control climate, which would entail setting up command-and-control centers to overmaster geophysical systems on a planetary scale. Let's prudently use finite resources to serve human needs, not Davos hubris.

Anyone who thinks differently, must provide some physical evidence to the contrary. Not physical evidence of mere warming (warming is happening, thanks be to God, and has been happening for the past 11,000 years, since the last Pleistocene glaciation) but... they must consider ALL the evidence, plusses and minuses, and show that warming is a net harm.

What do I mean by that? I mean the IPCC has yet to produce a single comprehensive Prevention vs Adaptation, cost vs benefit, risk vs opportunity assessment. They have not proven that warming is forced by human use of fossil fuels, vs the real climate drivers: variations in the earth's orbit (Milankovich cycles), and variations in the sun's energy output.

The Sun is the Biggest Player in Climate Change (clickable link)

And --- as demonstrated above by crunching their own numbers ---- they've failed to prove that warming can be stopped or slowed or even influenced by reversing the Industrial Revolution or buttoning my sweater.

Oh, and none of the projections based on IPCC climate models have had robust predictive powers, rather, various models differ significantly from each other. That in itself constitutes "internal debate," not "settled science."

Hasn't anybody made predictions that HAVE demonstrated a good degree of accuracy? ---you may wonder. Yes. Climate projections based on levels of solar energy output have had strikingly strong predictive power.

I implore you to read just one science-based article that succinctly challenges the dominant assumptions of climate change. This is but one example, a very modest bit, just 10-13 minutes reading time:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/global_cooling_the_real_climate_threat.html

 

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III. And now the most important point, which is that (despite the Godtalk) re-theming Lent as Climate Crisis Action Season is, from a Catholic and spiritual point of view, way off target.

There's a very good reason why Lent has always summoned us to private reflection about Christ's shed blood, examination of conscience, and personal observances of prayer, fasting and alms-giving. It's because without them, we are supine before the world, the flesh and the devil.

Mammon, Moloch and the Media, if you will.

Father, we are oppressed by the Spiritus Mundi, the spirit of this world.

We are heartsick, despondent, sometimes near despair that:

• Catholics in public life are overtly cheering and jubilating over outright infanticide

• coming soon: grandma's right to take a lethal drug and kill herself
• our own children and grandchildren have fallen from the Faith
• leaders are saying our kids should not even have kids of their own
• Catholics are being silenced, imprisoned and killed all over the world
• the Vatican (Card. Parolin) is herding Catholics into the teeth of the Chinese Communist Party
• the Bishops have shown themselves unwilling/ unable to discipline and correct their own ranks
• the moral authority of the Curia is roughly at the level of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein
• our homilists are mute on the real sin-issues --- won't even name them --- turning instead to the politically-correct issues.

Moral and spiritual reform get put down as trivial concerns. Pushed to comment of specific reforms outlined by Archbishop Vigano concerning the Sex Abuse crisis (oh yeah, that 'other' crisis) Cardinal Blase Cupich told NBC News in Chicago, "The Pope has a bigger agenda. He’s got to get on with other things—of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.”

In all fairness, a couple of days later Cupich walked that one back. He didn't mean it like he said it, said he.

It strikes me that at the very moment when we, the Church, are literally dying in body and soul for lack of contrition, lack of atonement, lack of personal penitential tears and St.-Peter-Damian level, root-and-branch, Church-wide moral realignment, the approved script is: "Do not mention our soul-deep sexual sickness, do not mention lust, (voice rising) absolutely do not mention homosexuality, that has absolutely! nothing! to do! with anything! Let's talk about, uh, atmospheric gases."

I have my own sins to repent. Fasters should keep their eyes off of other people's plates, they say. I'm very like a compost grub deploring the general rot. However, I am trying to keep Lent.

Happy Lent.

[signed]

[Mrs. Don-o]

Please feel free to copy, edit, excerpt, personalize, and use this.

I put this in News/Activism because it is basically Activism, not Religion. I used the URL of one of my links. I hope this is OK.

Your thoughts?

[rktman]

Well done.

[rjsimmon]

Bookmark!

[PGR88]

You were very polite, and gave far more details than 999 out of 1000 people would give.

I would simply say “stop preaching on the political headlines of the day. Environmentalism, particularly climate change, is a neo-Marxist, worldly trap. The Church has stopped asking for individuals to conform to Christ. It dare note insult anyone by preaching about individual sin. Everything we hear now is about collective sin, which belongs to the realm of politics.”

[RoosterRedux]

• the moral authority of the Curia is roughly at the level of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein.

At least Cosby and Weinstein are heterosexuals.

Otherwise, great job.

[G Larry]

Outstanding!

Not to mention that the Climate Change fraud is warmed over, anti-Christian, Zero-Population Growth nonsense, used to continue oppression of the third world.

[SamuraiScot]

Totally awesome, Mrs. D!

Let the Vatican "sin-deniers" take a stroll over to their own planetary observatory and ponder the Maunder Minimum.

[Sergio]

BRAVO!!!

[steve86]

Your best letter ever, with the highlight (or nadir?) to me being the part exposing certain public Catholics and their despicable acts.

[NoCmpromiz]

Good letter.

I assume you don’t expect a reply, but should that unexpectedly occur would you post it?

I’m sure it will be - interesting...

[Romulus]

This is no way to campaign for a slot on the parish council.

[Sergio]

Just an observation.

Those Catholics who are “environmentally aware”, can be found recycling, turning their thermostats down, changing their eating habbits and in other forms, doing what they can to “save the planet”.

Yet for many of these same people, personally giving to the poor, personally feeding the hungry, personally reading scripture, personally praying, personally going to reconciliation, personally going to Mass, is just too much trouble.

Are some of our Catholic brother and sisters praying to the Golden Calf? The efforts expended seem to say yes.

And if the Church pushes “environmentalism”, is the church guilty of helping the flock pray to the Golden Calf rather then our Lord an Savior?

Just some things to ponder among ourselves as I don’t think this will be brought up at the pulpit any time soon.

BTW, I love all the hard data you used in your letter. Great stuff.

[pgyanke]

Wonderful! Well-stated and to the point. Thank you!

[Jaded]

Yes, well done!

[cradle of freedom]

When the globalists want something they make it go GLOBAL! Everybody must be with the program—EVERYBODY! This will be followed up by many Ocasio-Cortez type of the world is ending in twelve years nonsense. Recognize how the devil works. He is trying to co-opt Lent with a false Christianity and no doubt trying to cause division in the church.

[grey_whiskers]

In before bagster leaves the Q threads to ask you to marry him. 😉

Well done!

[simpson96]

Thank you, and excellent job.

[FrdmLvr]

Excellent! Hopefully you won’t be excommunicated. ;-)

[markomalley]

I can’t see that message sitting well with Sullivan County (or neighboring) parishoners. Either it must’ve been forced from on high or your pastor is unbelievably tone deaf.

(Or that part of the world has changed...and not for the good)

[Swordmaker]

The average car emits 5.5 tons of CO2 annually and is "responsible" for a temperature rise of 0.00000000000311º C, three one-hundred-billionths of a degree. Utterly irrelevant. But... but... what if everybody did the same? It would still be imperceptible.

I’ve seen this average car producing 5.5 tons of CO₂ per year figure tossed around for years from the Climate alarmists but never really seen it challenged. I’m going to.

The average American drives ~250 miles per week times 52 weeks per year for a total of 13,000 miles per year. Males drive a bit more and females a bit less. . . but that’s close. In 2018, the national fleet average was about 25 miles per gallon of fuel. Therefore, the average driver in the average car in America used 520 gallons of fuel per year. Gasoline weighs 6.183 pounds per gallon (for our purposes we shall ignore diesel fueled vehicles which use 6.8 lbs per gallon fuel). The total weight of the gasoline consumed, if it reaches 100% cumbustion, is ~3,215 pounds, or ~1.6 tons.

If we were to assume that 100% of that gasoline weight was made of Carbon atoms (atomic mass ~12) which then combined with two Oxygen atoms (atomic mass ~16 each), then you get the approximate 5.5 tons of CO₂ per year. . . However, ~20% of that gasoline weight is made up of Hydrogen which burns to H₂O, water, as exhaust, not CO₂. That brings the 5.5 tons down to 4.4 tons of CO₂, but we’re used to the alarmist fudging their figures, aren’t we? I guess they figure it’s close enough for government work.