It's not the whole campaign, but maybe the first step: to convince the climate activists and other parishioners that there is no "consensus" on AGW; that it is certainly not Catholic Doctrine; and that it is not an area in which there ever COULD be Catholic Doctrine, since any dispute pertains 100% to prudential judgment, and not to doctrines concerning faith and morals.
LOSE 10 pounds of Climate-Related CONFLICT
with ONE WEIRD TRICK:
(Various graphics were cluttered around the top of the page, something I can't do with FR graphics.)
Humility!!
Yes, I could use a big dose of that, and I mean on a regular basis. Thinking about earth-wide, and even Solar System-wide issues like the warming and cooling of the planets, leads to a sense of one’s insufficiency (and our species’ inadequacy) to predict, much less control, such cosmic, interlocking processes.
Though there are controversies, there are big areas in which all of us who read this newsletter agree. We agree that for humanity to have benign dominion over this planet is a primordial command which God gave to us, His rational creatures. We agree we are caring for a Creation of which we are stewards, not masters.
We agree that this “care” is morally obligatory, not optional. We agree that Earth with it beauty and its resources is to be developed with the needs of everybody in mind, including the poor, the vulnerable, and our children not yet born. We all believe that.
These concerns go back to before the first Earth Day (1970), before St. Francis of Assisi: they go back to Genesis.
Back in 1971, Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI addressed the climate crisis, warning that “man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature, he risks destroying it, and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation.”
And yet, interestingly enough, what crisis was he addressing at the time? The “crisis” of Global Cooling.
Oh? Yes. In the ‘70’s and 80’s, the real concern --- we were told --- was that temperatures were dropping.
Specifically, many American scientists were terrified of an imminent Ice Age. Senior Presidential Science Advisor John Holdren was one of them. Holdren and others proposed pouring huge quantities of soot (carbon!) over the arctic to melt the ice cap and so prevent the dreaded Ice Age. Holdren warned of dire consequences – -including starvation and the largest tidal waves in history –-- if mankind did not unanimously rally on an emergency basis to stop the development of “Snow Ball Earth”.
This was the Consensus Science of 30 and 40 years ago. Pope Paul VI taught the urgency of caring for Earth --- this is an unquestioned moral obligation --- but was wise enough not to urge acceptance of any particular hypothesis about what was happening Earth-wide, or how, specifically, we were to respond to it.
Perhaps he was remembering that the Church got into big trouble in the 17th century for seeming to endorse the Consensus Science of the age: namely, the Ptolemaic (earth-centered) model of the Universe. So Pope Paul confined his remarks to the area in which he had ecclesial and moral competence (reiterating the duty to foster a just ecological ethic) and prudently refrained from endorsing the Technology and Public Policy areas in which he had neither Scientific expertise nor Magisterial authority. Pope Paul VI had humility.
We all need humility. It’s just something to keep in mind when reading the statements of the clergy ---- priests, bishops, cardinals, and Popes --- on climate change.
Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton endorses the Catholic Climate Covenant and specifically calls for steps to avert what he calls catastrophic, anthropogenic global warming. Cardinal George Pell of Australia, on the other hand, compared the sale of carbon credits with the pre-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, and said climate activists are descending into pseudo-science and zealotry.
Earlier this month, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology said he wants to send conservative global warming skeptics to jail for life. That was followed up by others charging that liberal climate activists “hate the poor” because they want to permanently deprive energy-hungry poor countries of power sources we historically benefited from --- like coal --- which are essential for development and the eradication of hunger and poverty.
And worse and worse and back and forth and on and on.
Let’s not adopt the belligerent, polarized attitudes of the secular world --- Right Wing vs Left Wing, war to the death. We Are the Church: Right Wing, Left Wing and Middle of the Bird (which is where the heart , the brains and the lungs are. Take ten deep breaths!)
Let’s adopt rules that make Catholic dialog on these issues distinctive and constructive, because of our distinctive, Inestimable Gift: we are One in the Lord.
Here’s what I suggest:
1. No avoiding hard, controversial issues in order to “be nice.” Avoiding hard issues is how we’ve gotten into every single mess we’re in.
2. No attributing malice or stupidity to others, even by implication. Stop that kind of talk as soon as it starts.
3. Become skilled at listening. Let each person commit to hearing out the other side (or sides!!) fully and patiently. Listen before thinking of a rebuttal.
4. Sincerity does not take the place of facts. We’re going to assume everybody is sincere here. But sincerity does not substitute for evidence, and reasonable inferences from evidence.
5. “Let prayer delight you more than disputation, and charity more than knowledge. “- St. Robert Bellarmine
6. Humility!