Posted on 06/20/2015 8:05:54 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Politicians touting cap-and-trade and carbon taxes as the solution to climate change should read what the pontiff said
TORONTO - Many politicians lining up to praise Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment and climate change released last week clearly have either not read it or don’t understand what it says.
The most significant thing in the Pope’s encyclical is that it alternately attacks and ignores the two most popular methods governments around the world are telling their citizens will be effective in reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.
The first is carbon taxes, the second, cap-and-trade.
The Pope never mentions carbon taxes (such as the one in British Columbia) once, in a 184-page document that is otherwise so detailed in its response to climate change it even attacks the excessive use of, and I quote, “air-conditioning”.
As for the creation of a global stock market trading in carbon credits, known as cap-and-trade, Pope Francis denounces it.
In Canada, cap-and-trade, is advocated by NDP leader Tom Mulcair, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Quebec Premier Phillippe Couillard.
Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper — when it looked like the Americans were going to bring in a cap-and-trade system under Barack Obama — supported it.
By contrast the Pope dismisses cap-and-trade and “the buying and selling of carbon credits” as a “new form of speculation” which will “not help reduce the emission of polluting gases world-wide.”
It is deceptively promoted by its supporters, the Pope says, as a “quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment” that may well be “a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and some sectors.”
The Pope accepts mainstream climate science that abnormal climate change is occurring and that humanity is responsible for it through the burning of fossil fuels.
He argues the developed world is disproportionately at fault and that it is morally and financially obligated to alleviate the suffering of the developing world, where the poor suffer the most due to the impact of climate change.
He attacks capitalism insofar as it appeals to human greed and excessive consumption and calls for the phase-out of fossil fuels.
These are the things politicians and climate activists have seized upon in the encyclical to build their case for a global system of carbon pricing, either through carbon taxes or cap-and-trade.
But that’s not what Pope Francis is advocating.
He’s calling for a global cultural revolution which focuses less on wealth creation and economic growth, and more on sharing the world’s resources and alleviating the suffering of the poor.
Neither of these views are surprising coming from the first Pope from the developing world (Argentina), whose papacy has been devoted to relieving the suffering of the downtrodden.
The Pope’s most powerful message in the encyclical is his linking of climate change to the personal choices that each of us (especially in the developed world) can make in our lives, to help address the problem of climate change.
His argument is that the enormity of the task should not make us apathetic in the belief that nothing can be done, but stir us to individual and collective action against a global emergency.
In this context, it’s easy to understand why Pope Francis is no fan of carbon taxes or cap-and-trade.
That’s because both systems of carbon pricing, by raising the cost of living, disproportionately attack the world’s poor, who spend a far higher percentage of their income supplying their basic energy needs than the wealthy.
Nor is this phenomenon confined to the developing world.
For example in Ontario, hundreds of thousands of people, disproportionately seniors on fixed incomes, have been driven into fuel poverty — required to spend more than 10% of their incomes simply to power their homes — in part because of rising electricity prices caused by the Liberal government’s reckless introduction of so-called green energy.
Globally, preventing developing nations from using fossil fuels to power themselves out of the third world and into the first, as we did 150 years ago, will inevitably lead to more premature deaths and suffering among the very people Pope Francis wants to help.
Still, the Pope deserves credit for his understanding of the complexity of the global challenges we face in reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, and that the quick fixes being offered by our politicians, such as carbon taxes and cap-and-trade, are an illusion.
The Pope doesn’t get a vote.
“The Pope accepts mainstream climate science that abnormal climate change is occurring and that humanity is responsible for it through the burning of fossil fuels.”
It is NOT “science”!!!
It is political BS!
If one actually believed in global warming, then this carbon credit thing wouldn’t be a good idea.
PFL
PIFFLE!
It’s models which never have been matched by measurements.
The Pope is a useful idiot.
The Pope is a useful idiot.
That should be IDIOT
Satan is at large in the Vatican
Okay. Got it. Sin payments. How wonderful, are the pimps.
Il Papa is not writing all this global warming bunkum by himself. He must have some Vatican social_justice_warrior apparatchiks at his elbow whispering this nonsense in his ears. Who is writing Il Papa’s material and stage patter?
The whole cap and trade/ global warming thing is all about downsizing America by weighing her down with a global tax (by the means of treaty), and controlling the means for which she grows. These people cannot tolerate undiluted prosperity. It makes them crazy. We had a little taste of this last year when gas prices went lower than we’ve seen in years. Then, we saw an uprising of socialist leaning pundits talk about why since gas prices are low, and people are traveling more, why we should tax it. It never ends with these people. They want your money and deliberately want to limit your means to prosper. By saddling us with burdens, they PROFIT off of our labor. Yes, PROFIT. And cap and trade is about PROFITING a government imposed bureaucracy.
The second of these things has never happened without the first. Nor can it ever be. The poor have nothing to share with the poor, except for poverty.
The pope (mistakenly) believed that the cap-and-trade and carbon credits markets had a faint whiff of capitalism, so he was reflexively against them.
Once he understands that both are nothing more than Leftist con games, he be will thoroughly on board with both, provided that the Vatican can join the grift.
“He attacks capitalism insofar as it appeals to human greed and excessive consumption and calls for the phase-out of fossil fuels.”
He wants to use the stick, not the carrot. The carbon credit folks are just slick operators looking to strike it rich. The Pope would welcome authoritarian seizure of wealth and would block the very economy that is allowing third world poor to pull themselves out of the mud. He is more like Mugabe and the late Chavez than anyone else.
Let me know when he takes over the EPA.
I fear this Pope is a scholar of "liberation theology".
Yes, I knew a couple of Latino Priests at All Saints in Tucson in the late sixties and their approach to economics and culture was much the same. Good men but wrong headed.
What a fruitcake. It's probably nice and cool in his quarters during those hot Roman summers.
The Pope appears not to have read Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-28 when he condemns Cap & Trade.
Trading and doing business is specifically encouraged. It appears to be distinguished from merely depositing money at interest.
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