In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, columnist Dean Kuipers humorously reports on the 2011 “Climate B.S. of the Year Award” – with the B.S. standing for “bad science” – that the Pacific Institute announced it was awarding to all of the current candidates running for the GOP presidential nomination. While the award itself imparts a more lighthearted response to climate change skepticism, the reality of its message is quite serious. As the Pacific Institute notes, “Not a single one of the Republican candidates for president has a position on climate change that is consistent with the actual science accepted by 97-98% of all climate scientists and every national academy of sciences on the planet.” This is a disturbing trend.
Many within the crop of candidates vying for the GOP nomination have expressed disheartening, and at times even startling, views on climate change. Rick Perry, an outspoken skeptic of man-made climate change, has asserted in debates that “the science is not settled” on the issue, and has called global warming a “scientific theory that has not been proven.” Ron Paul, appearing on Fox Business television in 2009, decried global warming as a hoax. Rick Santorum publicly has referred to climate change as “junk science.” As a guest on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, Santorum described climate science as some kind of left-wing conspiracy designed to empower the federal government’s regulatory authority – a notion that effectively places the majority of the world’s scientists into the unlikely realm of pure political scheming. Mitt Romney has expressed more moderate views on climate change, noting his belief that while climate change is occurring, “…we don’t know what’s causing [it].”
Not all Republican politicians are climate change skeptics. Both Senators from Maine, Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, have supported and even drafted climate and clean energy legislation. Jon Huntsman, who up until recently was part of the GOP presidential race, initially stood out as the only candidate to declare his strong support for climate science – until, that is, he shifted to a more neutral position, seeming to succumb to pressure to hold the party line. Even Newt Gingrich expressed activist climate views as recently as 2008. Appearing in a television ad alongside then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Gingrich urged swift, bipartisan action on climate change. He has since voiced his regret at appearing in the ad.
Science and politics come to an unfortunate juncture in the climate change debate, as climate change opponents in the political arena frequently cling to – and distort – the nature of the scientific process. These deniers often emphasize the theoretical component of climate change (“It’s just a theory!”) as an attempt to discredit the science behind it. That “theory” in scientific method does not equate to “theory” as it is used in everyday vernacular is not explained; this, in turn, becomes an unfortunate justification for those who choose to view climate change as a matter of abstract belief or disbelief instead of one that is grounded upon genuine and well-documented evidence. Such semantic distortion unjustly minimizes the seriousness of an issue affecting our global community.
In essence, the issue of climate change has become partisan and politicized to a harmful degree. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated that global climate change “… is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God’s creation and the one human family…It is about our human stewardship of God’s creation and our responsibility to those who come after us.” As indicated by the USCCB, Catholic social teaching encourages us to be stewards of the environment as part of our moral responsibility to care for God’s creation – not only for our own sake, but for that of future generations. It is a critical part of our obligation to work for the common good.
The bishops note that we should utilize the virtue of prudence to address climate change. Indeed, a prudent approach involves recognition of the potentially devastating effects that we face without action on this issue – particularly in relation to those most vulnerable populations worldwide. Many of the communities who are most immediately threatened by the effects of climate change are also those who are already impoverished. Threats to the agricultural sector, as well as coastal flooding, carry devastating implications for vast populations in developing nations. According to the majority of scientists worldwide, these trends are not only possible, but very likely to occur.
Pope Benedict XVI writes in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate that “[o]ur duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others.” Upholding our moral responsibility toward the environment requires us to value and to protect those who inhabit it. Respect for life, as well as caring for the dignity of the human person, are integrally related to our environmental responsibilities.
Climate change is indeed a moral issue – one that we, and our political representatives, must confront as the realities of its effects become increasingly apparent in our world, a world our Catholic social teaching tells us is ours to protect.
In a prescient 1971 essay, \"National Economy: How High Is Up?\" Professor Herman Daly deplored the received wisdom that robust, unlimited economic growth was not only possible but desirable and suggested in its stead a stationary-state economy where zero growth of population and the economy is not only desirable but necessary to avoid the depletion of our environmental resources.
The emission of carbon dioxide is the so-called \"global warming factor.\" In spite of politicians' self-interested doubts and foot-dragging, the majority of the scientific community believes it's a very big problem. But to concentrate on the reduction of greenhouse gases is to miss the point. The world's industrial might is not producing carbon dioxide to create a warmer climate. The production of carbon dioxide is a by-product of the production of stuff, and the transporting of ourselves and our stuff, from place to place in a most environmentally unfriendly manner.
If global warming were the only concern, we could greatly reduce the production of carbon dioxide by converting all the means of generating electricity to hydro, solar, or nuclear power. (Nuclear and hydro power have a host of their own problems, but the production of carbon dioxide is not one of them.) And we could further reduce the production of carbon dioxide by using natural gas to fuel at the least our mass transportation.
Even if we were successful in making the above changes, we would still be producing and transporting stuff at a prodigious rate, and that is the big problem that we all face and are all a part of. We have got to look at the curve of carbon dioxide production as the basic indicator of stuff production and at global warming only as a by-product.
To thwart this race to oblivion we must focus on limiting the production of stuff. Global warming might just take care of itself. Of course, limiting production means looking hard at a stationary-state economy and the limit to wealth. A commitment to limiting wealth in turn suggests a more equitable sharing of that wealth with its corollary, a simpler life style. This will impose a heavy and delicate demand on our moral resources. Professor Daly concludes his prescient 1971 essay: \"One thing at least seems clear--a physically stationary economy must be a morally growing economy. If this means that economists should begin to study ethics and theology, then so be it. That is where economics began.\"
I think it is imperative that the issue of climate change and what we should do about it should be approached as a spiritual and ethical question. Whether man-made pollution is the sole cause or a contributing cause to the startling changes in climate that we are witnessing is not the issue. The issue is, that if our actions may be contributing to threatening life on this planet, then we have a spiritual and moral duty 'clean up our act' and lessen our negative impact. No generation has the right to make the planet less livable for those who are born later.
Companies are only able to profit from polluting industries because they are not made responsible for the harm that the pollution causes. That cost is passed on to others. If they were responsible, they would have to turn green or go out of business!
If people of faith demand and implement clean and renewable energy because it is a spiritual and ethical duty, I think it will be the strongest possible argument.
Your commentator has it exactly right when she says that the ability to deny climate change as 'just a theory' turns on the notion of colloquial versus rigorous use of the term. The same people propagate Creationism and 'Intelligent Design' (same wine in new bottles) under the same logic. Problem is, it's empty logic. Neither climate science nor evolutionary theory is capricious rhetoric. Both rest on a mountain of evidence the general public and the political opposition ignore and lie about, respectively.
Thank you for sense and justice. The devastating events the past couple of years around the world in \"nature\" should wake up the world. But politicians and world leaders cover it all up and other elite entities have ruined us economically, spiritually, enslaved us even more and kept us ignorant of our place on the planet, notwithstanding any religious belief system. Everyone should be taught that is is OUR PLANET, no one asked us to be born, so we now must do something positive to make it the best place for each one of us. Whether climate change or anything else....homes, shelter, jobs, economic security, justice for all criminals-rich as well as poor, etc. CLIMATE CHANGE is the biggest of all and will have to change the wealthy elite's plans to lessen our poulation, etc and any other evil plans of theirs. We are sick and tired of this injustice and the lies. Thanks for your orientation of climate change and everything else you consider for the human race's survival and it's success on this forsaken planet.
I actually read a post yesterday, in response to a National Catholic Reporter article, that said the green movement was started by the communists to disrupt our society and that it was against Catholic doctrine. I could hardly believe someone wrote that.
I think it is past time that the bishops and priests preach what the Catholic Church teaches about social issues. There is a lot of living that goes on between the womb and the tomb that they seldom talk about. They even seem to be selective about what they pick up on that the Pope says when he refers to Catholic social justice
writings.
Care for creation and taking responsibility for the human impact on the environment, including the realization that the poorest people with the least impact will suffer the most, must be part of being pro-life and is required of all who choose to be authentically Catholic. Let's hear it from the pulpit!
Those concerned about global warming might like a resource for Lent groups: Renewing the Face of the Earth: Lenten Reflections on Air. This five-session, adaptable material connects the Sunday Scriptures with the gift of Air and current threats to it. Material includes the report of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Free download: http://www.shcj.org/amer/documents/2012LentReflectionBookAir_001.pdf
The article states:\"...these trends are not only possible, but very likely to occur.\" But the truth is that they are already occurring, and not just in backward island habitats, but in our own country as well. As glaciers melt, raising the sea level, places like Norfolk, Virginia are losing ground to the encroaching sea.
People need to be alerted to these very real effects and to the fact that any demagogue who claims to believe in Christian virtues but denies what Al Gore correctly described as \"an inconvenient truth,\" is contradicting himself. Why do people vote for candidates who cannot be trusted?
And there is further empircal evidence at the basis of global warming \"theories\" that can be performed by a child. Build a little greenhouse and fill it with carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases and stick it out in the sun at any time of year. The higher temperature inside the structure will be markedly undeniable.
Leo Toribio
Pittsburgh, PA