If there was ever a good reason to be skeptical, it is surely when catholic bishops and government scientists start preaching from the same poster!
Following is the announcement from the catholic climate change conference:
Catholic leaders warn of ‘environmental refugees’ scenario
A statement issued yesterday following the weekend’s national climate change conference, calls for ecological conversion, warning that global warming could create a new wave of dispossessed people.
The warning followed a Position Paper launched by the Catholic Bishops Committee for Justice Development Ecology and Peace, which urged all Australians to cooperate in open dialogue and face the radical changes required to tackle global climate change.
Catholic Earthcare Australia was set up in 2003 by the Australian Bishops’ Conference and is chaired by Bishop Christopher Toohey.
In the keynote address before more than 300 delegates, Bishop Toohey said that human induced accelerated climate change “raises serious moral and spiritual questions, not just for Catholics but for all Australian citizens and leaders, and calls for change in our way of life.
“Scientific research has concluded that humans have caused rapid global climate change by contributing to ever higher concentrations of greenhouse gases, 80 per cent of which comes from the burning of fossil fuels.
“This build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is gradually increasing world temperatures that will lead to higher sea levels as icepacks and glaciers melt. We are also seeing the occurrence of more violent weather events, widespread droughts in some areas and lower food production in others,” Bishop Toohey said.
“If we act now the changes can be slowed and harm can still be minimised.”
Conference organizer and Executive Officer of CEA, Colin Brown, drew attention to United Nations figures released during the conference that revealed a blowout in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“These alarming figures, released ahead of the international climate change conference in Montreal later this month showed that Australia’s emissions have increased by a massive 23 per cent in the past 13 years,” he said. “They expose a decade of lost opportunity in Australia in which things are getting worse, not better.”
All speakers in a packed two-day program that combined theologians of many faiths with scientists warned of the need for urgent and immediate action. (end of quote)
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Australia produces about 1.5% of global CO2 emmissions. I would hazard a guess that the contribution produced by Australian Catholics is about <.1%?
So there would need to be a lot of conversions, preferably in China or India, to make a global difference.
That’s if anyone listened to them, of course. They weren’t too successful when they tried to prohibit use of contraceptives by Catholics.
This reminds me of Stalin’s response when Roosevelt suggest the Pope be invited to the next meeting between the WWII big three at Yalta,
“really, and how many Divisions does he have?”
I suppose they could give the greens a briefing paper on the persecution of Gallileo.
yeah, make fun of the catholics.
I mean it doesn’t matter that another interest group has decided to publicly adopt the view that global warming is a problem.
When you need an infinite number of interest groups to convince some people of a point of view, another 1 isn’t a big deal.
Some people are impressed by numbers and ‘authority’ – others are more interested in the facts of the matter. The churches involvement does give an indication of how ‘popularist’ it is to lament global warming. All the more reason to encourage open discussion – including from the more skeptical.
Hi – too be fair, the Vatican did come out and say that Intelligent Design was bunkham.
cheers
Popularist? Or just popular? Do you think that the catholic church has adopted this position because they think they will get something out of it?
Everyone is impressed by ‘authority’, indeed everyone relies on an authority for their source of ‘facts’. The issue is which authority you pick.
Sorry for being a bit pomo on you, but when the argument is that you want objective facts, but apparently mainstream science is politicised and doesn’t offer objective facts, so you go to mavericks for your ‘facts’, then I don’t have much choice.
How do you define a ‘fact’? Is it possible to define ‘fact’ in such a way that all other reasonable people would consider it a ‘fact’ and not an opinion?
Jen (or someone) blocked my previous post as possibly offensive. What me?
All I said was that I note a similarity between current media tales of global warming, and the old Church tales of hellfire & brimstone. Even the Great Flood gets into the act sometimes. Is there deep significance in this?
Steve,
Not everyone is impressed by authority. Many resent it. And science, theoretically at least, has no respect for authority – in contrast to religon which is generally build on the same.
My interest is in ‘evidence’ because evidence is information that can establish fact.
I disagree. Everyone is impressed by authority. Its just that ‘authority’ means different things to different people.
Eg. aethiests accept the authority of scientists, and reject the authority of religious leaders, whereas its often the other way around for religious extremists.
Scientific academia is absolutely built on authority. But there are defined ideas about what is legitimate authority, and what is not. Peer review anyone?
Religion can be as disrespectful of authority as any scientist, just witness the disrespect for scientific authority on stem cell research and evolution.
Let me improve on your definition if i can:
* evidence can be used to establish fact when the party making the decision – whether it be a magistrate, a scientist, the scientific community, the general public, whoever – accepts that the evidence is ‘good’ evidence.
Eg. some people regard McIntyre and McKitrick’s work as “good-enough” evidence that it is a fact that the hockey stick is a total fabrication.
Others do not agree that it is “good enough” evidence, though accept that it casts some level of doubt.
Still others thing that McIntyre and McKitricks work is downright “bad” evidence.
Guess it depends on the degree to which you are happy to view M&M as an authority, doesn’t it?
I would like to draw a distinction in my rantings between those who use authority legitimately (eg. global warming might be a problem because a bunch of climate scientists who are regarded as leaders in their field have provided results and analysis that suggest that it might be a problem) and those who use authority in a logically incorrect way (eg. you should accept my opinion on atmospheric science as the truth because I am a geologist with a university degree).
Disagree completeley. Evidence is not dependent on the authority. The word ‘good’ is subjective and not useful in the context you suggest.
We can accept something on the basis we believe in someone and accept their authority – but this is third hand stuff and would be inadmissable in a court of law as evidence – but rather as expert witness which is a bit different.
I haven’t considered in detail the evidence used to construct the hockey stick. I simply haven’t put the time in, and my memory of their original paper was that it ‘assumed’ a lot.
I am aware of historical evidence that indicated there was a medieval warm period in Europe. On the basis of this historical evidence I am happy to accept that there was a medieval warm period in Europe. I acknowledge that some say that this wasn’t the case across the globe – but ‘their evidence’ is not easy to understand and so I remain uncommitted on the issue of a global medieval warm period.
Facts?
Take an aboriginal, a chinese and an eskimo to Bondi beach at night, make them comfortable, etc, and ask them to note down the compass direction where sunrise will occur the next morning. Tell them that you need their answer at lunch time tomorrow.
Time: Luncheon time the following day.
Answer: All three point to the same position on the horizon.
This is a fact.
It also only takes on brutal fact to slay a beautiful theory, as T.H.Huxley was reported to have said during the Darwin Debates 2 centuries ago.
Scientists are driven by the evidence, the facts, not pronouncements from authorities that black is white.
Louis you forgot to add a scientist to the mix.
When you come back at lunch next day, he doesn’t point anywhere, he says to you “The sun doesn’t rise, its an illusion created because the earth is revolving.”
You also forgot to add a flat earther, who is very annoyed by this comment and starts a fight.
You chose a simple example to illustrate a point, but even it had problems. Now choose a complex example such as trying to pick out ‘facts’ about global warming.
“All speakers in a packed two-day program that combined theologians of many faiths with scientists warned of the need for urgent and immediate action.”
This is the crux of the problem, that we are being urged to “urgent and immediate action”, when there are so many questions still unanswered. To say that if we wait for all the answers it will be too late is simply a call to accept the authority of those urging the action.
“To say that if we wait for all the answers it will be too late is simply a call to accept the authority of those urging the action.”
Agreed.
I don’t see a problem with that, so long as you are good at picking an authority (or a range of authorities who agree) worth following.
Also its not a fixed for all time decision. You can change authorities once you find a better one. The capacity to do that doesn’t mean you are backing down, it demonstrates open-minded, humble thinking.
We can’t all be omnipotently educated about climate science and what do about it, if anything. Whose views do you subscribe to then?
“Whose views do you subscribe to then?”
The ones that make sense to me.
So you are the authority?
Yes, when I’m forming my opinions. Who tells you what authority to listen to?
Steve
Very simple – energy in equals energy out – mass balance principle – increase CO2, more energy is diverted to it, means the rest have less, but the temperature remains constant.
Because temperature is a measure of the energetic state of physical matter,
Hi Paul, yah, I work out all by meself which authorities to listen to.
I was going a bit pomo, but my debate was with jen. I was challenging this idea of ‘evidence’ and ‘facts’, as absolutes that are completely independent of authority.
For me, ‘good’ ‘evidence’ and ‘facts’ about global warming come overwhelmingly from peer-reviewed literature and from the IPCC. I listen to alternate views (i spend a lot of time on this blog) but they do not receive the same authority in my head when i am formulating my own view.
For some people, the info coming out of places like the IPCC and CSIRO suddenly become dodgy opinion and outright fabrication, just because a maverick decides to challenge it in another forum.
Who do you listen to when atmospheric scientists from the CSIRO, RealClimate etc tell you that the effects of urban heat islands have been understood and removed from global temperature trend analyses, yet Warwick Hughes, LouisH, Bob Carter etc (ie people who are no doubt educated, but have no qualifications or peer-reviewed published work directly relating to heat islands) tell you that global temperature trend analyses are wrong because heat islands are skewing the results?
Which ‘facts’ do you accept?
Steve – I found that reading “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, by Bjorn Lomborg was a turning point for me. He uses official statistics and reports from bodies such as IPCC. It’s a fairly easy read (important for me!) for such a meaty book. He provides 69 pages of references at the back. Anyone who can logically refute the general thrust of his argument, (as opposed to disagreeing with bits of it), is better than me. Attempts have been made to discredit him, but no serious challenge to his conclusions on logical or scientific grounds has made any credible headway, as far as I know.
I agree it is difficult to know what to believe amongst all the conflicting claims. It’s a natural human tendency to seek out that which supports your position and ignore that which doesn’t. It’s when I feel most sure of something that I need to look for a contrarian view, and often I don’t want to!
Sometimes the data speaks for itself. For example, if I see temperature records from a station that has been rural from the day it started, and it shows no warming, and one from a station that has gone from rural to city, and it shows warming, then another from a ststion that has been city the whole time, and IT shows no warming, that tends to support the heat island effect. If that is a consistent effect across most stations, then it stengthens the evidence. But there may be many confounding factors. In the end, you’ve still got to make up your own mind.
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00022BBF-C300-1353-830083414B7FFE9F
If both positive and negative results are interpreted as supporting a theory, how can we test its validity? Skepticism is the default position because the burden of proof is on the believer, not the skeptic.
Paul – well it’s quite easy – basic even.
On heat islands – two published studies that show heat islands are not an issue. Oceans warming too – where’s the heat islands there. Satellite data that shows warming. Sea level rise as the IPCC projects. All sorts of biological processes happening earlier (flowering & mating). Temperature trends in Australia that show greater warming in inland areas. Great majority of glaciers melting.
P.S. I’ve decided on the basis of skepticism that GM plants are very dangerous. They’re causing the enrty of unknown protein sequences into our food supply and giving us all cancer. I mean certain cancer clusters are up in frequency. Seemed to happen when all this GM stuff started. That’s what’s causing it.
Phil – Do you have the references?
Paul – I can but have a look through recent posts this blog in climate change archive on all these issues heat islands, glaciers, satellite warming – we’ve been through them often more than once. Warming inland – BoM site on climate trends – also posted recently. And a lot on realclimate. But if you look my posts this blog you’ll find most.
If you can’t find them tell me. You will find an overpowering body of evidence that something is happening (warming) but we have only one hypothesis that stands up to what it is – CO2.
And it ain’t solar – more has been posted on this. And it ain’t orbital – so what is it then ??
“Sea levels are rising as for IPCC” was Greenhouse 2005 conf this month Melbourne pers. comm. from a friend. (as was there’s 300ppm extra CO2 in permafrost, boreal conifer forests across Russia and North America at CO2 sink limit and potential Amazon deforestation).
I have enjoyed comments by all other contributors.
My view as a Christian is that I am called to be a good steward of what I beleive are God given gifts of earth sea and sky.
Anything that affects these in an adverse way is to be avoided, e.g. oil slicks on the sea killing innocent bird life. Whilst irrefutible evidence for pollution may be absent in some cases the notion that I (we) can continue to emit waste of any kind in ever greater amounts across our little globe and even smaller atmosphere could in my opinion be at the very least be untidy and at worst criminally negligent. Whether global warming is taking place or not I would like to propose we set ourselves policies of total recycling of waste and an emission free society. This I beleive is part of being a good steward, and although perhaps scientifically challenging could reap immense benefits for us now and our future children. You will I am sure note that I have used the words opinion and belief and have little in the way of references to facts or authorities although I would warn that in many instances scientific theories and political statements can be miseading and even prone to error. Prayer, common sense and the good steward attitude may be in this case our only compass for deciding where we go from here. Could we really lose by cleaning up our mess? Do we need a disaster or irrefutible evidence before we do the right thing? Finally with regard to how much influence one person can have, I live in Scotland not Australia, and there are many more Christians – Catholics around the world we can make a diifernce but even if that were not so personal responsibility and an account of our stewardship before God will be required. What account of your actions would you like to present?