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Pope Issues Rare Encyclical On Climate Change That Demands Action To Curtail Carbon Emissions To Save Humanity

120px-Pope_Francis_in_March_2013_(cropped)earth-screensaver_largeAs widely rumored, Pope Francis has issued a historic papal encyclical that agrees with the vast majority of scientists that global warming is real, largely caused by mankind, and threatens the very future of humanity. He has called for emergency action to curtail carbon emissions by reducing fossil fuels and developing renewables.

220px-AlfedPalmersmokestacksThe Pope denounced the massive levels of pollution that are making the Earth into “an immense pile of filth”. He criticized deniers and said that “doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain.” He acknowledged other contributors to global warming but insisted: ““It is true that there are other factors (such as volcanic activity, variations in the earth’s orbit and axis, the solar cycle), yet a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity.”

The papal encyclical sent to 5,000 Catholic bishops worldwide seeks to mobilize the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics and is viewed as one of the significant new voices for action both in terms of its political and religious impact.

He stated “A number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity.” He insisted that without extreme measures “this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.” To achieve such emergency measures, he called for drastic reductions in fossil fuels and the rapid development of renewable energy sources.

He further suggested that special interests and greed are driving the campaign against recognition of the problem and measures needed to address it.

It will be interesting how the papal announcement changes the political landscape, particularly with conservative Catholics and other Christians. The Obama Administration has been in the forefront of seeking global action, a position that I agree with (even though I do not agree with some of its unilateral actions). The Administration will have to convince skeptics in Congress and this Papal encyclical will certainly help, though I doubt it will dramatically change the political position in Congress.

134 thoughts on “Pope Issues Rare Encyclical On Climate Change That Demands Action To Curtail Carbon Emissions To Save Humanity”

  1. Max-1 – NOAA has been quietly fudging climate figures again. Don’t use their figures. They lie.

  2. Unlike the speed readers who appear to inhabit this blog, I have only seen bits and pieces of the encyclical and cannot comment on it substantively until I have time to read it. However, I do wish to correct some common misperceptions. First, an encyclical is not a statement issued ex cathedra. Whatever one’s views of the notion of papal infallibility, that dogma has no applicability to this document.

    Second, an encyclical is a form of collegial sermon if you will, a statement of Catholic teaching applied to a particular issue or topic. The purpose of this particular encyclical is not to announce scientific truths, nor dictate to Catholics specific policies which must be adopted to ameliorate the effects of climate change. It is instead intended to outline the framework in which Catholic moral theology teaches the issues should be identified and discussed.

    I am hopeful that this encyclical will serve as a reminder that moral discourse ought not be limited to matters of sexuality and reproduction, that there are moral dimensions to all human activity (and inactivity). Economic development and social policy are not immune to those concerns.

  3. Bam Bam said …

    My only criticism, made with respect, is that he hasn’t spoken out loudly enough on the dire issues facing Christians, where many are either being displaced, persecuted or murdered.

    Good of you to notice. He’s more worried about carbon dioxide than Christians lives being taken in real time. Screw him. I am not obligated to respect a man, and he is still just a man, with his viewpoints that pollute the faith he allegedly represents.

  4. @Max-1

    If you are in “learning mode”, you might want to look at this. It’s pretty much common sense. FWIW, I looked at a solar panel for my music room, where I stay most of the time, and it was just way too expensive for what I would get.

    Idiocy (Home Solar)

    Utter and complete crap.

    Regarding Brian H. Potts’s “The Hole in the Rooftop Solar-Panel Craze” (op-ed, May 18): Mr. Potts is entirely correct that rooftop solar-energy production isn’t economically justified and wouldn’t exist as a viable option without considerable government subsidies. That is, for now.

    The average home in North America will need solar panels with efficiencies over 20%, combined with the effective storage systems that Tesla and others are now providing, to safely go “off the grid.” In the very near future high-efficiency solar panels with efficiencies well over 20%, costing no more than today’s most common panels, will ring in a new era of energy independence.

    No they won’t.

    Here’s what the advocates fail to take into account — on purpose.

    The sun does not always shine but you are not willing to accept having no electricity when it doesn’t.

    This in turn means that the utility company must have at all times spinning generators — that is, “hot” availability — to generate the power you might make with your solar cells.

    If you “sell” power back to them on net metering it’s even worse because you unload their systems and now they must have reserve capacity for not only you but also everyone who you allow to unload from utility generation through your net sales!

    Yes, you can “unplug” from the grid if you wish but if you want to do that then from a public policy perspective you must become independent of the grid for good or bad, including when there is no solar energy available or you force everyone else’s electricity price higher due to the reserve capacity that must be maintained and paid for by the utility but which they earn no revenue from the majority of the time.

    Impressing those costs on others is theft and those who argue for such “net metering” schemes are thieves.

    Period.

    Virtually nobody will truly go “off grid” because when the sun is not shining the cost of standby power to replace it is extremely high by comparison to grid power. This in turn means that you must have engineered for and live a very different lifestyle than you enjoy right now, with the most-serious adjustments coming in the use of things like air conditioning, hot water and clothes drying. I can take about 60% (and probably more) off virtually anyone’s electric bill but nobody will accept what you have to do in order to accomplish that; no use of central air, a pair of chest freezers with one converted to refrigerator service, all LED lighting, cooking done with fuel rather than electricity, no powered clothes drying, elimination of pretty much all parasitic loads (e.g. most common household electronics are unplugged when not in use), computers are all laptops or tablets and either fuel-driven or direct-absorption solar hot water and heat. Note that if you make those changes you need install no “green” power at all and that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than buying solar cells plus it unloads on a permanent basis the utility provider (which means they need to maintain fewer spinning resources rather than more and it also levels their demand which means their utilization and efficiency rises — that translates into lower prices.)

    Let’s take an example — a common 8kw diesel generator will burn about a gallon of fuel an hour at full load. That’s 8 kwh for about $2.00 (untaxed fuel), or about 25 cents per kwh and you haven’t paid for the generator yet! You also have to deal with the delivery and storage of fuel along with maintaining the genset; it requires oil and filter changes, inspections and of course it has a service life after which you have to either refurbish or replace it. The “all-in” cost of such a unit to operate is probably close to 40 cents/kwh and that assumes dyed diesel remains close to $2 untaxed; if it goes back over $3 you’re north of 50 cents for that local generation.

    I currently pay about 10 cents/kwh for my utility power but if solar with “net metering” was common in my area the price per kilowatt hour would probably go up by more than half because the utility would be forced to keep generator capacity running even when they can’t sell any power from it just in case the sun doesn’t shine today.

    Decentralized, independent power sounds good. But on a cost basis when analyzed honestly it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense — and won’t any time soon.

    If you truly want to be “green” then get rid of the AC, ditch your household refrigerator replacing it with two chest freezers with one converted to refrigerator use, dry your clothes on a line, replace all your lighting with LED and use direct-absorption solar for domestic hot water. Your electric bill (and thus the amount of generation required to serve you) will drop like a stone.

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3379558

    You might also enjoy this. It provides a graph of just what Denninger was talking about, in California:

    California has long been a leader in promoting wind and other renewables to power the electricity grid. Recently, California has gone even further and in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law to force an increase in the amount of renewables utilities must use to 33 percent of the state’s electricity by 2020. Currently, the state is experiencing a stressed electricity grid because of high demand and because some nuclear and natural gas plants are offline. Mandated renewable energy is proving itself incapable of filling the void. This situation show how little actual value wind, solar and other politically correct renewables have in the real world work of supplying people with electricity when they need and want it.

    This data shows how little value wind and solar have in producing electricity when people really need it, and should be a wake-up call to California—one of the many states with mandates—as well as the Obama administration and other promoters of wind and solar. Even though wind and solar production might be growing in California, it isn’t helping to balance the grid and keep the lights on. Electricity production has to balance electricity demand and wind and solar aren’t doing a good job contributing. Moreover, it does not matter how many wind and solar installations are built because natural gas and other reliable power plants will be required to be built to meet peak electricity demand.

    The rest of the story, with charts, is at this link:

    http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/wind-and-solar-have-little-value-when-trying-to-keep-the-lights-on-the-example-of-california-and-its-current-flexalert/

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  5. @Paul K Ogden…Here’s a chart that proves your point:

    http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/images/y70_13.png

    As the chart shows, since 1970 we have increased GDP in the U.S. by 234% and during the same period six major pollutants have DECLINED by 68%. CO2 increased only by 24%. What that means is that economic growth is “decoupling” from pollutants and CO2. In other words, we get more units of GDP with fewer and fewer pollutants and CO2 emitted. We have increased our standard of living and simultaneously dramatically improved our water and air quality. If CO2 levels in the U.S. have not already peaked, they are in the process of peaking regardless of what the central planners say or do.

    That’s because we still have a kinda sorta dynamic economy. Competitive forces drive innovation. As one example of many, just think about what Kindles and iPads have done. Fewer books published means fewer trees are cut down and hauled to mills and turned into pulp. Less pulp is sent to publishers to print and manufacture the books. Fewer books are then shipped to retailers to be sold. All of the steps involved in physical book manufacturing and retailing are eliminated, so fewer resources are used as a result. But there are hundreds of such examples. Another is agricultural productivity. Farming productivity has gone through the roof. Jesse Ausubel predicts we have reached “peak farmland”. Not because we are running out of it but because the world doesn’t need any more. We just need to figure out how to distribute it better to avoid waste (Internet startups Crop Mobster and Food Cowboys are working on ways to reduce food waste. There’s that competitive dynamism at work again). Ausubel thinks that by the middle of this century the world will return to the wild an area the size of India. It’s already happening in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. I’ve been urging people to watch the 90 minute video presentation he gave to the Long Now Foundation back in January. I can’t recommend watching it highly enough.

    The Pope is being advised by left wing pseudo-Marxist economic illiterates who want to use global warming hysteria to massively redistribute the world’s wealth and impose a form of global governance.
    Which is the same thing all of the global warming Neo-Malthusians want. And they may cause a lot of pain and suffering among the poorest on the planet in the process if they get their way.

  6. Issac …yes, in this case I blame the messenger, but NOT for the reasons you’ve cited. I’ve already stated I am all for cleaner energy sources, but not by demanding use of nascent versions until they are far better developed. In most cases, the mechanisms that work marginally, most if not all requiring subsidy, are far beyond the afford-ability of the working man and families…e.g., are we to drive this cart forward, ahead of the horse, on the backs of the less fortunate?

    I despise any cleric who formally mixes religion (and an encyclical IS religious) with politics, which his yammering about climate change definitely is….note he posed no solutions. My town had it’s ugly experience with Fr Charles Coughlin years ago…a guy who mixed religion & politics to the extreme, supporting both Mussolini and Hitler. No. Thank. You. Ever. Again. Especially when advanced by a pontiff not a mere priest. I rather doubt you are very familiar with the Catholic bureaucracy within various diocese….it is all about money, for them, not the parishes they support. This Pope has said money & lucre is a problem…but misses the influence of it under his own nose…and couldn’t do anything about it if he did. Pontiff’s have long ago lost control of the bureaucracy they sit upon. Add in politics and you create another layer of insanity.

  7. There have been at least three major ice ages that geologists know about. Tell me what ended them. Then we’ll talk.

  9. Squeeky
    Quick math problem for you:

    Cost Comparison:
    Oil spill clean up vs. a wind farm spill.

    Cost Comparison:
    Health effects from oil spill vs. health effects from a wind spill.

  10. Yes Max, also, I hope this Pope is well protected from…disgruntled ultra conservative Catholics.

  11. Annie
    It will be interesting watching these self professed Christians and Catholics throwing the Pope to their lions…

  13. I agree BamBam, we often hear this sort of tough talk from the same people here. Quite disrespectful, especially from self professed Catholics. I’ve heard this kind of disrespect expressed more and more often as the Pope expresses his world view and how he thinks it affects Catholics and humans in general.

  14. It’s one thing to disagree with the Pope and declare that he doesn’t have sufficient scientific data to support his claims. A legitimate argument, perhaps. It’s an entirely different thing to declare that the Pope should stuff anything up his cassock or tunic. I’m not even Catholic, and I have more respect for the man than that. How about a little respect? Free speech shouldn’t be an invitation to make vulgar remarks about a man who has dedicated his life to the Church. Some of you are despicable. For all of you who declare that he doesn’t have the right to make these declarations, due to his purported limited knowledge on the subject, please be aware that he has access to the best and the brightest minds in the world regarding this topic. I assume that he doesn’t just get his information from whatever he can glean from the internet, like most of you. My only criticism, made with respect, is that he hasn’t spoken out loudly enough on the dire issues facing Christians, where many are either being displaced, persecuted or murdered.

  16. issac – “Does that answer your question?”

    No, it doesn’t.

    Here is “advanced” Germanys energy consumption:

    Mineral oils 33.6%
    Natural gas 23.0%
    Hard Coal 12.9%
    Lignite 11.8%
    Renewables 10.4%
    Nuclear energy 7.7%
    Others 1.4%

    That’s 81.3% from fossil fuels. Wow they are advanced. I especially like how lignite is used more than renewables.

    Your long diatribe never answers my question. “Then why hasn’t it?” The only thing you say is the boogy man. People use whats cheapest it is really that simple. Why don’t you be the Henry Ford of our times and make cheap renewable energy for the public without subsidies? I guarantee you will change the world and be rich. If you really think business wouldn’t buy your cheaper energy for an advantage you really do not understand economics.

  17. @Max-1

    There is this little thingy called “reality”, which if you go and check it out, you will find:

    Europe Turns Back to Coal, Raising Climate Fears

    Enel and many other electricity companies say they have little choice but to build coal plants to replace aging infrastructure, particularly in countries like Italy and Germany that have banned the building of nuclear power plants. Fuel costs have risen 151 percent since 1996, and Italians pay the highest electricity costs in Europe.

    In terms of cost and energy security, coal has all the advantages, its proponents argue. Coal reserves will last for 200 years, rather than 50 years for gas and oil. Coal is relatively cheap compared with oil and natural gas, although coal prices have tripled in the past few years. More important, dozens of countries export coal — there is not a coal cartel — so there is more room to negotiate prices.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/europe/23coal.html?oref=slogin

    Sooo, here’s the point. All the alternative energy stuff is extremely expensive, and often doesn’t work. For example, solar panels don’t do rain and clouds very well. Not to mention the new scientific discovery that this stuff we call “night time” occurs regularly and can be predicted! Just like Halley’s Comet! Lo and behold, it comes once like every 24 hours, and lasts for an average of 12 hours on a global basis. During that time, the photons that reach the solar panels are tremendously reduced, and you don’t get no juice.

    But, the environmentalists are scairt of nuclear power. Sooo, the result will be that only the rich can have electricity in the environmentalists’ Brave New World.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  19. I. Annie

    Invest in and continue to develop new technologies, it will create jobs and less pollution, sheesh, it’s not rocket science, it climate science and common sense.

    There will be new jobs, but that is not the complete story. Energy consumers will pay more, or the government will on their behalf. When comparing two options the case with the lesser cost to produce generates the most wealth (because the benefit is not differential between cases). It’s not common sense, its basic economic literacy, which seems to be less common than people realize.

  20. LOL Squeeky
    Going back in time to those Jews…
    You know the Romans thought they could kill a Jew who was causing too much problem for the system/people the Romans oppressed. So they crucified him.

    Will the 21st Century “romans” crucify this Pope, too?

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