Pope Francis is currently in Cuba, bring Christ and the Catholic idea to that beleaguered isle. He has come under substantial attack from conservatives who believe that he should not visit Cuba, or that he should do more to denounce the Castro regime. Many of these conservatives also believe that the Pope is a leftist and that he has Communist sympathies.
I don't agree. First, I must note that I take second place to no one in my hatred of communism. Socialism in general, and communism in particular, are raw evil, and they are the scourge of modern man. Castro(s) is a totalitarian thug, and he should be tried for crimes against humanity. I'd love to give the Cuban community in Miami a few minutes alone with the guy. He's get the justice he deserves.
That said, I think that conservatives seriously misread this Pope. Francis is not a leftist. He is an orthodox Catholic, and his teaching on economics and government and the environment are mainstream Catholic teaching, straight out of the Catechism. The content of his teaching is little different from that of St. John Paul II or Pope Benedict, or from the teachings of any of the modern popes.
Francis does provide a different emphasis, which is his privilege. Each Pope stresses the things he believes need to be stressed. And what Pope Francis is stressing-- mercy, care for the poor, care for sinners, the very real problem of gluttony (in the sense of compulsive consumption), lust for wealth and possessions, and all of the enormous dangers and evils of capitalism-- are things that really need to be stressed. Goodness, look at the filth and greed and lust for possessions that is poured on us each day by advertisers and media. It makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like a convent. We are so embedded in our culture that we often fail to see our own depravity.
Francis is right about most things--Laudato Si is a beautiful encyclical. His emphasis is nearly perfect, and he really nails the evils of opulent Western society. It is the responsibility of Catholics and all people of good will to listen to him carefully. He has much to teach humanity, and nearly all of it is good.
A couple of provisos are in order. I believe that Pope is wrong about global warming-- AGW is an obvious scientific hoax, and I'm disappointed that he doesn't see it. And I believe that Francis has not sufficiently condemned socialism, which is pure evil, as opposed to capitalism, which is concupiscence, but not evil in itself. And there is no question that capitalism has been a tremendous engine of prosperity for billions of people--it is the most successful anti-poverty program mankind has ever known, without parallel.
But capitalism has dangers just like sex and food have dangers. All are inherently good, but all can be misused in very sinful ways.I think the Pope's political heritage, which seems to be not communist nor capitalist but Peronist, influences his thinking on economics and leads him to wrongly deemphasize some of the evil of socialism.
And I do caution readers to pay attention only to what Pope Francis says and does--his actual words and actions, not to what the media says about him. The media coverage is utterly mendacious, and should be ignored.
The Pope's visit to Cuba and America is a pastoral visit, not a political visit. He is coming to care for his sheep, and the Catholics in the prison that is Cuba desperately need his guidance and inspiration, which presupposes diplomacy and tact. I hope his pastoral visit to America is similarly one of inspiration and love of Christ and our neighbor, and that the politics--particularly the distortions of the politics by the liberal media and to a lesser extent by conservatives--doesn't get in the way.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteLeaving aside the obvious point that AGW isn't a scientific hoax (and that Pope Francis is correct regarding action needing to be taken in order to prevent dire consequences to the poor of this world from unmitigated global warming), you're muddle headed as usual with the definition of words.
Communism is the state ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production (which may be by individuals or groups as in companies). Communism usually is a command economy. Capitalism is usually a market economy ( although not necessarily - American governments often 'command' production such as when they insist vital areas such as defence equipment be manufactured by American firms).
The opposite of socialism is individualism. In socialist states, the citizens are organised socially as well as in the workforce. The German author Sebastian Haffner (a refugee from Hitler's Germany in the '30s) noted that National Socialism was socialism. All social groups, such as cycling clubs, were taken over by Nazis or banned, and many were organised into the Hitler Youth, BDM (the equivalent for girls) or the SA. Individualism is the opposite. Individuals outside of their working hours have the right to decide what they do with their free time.
Often communist regimes are also socialist. The state not only controls the means of production but also wants to control its citizens. And capitalist states are often also individualistic, with companies wanting the freedom to sell their products freely to individuals who also have the freedom to decide whether to buy or not.
The border between socialism and individualism isn't a sharp discontinuous one. The early Christian church was socialist (and probably still is) and was probably the reason why it succeeded as the Roman Empire was collapsing. The Christian requirement for mutual assistance to others in the community meant that its adherents survived better during times of social collapse than pagans for example. The same applied to Jews, with their thousands years history of community.
I personally am very impressed by Pope Francis. Unfettered capitalism is a very bad thing with its insistence on profits above everything else. The trouble with capitalism is that it tends to dismiss environmental costs as being irrelevant (as communist states also did). Mining companies usually set aside inadequate funds for restoration of old mining sites, leaving the cost largely to the taxpayer. Companies dump large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, often from very old very inefficient coal fired power plants, because they don't have to pay for the AGW costs directly - it's distributed over the population of the entire world, rich and poor alike (and often disproportionately on the poor, as Pope Francis notes).
"...action needing to be taken in order to prevent dire consequences to the poor of this world from unmitigated global warming..."
DeleteThat's hogwash! You better get some education at
CO2 Science!
Pépé here! (That will teach me to use Mac OS X, aka, Mavericks!)
Deletebachfiend,
I may be an idiot, but you are forever a douchebag who, when he doesn't like the message, always shoots the messenger, aka, uses the ad hominem logical fallacy.
That simple fact says a lot about you!
"They don't have a science background..."
These days, main stream scientists, i.e. those willing to be serville lackeys of the "[PSEUDO] scientific consensus" are a dime a dozen!
So why don't you go contemplate your navel from the inside like all godless like you always do!
Pepe (you're not worth the effort of a few seconds to change the keyboard on my iPad to the French one with its accents),
DeleteYou're still an idiot. You're gullible enough to believe the nonsensenical websites run by partisan fossil fuel boosters such 'Plant fossils of West Virginia' run by Monte Hieb, a coal mining engineer.
I prefer to be science literate, unlike you, who are science ignorant - and proud of it too.
"I prefer to be science literate..."
DeleteWell if this is true, it really doesn't show!
More than 31,000 US scientists reject AGW
AGW is just the latest iteration of eugenics, Malthusianism, DDT hysteria, etc.
DeleteIt's all a lie.
bachfiend,
DeleteSince you're such a gullible retard who would believe any stupid lie, I have a tower in Paris and a bridge in London to sell really cheap.
Michael,
DeleteI hadn't noticed your 'reply'. You're quite happy to use science, or at least your version of it, in order to support your preformed opinions, such as your insistence that a 7 week gestation foetus with a thalamus experiences pain (which ignores whether a thalamus is all that's necessary for a mind and consciousness, not just reflexes), but discount science, when it conflicts with your beliefs.
You love DDT, because you think it is consistent with your belief that God gave the Earth to humans to do as they want. The science of DDT is that we don't know if we missed a bullet. The half life of DDT in the environment is about 11 years, depending on conditions. It takes about 5 half lives to reach its maximum level in the environment, if a constant amount is used each year. If we'd continued to use DDT in the amounts we'd been using in the '50s (mainly in agriculture not in malaria control), we'd only now be reaching its stable equilibrium level in the environment. We don't know what the effects would have been.
Using DDT in the spraying of internal walls is sensible. The benefits outweigh the very small risks (although the risks are unknown because there have been very few studies assessing it - the only one I'm aware of found only a decrease in sperm counts in men thus exposed).
Claiming that workers exposed to high levels show no short term harm is irrelevant. Human life depends on a functioning biosphere. Much of our agriculture is vitally dependent on insect pollination such as by bees - which work for us for free (and as a bonus, supply us with honey). We don't know what would have happened to bees (which currently aren't doing very well due to colony collapse) with a much higher DDT level in the environment.
bachfiend,
DeleteYou're surely the epitome of a gullible retard!
Pepe,
DeleteIsn't it the definition of gullible to believe that websites run by coal mining engineers are a reliable source of information on AGW?
It's OK to be sceptical, if you're prepared to examine the facts. But you're so open minded to conspiracy theories (devised by people with a financial or political motive to deny AGW) that your brain (if you had one) has dropped out (apologies to Douglas Adams).
bachfield blurts a whopper: "devised by people with a financial or political motive to deny AGW"
DeleteHow about "devised by people with a financial or political motive to sell AGW"?
Scientist leading effort to prosecute climate skeptics under RICO ‘paid himself & his wife $1.5 million from govt climate grants for part-time work’
Pepe,
DeleteWell, if Shukla is misusing federal funds, then he ought to be prosecuted. One 'bad egg' doesn't make AGW false. There are tens of thousands of real scientists who agree with the science of AGW. Virtually all the the science associations have position statements agreeing that AGW is happening, with the exception of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists which has a neutral position.
It's gullible though to rely on sites run by coal mining company directors or coal mining engineers.
bachfire: "It's gullible though..."
DeleteWhat's gullible is believing that humans are the source of [normal] variation in earth climate, that the universe created itself by pulling on its own bootstraps, that a blind purposeless process of evolution created earth's marvelous biota and that the godless are always right!
Now, who's gullible?
"... Now, who's gullible?"
DeleteThe whole basis of DarLogic is Personal Credulity (*). So, it's rather to be expected that DarwinDefenders will be gullible about other things, too.
(*) they seem to worship personal credulity; or, at any rate, rational skepticism gives them hives.
Pepe,
DeleteOf course the Earth's climate has changed in the past when there were humans around. Such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago, when temperatures were 7 degrees higher than today, due to a large 'burp' of methane (rapidly converted to CO2) from deep oceanic deposits of methane clathrates.
CO2 is CO2, regardless of where it comes from.
Our Universe didn't create itself. It originated from a localised very short period of inflation in a larger entity, the Multiverse. If you want to believe that you God started it, then that's OK with me. I just don't think it's a necessary addition.
The Earth's biota might be 'marvellous', but I think that 3.5 billion years of blind undirected evolution will accomplish the same thing - and also explain why Creation was such a messy process with so much life being created and then caused to go extinct, such as the dinosaurs.
Anyway. The godless aren't always right, just as the religious aren't always wrong. I think a lot of what the current Pope says is absolutely correct.
Oops, the first sentence should have read 'when there were NOT humans around...' The godless aren't always right or infallible.
Deletebachfiend,
DeleteThank you for confirming that you are the epitome of gullibility with your last comment!
Here are some examples for fairy tales for the godless:
"...[the universe] originated from a localised very short period of inflation in a larger entity, the Multiverse..."
"...3.5 billion years of blind undirected evolution will accomplish the same thing..."
...and they lived happily ever after!
If you're not interested in by Paris tower or my London bridge, I have some very powerful [snake] oil to sell!
Pepe,
DeleteI'm not so gullible that I'll believe that Monte Hieb's 'Plant Fossils of West Virginia' is a credible website on AGW.
You don't understand that the Multiverse isn't the same as the Universe? Or that 3.5 billion years is a very long time?
You prefer the fairy tale that God created the trilobites, tens of thousands species of them, over hundreds of millions of years, and then allowed them to go extinct 250 million years ago? For no apparent reason?
God seems to have taken a very roundabout route to get to Humans, if that was the aim. Perhaps his aim was Neanderthals, but he missed?
bachfiend
Delete"'Plant Fossils of West Virginia' is a credible website on AGW."
An AGW dogmatic scientist paying himself & his wife $1.5 million from govt climate grants for part-time work isn't credible either!
"God created the trilobites....For no apparent reason?"
Does providing oil a good enough reason?
Pepe,
DeleteAnyway. Oil doesn't come from trilobites. They finally went extinct 250 million years ago. Our oil comes from decomposing microscopic marine organisms such as plankton from around 100 million years ago. A lot of the world's major oilfields lie in regions that were part of the Tethys Ocean.
Care to try again and explain why your God created the trilobites and then allowed them to go extinct?
Welcome back Mr Egnor. You stopped blogging for a long time. Your blog is bookmarked again.
ReplyDeleteWelcome Eugen! It's great to hear from you.
DeleteI'm sorry, Michael, but this pope is a fool, top to bottom, and he is a socialist (and he seems to be a Marxist, at least a "soft" one) ... just as almost all "intellectual" Catholics are. And while I do understand your very human impulse to put his deeds and words in the best light, you risk making yourself a fool if you go too far in doing this.
ReplyDeleteThe sad fact is that there is in Catholicism a profound hatred, or at least fear, of general human freedom. This is why, for example, Catholics are always at the forefront of laying false charges against capitalism; for capitalism is just the natural result of human freedom with respect to one's labor and the fruit of one's labor.
Dr. Egnor: "I believe that Pope is wrong about global warming-- AGW..."
ReplyDeleteI guess we are witnessing the Galileo fiasco all over again.
Galileo was condemned by the Pope for not following the scientific consensus of the time.
Who said "history repeats itself"?
Pepe,
DeleteGalileo wasn't condemned to house arrest for not following the scientific consensus of the time. He was condemned for being an a**ehole and insulting the Pope by parodying him as Simplicitus.
Ptolemy's geocentric model had already been replaced by Tycho Brahe's model (as far as the Catholic Church was concerned). The copernican model didn't work very well, because planetary were thought to be circular, instead of elliptical, as in Kepler's model - which eventually won out.
"Who said "history repeats itself"?"
DeleteAnd the second time as farce ... for this time, there isn't even a scientific consensus, no matter how loudly certain liars shout that there is.
It was Karl Marx. Have you become a Marxist? I'm a Marxist too, but I follow Groucho not Karl. I love 'Duck Soup'...
DeleteA consensus doesn't have to be 100%. 97% will do. A consensus still exists even if there isn't agreement about every single detail.
There's a definite consensus that evolution is true, even if there's disagreement about Neanderthals being a different or the same species as modern humans.
There's a definite consensus that AGW is true, even if there's considerable disagreement about the amount of global warming that will occur with the doubling of CO2 levels from pre-industrial levels.
The contrarian Richard Lindzen agrees that AGW is occurring. He just thinks that's it's going to be minor, and benign or beneficial.
bachfiend,
Delete"There's a definite consensus that AGW is true..."
What about "THE PAUSE"?
AGW Cult Attempts To Explain Away The Pause
Pepe,
DeleteThe 'pause' was manufactured by cherry picking the data set starting with a strong El Niño year, which dumps a large amount of heat into the atmosphere causing about 1 degree of warming, and finishing with a moderate La Niña year which has an opposite effect with more heat than usual being retained in the oceans causing relative cooling of the atmosphere.
Simple really.
The ARGO buoys for measuring ocean temperature only started to be rolled out in 2004. They tend to measure the ocean as being cooler than with engine room input water temperatures. They measure a greater depth of the ocean. As more ARGO buoys are added, naturally the average temperature measured (as a progressively larger number of the cooler reading thermometers are include) will have a bias towards apparent, not true, cooling.
bachfiend,
DeleteI see you're a member of the AGW cult!
[The 'pause' was manufactured by cherry picking the data set starting with a strong El Niño year,]
DeleteAll measurements entail selection of data sets. The warming of the 20th century is the consequence of selecting temperature data when we were emerging from the Little Ice Age.
The problem warmists have is that regardless of the interval measured, an explanation is required.
Your explanation about ARGO buoys is roughly the 50th different explanation offered for the failure of the AGW models. Perhaps it is right, perhaps not, but if it is true, that does not increase confidence in climate scientists, who announce "97%" consensus but are incapable of calibrating instruments for 18 years.
Either the pause is real, in which case the AGW models fail, or the pause is the consequence of scientific incompetence, in which the climate scientists can't even calibrate instruments competently.
And if the buoys are at fault, every climate science paper that used that corrupt data needs to be retracted.
Waiting...waiting...
Michael,
DeleteSo what was the cause of the Little Ice Age?
I think it was Rodney Stark who noted that during the Little Ice Age there were periods in Europe in which the climate was actually quite pleasant.
Lower atmospheric temperatures do tend to go up and down over short periods. If you look at the records for the 20th century, there have been several similar periods in which temperatures have been flat or decreased, but the trend overall is still upwards.
There was no 'pause' then, just as there was no 'pause' now.
The lower atmosphere is just a minor component of the climate system. The oceans absorb most of the heat coming from the Sun (it covers 70% of the Earth's surface and has the lowest albedo absorbing 90% of incident light.
Just because we've got better technologies to measure the oceans doesn't invalidate previous measurements. They're measuring different things. I'd noted that ARGO only started to be rolled out in 2004. Where do you get your 'incapable of calibrating instruments for 18 years'?
The buoys aren't at fault or corrupt. They're a neat new technology giving new data.
The Pause is very well documented, not predicted, and now it is denied, by invoking scientific incompetence by inability to calibrate instruments competently.
DeleteNot science to inspire confidence.
When are all of the papers that included ARGO data going to be withdrawn from the literature?
Michael,
DeleteThe 'pause' is documented by AGW denialists cherry-picking the data set to start with an abnormally warm year due to a strong El Niño effect and to finish with a cooler year due to a moderate La Niña effect.
To give an analogy even the simple-minded can understand. Suppose you have a coin that's rigged to give Heads 60% of tosses. And you throw it 150 times and record the result each throw. You'd expect 90 heads and 60 tails overall.
Suppose towards the end of your series, you notice a tail. And on the 16th toss thereafter you notice you have another tail. And the intervening 15 throws give the expected 9 heads and 6 tails. Giving 9 heads and 8 tails for the 17 throws, close to 50:50.
No one would claim that the coin is fair based on the sequence of 17 throws. But that's exactly what the AGW denialists are doing with their cherry picking.
It has got NOTHING to do with problems with calibrating instruments. I wonder about your science literacy when you make such a fundamental error.
To add to my reply, the 'pause' is in lower atmospheric temperatures. The website Pepe linked to attempted to mislead by suggesting that climate scientists are attempting to explain away the 'pause' in lower atmospheric temperatures by noting that the ARGO buoys record a lower temperature than engine water input sensors in ships in the same area. With AGW the oceans should be warming more or less continuously. But if you progressively add increasing numbers of the ARGO buoys, which are biased towards recording a lower temperature, then there will be added an apparent, not real, cooling effect to whatever is actually happening.
DeleteThere's always an excuse for bad science. The fact is that none of the models predicted the temperatures recorded by climate scientists for the past 18 years, and now climate scientists insist that the reason their models failed utterly is that they can't calibrate instruments competently (or any or all of 50 other reasons they've been desperately coughing up for the past couple of years.)
DeleteClimate science is discredited by this fiasco. They should be defunded and investigated under RICO statutes.
[The contrarian Richard Lindzen agrees that AGW is occurring. He just thinks that's it's going to be minor, and benign or beneficial.]
DeleteI know Lindzen personally and I discussed this matter with him in June. He thinks that climate science is deeply corrupt, and that AGW is a lie.
He's not a "contrarian"; he's an honest highly qualified skilled climate scientist--a rare and vanishing breed.
[It has got NOTHING to do with problems with calibrating instruments. I wonder about your science literacy when you make such a fundamental error.]
Delete[The ARGO buoys for measuring ocean temperature only started to be rolled out in 2004. They tend to measure the ocean as being cooler than with engine room input water temperatures. They measure a greater depth of the ocean. As more ARGO buoys are added, naturally the average temperature measured (as a progressively larger number of the cooler reading thermometers are include) will have a bias towards apparent, not true, cooling.]
I see. So the cooling in the data is the result of reliance on subsurface ocean temperature readings rather than surface readings.
It took the climate science profession 18 years to figure out that the ocean is cooler at depth than at surface. Suddenly, in 2015, they announce their discovery.
Why do any of these people still have jobs?
Michael,
DeleteI'll repeat myself once more. The 'pause' in lower ATMOSPHERIC temperatures was manufactured by AGW denialists cherry picking the data set of lower ATMOSPHERIC temperatures by retrospectively starting with an abnormally warm year due to a strong El Niño event and finishing with a cooler year due to a moderate La Niña event.
It has NOTHING to do recorded OCEAN temperatures. Ocean temperatures are important only in working out how much heat there is in the Earth system.
Pepe using this website in arguing that AGW isn't true just indicates he's science illiterate. And so are you.
Richard Lindzen does agree that AGW is happening, but as I said he argues that it's minor and isn't of concern. He thinks that there are negative feedback so, such as more clouds, reversing most of the warming due to increasing CO2.
He's also a contrarian. He denies the link between smoking and lung cancer. Would you accept his opinion in a field you perhaps understood at some time?
bachfiend,
ReplyDeleteSince you seem to have problems understanding why AGW is a hoax, here are videos to help you in that respect.
Let's start with something simple:
The Global Warming Hoax Explained for Dummies
A bona fide Nobel Laureate will now expose to AGW hoax to you:
Nobel Laureate Smashes the Global Warming Hoax
There's even a full length movie exploring every nook and cranny of the AGW hoax:
The Great Global Warming Swindle Full Movie
After viewing these videos you will go to bed smarter than when you woke up this morning!
Pepe,
DeleteI don't take advice from people who think Monte Hieb's 'Plant Fossils of West Virginia' is a good website.
bachfiend,
DeleteOf course you don't take advice from anyone, not even Nobel Laureates and world renowned scientists.
You'd rather stay in your blissful ignorance and think addressing the hoax of AGW will save the planet.
Here's another video describing your kind of people:
George Carlin on Global Warming
Pepe,
DeleteNow you're arguing from authority pronouncing on subjects they have no expertise. Ivan Giever is arguing that the Earth's temperature is remarkably stable having gone up just 0.8 degrees Celsius.
An average hides a lot of extremes. The eruption of Tambora in 1815 produced a drop in average global temperatures of around the same amount, so 'obviously' it's of no account, right?
Except that drop in temperature was the 'Year without a Summer' in 1816, with snow in June in New England, famine in Western Europe, China and North America east of the Appalachians.
Fortunately other regions were unaffected and most of the mass starvation which would have occurred was avoided by importing food.
A further 1 degree temperature increase doesn't mean that if your location would have had a temperature of 20 degrees at a certain time in 2050, it will be 21 degrees instead. It means that the frequency of heat waves will increase will increase - which if they occur in crop growing areas at critical times will mean our food supplies will be threatened.
I'm still waiting for the end of the world from dysgenic catastrophe, overpopulation, DDT, and global cooling.
DeleteAfter a while, bach, people tire of the lie.
Michael,
DeleteI still remain amazed at your ignorance resulting from your lack of curiosity. I'd asked you for the cause of the Little Ice Age, and you continue to refuse.
Climate science is very interesting - working out why the Earth's climate isn't stable, ranging from icebox Earth to hothouse Earth over millions of years.
Greenhouse gases are very important in making the Earth inhabitable. Without them, the Earth would be an icebox. Too much of them, as in the Cretaceous with a CO2 level of 2000 ppmv (with much of North America and Europe covered by ocean - Cretaceous refers to the thick layers of limestone deposited as in the White Cliffs of Dover), the Earth would be a hothouse.
As I'd noted previously, we don't know if we missed a bullet with DDT. It's no longer used in the liberal amounts of the '50s. With its long half life we'd only be reaching its plateau level by now. There's no point waiting for the end of the world from DDT when it's no longer being used in agricultural amounts.
And global cooling was a journalistic beat up in the '70s. Global cooling could happen though if the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupts (it's overdue). And global cooling will eventually happen with the Milankovich cycles repeating as they have for the entire length of Earth's history.
People tire of lies, but they shouldn't tire of facts. Unless they're very ignorant conservatives such as you who dislike their world views challenged by inconvenient truths.
[As I'd noted previously, we don't know if we missed a bullet with DDT...]
Delete30 million people are dead from malaria unnecessarily because of the DDT ban, and you act like it's all a big yawn.
Michael,
DeleteI agree that DDT is a very good insecticide in controlling malaria by the spraying of internal walls. Its long half life means that it provides continuous protection that other short lived insecticides fail to do.
Used in this way, it provides enormous benefits with few if any risks (although there have been few studies confirming this - the only one I'm aware of showed just reduced sperm counts).
DDT has been banned for agricultural use. It was becoming ineffective anyway due to natural selection producing insecticide resistance in the insect pests.
You still remain ignorant owing to your lack of curiosity. You're just repeating the same tired arguments employed by second rate conservative hacks.
Pope Francis is much more intelligent than you. He's also willing to accept advice from his panel of scientists. You've got ideological blinkers on.
Once more - what caused the Little Ice Age? Everything has a cause after all. It should be easy for you - all you have to identify something that was present from around 1350 to 1850, and which no longer applies.
bachfiend,
DeleteWhy don't you watch George Carlin video; it's less than 8 minutes and very funny, but reveals great truths nonetheless.
We're fed up with control freaks like you!
Carlin made a lot of points including that there's no point in doing anything because we're going extinct anyway, and the Earth is going to survive. Everything he said was for comedic effect. It's satire. Nihilism.
DeleteCarlin is also anti-religion. Do you agree with his view on that too?
And what was your point about the extinct trilobites? They have nothing to do with oil. I asked you for God's purpose in creating them and then allowing them to go extinct.
bachfiend:
Delete"...there's no point in doing anything..."
Actually Carlin said there's no point in trying to control nature, like the AGW control freaks wants us to do, at the expense of the world well being.
"...because we're going extinct anyway..."
Of course humanity won't exists for eternity as it is written in the Bible.
"...Carlin is also anti-religion..."
So am I! I'm anti-Dawinism religion and anti-AGW religion!
"...what was your point about the extinct trilobites..."
Trilobites appeared in the Cambrian era (or explosion) more than 500K years ago and most of the flora / fauna since then make our cars run.
Reading between the lines is not a talent materialists have.
Pepe,
DeleteWhat do you mean by 500K years ago? If K stands for 1000 as it usually does then it means that the Cambrian was more than 500 thousand years ago - which is true, it was around 520 million years ago, but also grossly inaccurate. It would be similar to a person stating that he owes $1 because he owes $1000. He certainly owes $1, but he's ignoring the other $999.
It's not true that most of the flora/fauna since then makes our cars run. Most have disappeared without trace, with a very small minority remaining as fossils. Our coal comes from rotting vegetation in swamps in the Carboniferous. Our oil/gas comes from sedimented plankton from around 100 million years ago, largely in the Tethys Ocean.
Sensible people worried about AGW aren't trying to control nature. They're trying to limit the damage humans are doing to their home, the Earth, damage that's caused by humans burning the finite amount of fossil fuels as quickly as possible in order to generate a profit also as quickly as possible. Hint - you can't eat money.
You're delusional in thinking that the Bible is true and that humans will be saved before we manage to degrade the Earth in such a way that survival of humans is endangered, even if Life on Earth isn't threatened.
And George Carlin is a humorist. He's not meant to be taken seriously.
bachfiend,
DeleteReading problems? I wrote "more" than 500K years ago. Your comparison of $1 to $1000 is ludicrous! The oil we have comes from the biota of millennia passed. You again failed to understand what I meant.
The CO2 level is about 400 ppm (for a stickler like you it was 398.82 ppm on 2015-08-15!). Human contribution to that low level is only around 7% of 28 ppm, iow, insignificant! Furthermore, historically, CO2 level increases have always lag raises in temperature, not preceded them and this is easily explained by natural out gassing of CO2 when the temperature raises. Raises in CO2 level are also beneficial for agriculture with larger crops.
So, like Don Quixote, the AGW gang wants to fight windmills. I wouldn't mind such delusions if they weren't so costly to the world, the poor in particular!
Pepe,
DeleteGreenhouse gases aren't the only factor driving climate. The last 50 glaciations and interglacial periods of the past 3 million years were due to variations in the Earth's orbit and tilt (Milankovich cycles).
The transition between a glaciation and the succeeding interglacial period was initiated by partial melting of the Arctic icecap followed by outgassing of CO2 from the oceans increasing warming in a positive feedback.
But at other times increased atmospheric CO2 levels initiated the warming, as with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago. And the burning of fossil fuels now.
Humans are responsible for almost all the current increase in atmospheric CO2, which is responsible for the current warming. Humans release around 8 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement, which is not balanced by anything else.
Everything else is balanced. Animal respiration balances plant photosynthesis. Ocean outgassing balances solution of CO2 in oceans. Volcanic eruptions balances tectonic plate subduction.
Fossil fuels are finite. The greater the use, the more expensive they are, particularly to the poor.
And - our oil doesn't come from trilobites!
Anonymous,
DeleteYou have been brain washed by the AGW Gestapo. The double-talk about climate variations from millions of years ago is just an attempt to burry the debate with science gobbledygook.
Green policies makes the rich richer, aka Al Gore, and the middle-class and the poor poorer:
How green policies hurt the poor
"Climate policies take an even larger toll on people in the developing world. Almost three billion people rely on burning twigs and dung to cook and keep warm. This causes indoor air pollution, at the cost of 4.3 million lives a year, and creates the world’s biggest environmental problem. Access to cheap and plentiful electricity is one of the most effective ways out of poverty — curtailing indoor air pollution and allowing refrigeration to keep food from spoiling (and people from starving). Cheap electricity charges computers that connect the poor to the world. It powers agriculture and businesses that provide jobs and economic growth."
And - your being so easily convinced by pseudoscience, maybe you believe that oil comes barrels instead of trilobites!
Pepe,
DeleteI'm actually 'anonymous'. Only a science illiterate would think that because the previous (and current) interglacial warmings of the current 3 million old Ice Age were initiated by factors other than changes in greenhouse gases (actually initiated by changes in insolation due to Milankovich cycles), which led to changes in CO2 levels, would believe that it falsifies AGW.
Climate science is complex because the Earth is complex.
The poor are forced to burn poor quality biomass, such as wood and dried dung because other forms of energy are too expensive - whether fossil fuels, solar, wind, etc. Poor developing countries usually aren't sitting on large reserves of fossil fuels. They have to purchase them on world markets at market prices.
If developed countries insist on continuing to burn fossil fuels as if they're a limitless resource, then their price will continue to be unaffordable for the poor of this world. Many developing countries, such as India, are investing in solar power as a means of supplying energy to isolated communities that have no hope of being connected to ramshackle electricity grids.
Anyway. I know that our oil comes from plankton dying in oceans such as the Tethys around 100 million years ago, not from trilobites dying over 250 million years ago. My challenge to you had been to come up with an explanation for your God creating tens of thousands species of trilobites over hundreds of millions of years and then allowing them to go extinct finally for good 250 million years ago. That it wasn't just a fairy story as you claimed evolution by natural causes was, and you doubled up by claiming that trilobites were the source of our oil. They aren't.
bachfiend, aka Anonymous,
DeleteFirst, your AGW science gobbledygook doesn't impress me at all as it doesn't impress thousands of level headed scientists who signed the Global Warming Petition Project.
Second, as I said before, the only effect of green policies is to make energy less affordable, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. (ibid)
Finally, regarding your question about God and trilobites, I suggest you read Unresolved Obstacles
"The majority of species have gone extinct. But is it true that life was wasteful? The primeval forests were the basis for the oil and coal deposits that make modern civilization possible. (Try to think of human culture ever evolving very far in the absence of fossil fuels!) The extinct creatures that existed during those times were part of the eco-system that made the planet flourish. And don't you think that God, if He exists, delighted in the dinosaurs and other marvelous creatures now extinct? I think He did!"
I suggest you subscribe to Reasonable Faith to get answers to your existential questions.
Pepe,
DeleteYou're science illiterate. Our oil didn't come from trilobites. Our coal came from the Carboniferous period, much later - from swamp vegetation. Our oil and gas came from around 100 million years ago, from marine plankton.
Your fairy story about why your God created then allowed trilobites to go extinct keeps on changing, becoming more ad hoc as it goes.
The so called scientists who signed the global warming petition were in the main not scientists. Engineers. Medical practitioners. The small group of atmosphere scientists included astronomers and astrophysicists (well, they both start with 'A').
Renewable energy is rapidly becoming affordable and practicable, competitive with fossil fuels. Countries such as India are realising that it's more feasible to use solar and wind power in remote regions rather that building conventional power stations. And as a result Australia's coal miners are currently in great financial difficulties owing to the reduced coal demand and price.
bachfiend,
DeleteYou're right!
I really am science illiterate about the gobbledygook pseudoscience you are so fond of.
On the other hand, I find you to be completely illogical, as all atheists are.
Here's a book to help you put your brain on track:
Illogical Atheism
I even can send you the $2.50 needed to buy it!
Pepe,
DeleteScience isn't atheism. Don't attempt to use science to justify your ideological nonsense. You're no way near enough intelligent to be able to pull it off. You're typically clueless about science as shown by your claim that trilobites formed our present supply of oil.
Science isn't pseudoscience just because it disagrees with your worldview. And I don't need your $2.50 (actually it's $2.80 (US), which would be much more in Australian dollars with the collapse in the Australian dollar resulting from the collapse in demand for Australian coal)
bachfiend,
DeleteYou sound too scientistic! Here are a couple of quotes about atheism:
"Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist"
(Dawkins)
“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”
(GK Chesterton)
"Although assholes might have existed before Darwin, Darwin made it sure they now exist" (Pépé)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI deleted my comment because of an error in posting.
DeleteSee above.
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