Pope Francis has just written on the subject, I hope not “infallibly”, because much of what I read on the subject suggests scientific evidence opposing the theory of global warming due to levels of carbon dioxide produced by man.
Whatever you believe, this by Fr Peter Mullen is interesting: Laudato si.
Here is an article that discusses the science of the question What the Science REALLY Says About Global Warming. Whatever we are convinced one way or the other, I am inclined to smell a rat with “global warming orthodoxy”.
The Blue Flower 
I can’t wait for the official Latin edition. I think it’s due to be published Thursday. It will be the first papal encyclical since Humanae Vitae that I shall have read in entirety and studied carefully.
Personally, I think global warming/climate change is the biggest fraud since…well pick one, swine flu, let’s say. This universalist, cultural hegemonic orthodoxy, to which all men, irrespective of belief, politics or ethnicity, are called to assent; I’m sorry but it just seems completely anti-Christian to me. All those “we will beat cancer;” “we will end poverty” slogans. They can’t possibly proceed from Christian principles and this global warming scam is in exactly the same tradition.
It’s like what I said before about ecclesiastical solipsism. If this encyclical says what I think it will, and papal encyclicals carry magisterial authority, then it just supports my belief in my own wisdom. I can’t trust anyone to uphold the doctrines of Christianity but myself; neither popes, politicians or the parish priest. The Church is no more. It is a fantasy.
Photographic evidence of the extent of the polar ice caps seems to suggest there may be a problem.
I don’t know who to believe.
And now it’s global COOLING! Return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 29% in a year.
Global Cooling: Arctic Ice Cap Grows 60 Percent In A Year [NASA PHOTO].
Then there are the articles showing the contrary:
Global warming in the Arctic
Does anyone have any idea what happened to the Law of Non-Contradiction? 🙂
Who to believe? In politics, in science, and, yes, in theology, I find it rather easy to reject the authority of anyone that insists on following a logical process all the way to its extreme conclusion to the exclusion of what seems contradictory. The Law of Contradiction has nothing whatever to say in the case of apparent contradictions, but only applies if the alternatives are really mutually exclusive. In as complex a situation as climate change, I have no problem in witnessing what seem to be opposite phenomena. If they are both happening, then they are both happening, and are not truly contradictory, whatever difficulty we may have in deriving an explanation. What ultimately is going on? Well, theories are OK, but theories do need to be butted against each other, and will ordinarily yield a result not much like either. However, real phenomena do challenge us to examine our actions to see of we could do better in the meantime. This particular debate certainly should so motivate us.
We have indeed been entrusted by God with the planet on which we live. In Genesis we hear that man has been given ‘dominion’ over his natural environment. For centuries we have tended to assume that that means we can do whatever we like with it. Current concerns arise from the realization that we have been, in effect, dumping garbage and sewage on each other’s front lawns. Is this decent stewardship of what we have been given? I’m not sure how much I believe the doomsayers, but even if they prove to be quite wrong, the ethical question pops up boldly in front of us. How do we manage our resources in our own truly enlightened interest, and how do we manage them for the benefit of the “least of His brethren”? Regardless of the ultimate scientific conclusions, these are not small concerns. At the judgment, we will have some explaining to do.
I agree that man is doing a lot of harm to our planet, and that the real enemy is big business and the energy needs of humanity, mainly transport and electricity – the use of oil. I follow The Archdruid Report which may seem alarmist, with this blogger being convinced of the peak oil theory. I am not sufficiently expert in the matter to express an opinion.
One opinion I will express is that the only way out of this industrial mess is fewer human beings and returning to small-scale life in some way. The question of the numbers of humans is somewhat taboo since Nazism, and it is not permissible for us to even think about genocide. If we are Christians, we are not afraid of dying. We won’t have that moral problem to face because nature is self-regulating – a “nice” little Ebola pandemic somewhere… The trouble is that those who succumb to diseases are the poorest people with the lowest “ecological footprint”, so even culling would solve very little from that perverse point of view. Perhaps the way out is the destruction of what feeds the “monsters” of big business.
I am inclined to believe that many of the “preppers” only talk nonsense in their enthusiasm for their “hobby”. We are going towards a kind of “new feudalism” with increasing financial pressure on ordinary people and their being pushed out of where the rich want to live. Many will have to learn to live “off grid” as people in the 19th century did.
Human activity causes low-level atmospheric warming. So if +Francis wants to reduce temperatures in the low atmosphere, then he needs to call for less humans and lower living standards. I shan’t hold my breath.
Although I do not invariably align with Father Anthony, here I certainly do so. I am also uncertain about all of this and there is much evidence which can be adduced both ways. It would seem however sensible to take reasonable steps to deal with known pollutants.
That said I agree with much of what Pope Frances has written in his encyclical ( and therefore not infallible) on this important subject.
I tend to agree with much in current Roman Catholicism and accept that to many readers and contributors here that places me outside of the cut and thrust of like minded agreement.
For the record the reasons why I do not join the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are :
Compulsory celibacy for priests, teachings on birth control within the sacrament of marriage, Papal Infallibility, Supremacy, and a total ban on abortion where I believe there are moral and Christian spiritual exceptions. In the matter of abortion my views are in fact held by many believing main stream Catholics.
For the avoidance of answering polemic let me state that I most certainly do not believe in abortion on demand as a means of everyday contraception. I have hesitated to post here.
On a glorious day here in Cornwall, with blue sky, a little white cloud, the wide river blue,a cooling quite strong wind and the National Park across the river looking superb I decided to attempt a response.
You don’t have to justify not being a Roman Catholic. I will read the Encyclical and see if I make any sense of it. What little I have read quoted rings a bell with me. I can’t express an opinion on the science of global warming / cooling, but the energy industry is devastating our planet in the name of profit. Using oil and coal is a big problem. We need to live with less energy, less waste, less money.
I can’t express an opinion on the Ordinariate either because I have nothing to do with it and don’t inform myself about what is going on. Be careful about abortion – it is a hot button subject. In the absolute, it involves the taking of human life. Taking human life can sometimes be justified, in this case to save the life of the mother. Moral acts are judged by the finis operandi, the final purpose of the act. It is a single issue for many, so I don’t want a discussion on this blog. There is plenty elsewhere on the Internet.
My own main reason for not being Roman Catholic, about the same as not being Church of England – I detest bureaucracy and the “management” and “corporate” spirit. I can relate to a small Church that has very little bureaucracy – as is the ACC among others.
Neil, A very sensible and balanced comment if I might say so. To be honest I am not interested enough to make a detailed enquiry into the claims for and against global warming. Having said that I have always had an interest in nature and in my life time (of a little over a half-century) so many things I recall as a teenager that were a common sight, e.g. Great Crested Newts are now a rarity. Being responsible for the environment cannot be a bad thing and by what I have skim-read of the encyclical it seem to echo very much what Bartholomew of Constantinople has been saying for a long time.
Living in London I am getting increasingly keen to escape back to a rural environment. My asthma has returned, mildly, no doubt due to the air pollution and anything which makes the world ‘greener’ has my vote.
You ought to live nearer the sea and learn to sail! Just a mile from land and you get the same purity and silence as in the middle of an ocean.
Dear Fr. Chadwick,
I have shared and continue to share your doubts about the ‘science’ behind ‘Global Warming’. That said, I was dubious about “Laudato si”.
I have had the opportunity of reading, so far, half of His Holiness’ recent encyclical, and have found that it only partly relies upon current theories of AGW (or anthropogenic global warming). In fact, Pope Francis appears far more concerned with deforestation, oceanic over-fishing, modern agribusiness, genetically modified organisms (aka GMOs or ‘Frankenfoods’), and air, land and ocean pollution, all resulting in environmental degradation, species loss, and their resultant damage to what he has called the ‘human ecology’. Whatever my doubts about global warming, there is no doubt in my mind about the gravity of the situation as He presents it.
He also appears to have done a masterful job of integrating Catholic Social Doctrine with a genuine concern for the environment, showing that we all have the duty, not only to help the poor, but to maintain and preserve the environment, taking as His texts, among others, that from Genesis when God gave Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden, and bade both them, and by extension us, to subdue, to cultivate, and to preserve our garden of the Earth.
I am at the point in the encyclical where He is calling into question our tendency to allow our technology to develop in an unrestrained manner. I have no doubt that He will be addressing such matters as the growing automation and removal of humans from human work, as well as what appears to be the tendency of artificial intelligence to replace human intelligence.
In reading the first encyclical which appears to be entirely His own work, I am disabused of my original impression that Pope Francis was a lesser mind than His two predecessors. This is a first class mind at work. I look forward to an attentive reading of the remainder of this Encyclical, and whatever else he may have to say.
I still haven’t read it, but what you say is encouraging. The damage done to our planet is very much on a par with the “new Nazism” of ISIS, Daesh, whatever we call those guys murdering, torturing and destroying monuments of ancient cultures in the cradle of Christianity.
All of us who are concerned about our planet and its future want to see limits on boundless technological progress and the concentration of inordinate amounts of wealth in the hands of so few. No problem with people having less work, but the problem is forcing them to have more money without the possibility of having it until the point when poverty becomes a crime, beyond which people “are no longer human”. Beyond that point, we look at 70-year old films of trains going to Poland with starving masses of humans in cattle trucks.
If what you say reflects what Pope Francis wrote, then he has written on a vital subject for our times, and I can only hope it will lead to a movement to fight for the same concerns as William Blake and the Romantics. Whatever the truth about global warming/cooling and what causes it, I would agree that the rape of the planet is an even greater concern even than the atrocities caused by Daesh in Irak and Syria.
Thank you for your kind and wise words. I look forward to commenting further upon this encyclical, once I have both finished it, and had the opportunity to digest its meaning.
By the bye, I have recently written an article on the Sarum rite in my own weblog, here:
https://bernardbrandt.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/a-case-for-the-restoration-of-the-sarum-rite-in-the-roman-catholic-church
I thought perhaps you might want to give it a look.
Bernard, I’ve just read your article on Sarum, and I must say it’s a particularly neat and lucid exposition of the subject. I also note Fr Hunwicke’s point that the adoption of the Tridentine rite was not done with the consent of the Ordinary and whole Chapter. This would be my take on this: it seems to me that the “consent of the Ordinary and whole Chapter” could quite properly be considered a machinery provision, in and for ordinary circumstances, and not of the essence of the provision where it couldn’t possibly be observed. If that is correct, then a way to look at this is that the machinery provision was irrelevant for the purposes of a practical adoption of the common rite, but possibly still relevant to the purposes of discarding the older rite. Would I be right in thinking, for example, that civil administrative law is stricter or more defensive when rights or privileges are proposed to be removed than when licenses or permissions are proposed to be granted? And if so, as a general trend or principle, would that also apply to piece of ecclesiastical law like Quo Primum?
But in any case, it seems to me that Quo Primum does not say that in adopting the new common rite the older rite is thereby abolished or excluded – the key provision that permits the new to be adopted does not appear qualified by any other part that would have the effect of saying that adoption of one means abolition of the other. If adopting the new common rite has a practical effect of “dropping the older rite” (i.e. discontinuing), there is nothing that implies, let alone explicitly states, that such “dropping off” would amount to more than putting it like a pullover into the linen press with a few mothballs until it comes in handy for a rainy day or can be handed on to a grandchild.
I enjoyed the anecdote as well!
By way of a post-script to my earlier post, it seems to me that one can have a discussion about the legal mechanics governing religious rites, but, at the end of the day, one will be left with a personal response towards and appreciation of each rite or practice. When liturgical rites become political manifestos rather than as spiritual means within a religion that is supposed to be about a new Way of brotherhood and sisterhood, I think that’s sad.
Dear Fr. Chadwick,
I had attempted to present this message privately, through your e-mail at wannado.com. Alas, it bounced back. I am therefore reduced to having to send this to you through your commenting system. Do please feel free to erase this, therefore, and in the event that you wish to write me privately, my e-mail is bfbrandtAThotmail.COM.
MESSAGE FOLLOWS:
Dear Fr. Chadwick,
In addition to making any number of impertinent comments on your weblog, I have also written the following article on my weblog:
https://bernardbrandt.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/a-case-for-the-restoration-of-the-sarum-rite-in-the-roman-catholic-church
I realize that as you are not a member of that communion, my entry may not be of interest to you.
Nonetheless, I am writing you now because I have made a postscript to that entry which directs its readers to the sarum-chant weblog hosted by Prof. Renwick of McMaster’s University. Prof. Renwick was kind enough to grant me permission to do so.
I wished to know if I could obtain permission from you to post an additional postscript linking my entry to your weblog, in light of your signal efforts in encouraging the spiritual use of the Sarum rite.
Hoping for your response, and perhaps even that permission, I am
Very truly yours,
Bernard Brandt
Answering you privately…
If the climate change/global warming bugaboo were real, it wouldn’t just be liberals like Pope Frank who believe it; everyone would.
I get so dreadfully sick of people shouting past each other, making ad hominem comments like this one, or similar ones on the other side. Fact is fact, regardless of who believes it or doesn’t. Only discussion and deep investigation will reveal what is or is not factual. Demeaning someone simply for having a different opinion is plain foolishness. The universe is not going to adjust itself to what “everyone” believes or doesn’t believe, in fact, at any given time what “everyone” believes about a whole host of things is plain wrong — the history of science certainly makes that clear. What we need to do is to examine these issue carefully, to listen intently to those with whom we disagree, and to find ways to take proper care of the heritage God has given us. What we don’t need is the constant noise of people attacking each other.
Another point of view has emerged – The Pope joins the EU in a sad world of make-believe, from the view of English Conservative Euro-scepticism. The question of Greece is just about at itsgame. Real people are suffering from austerity. Many of us here in Europe are increasingly despondent about the Union and its human cost. We are also concerned about the degree of enmity towards Russia.
I do ask myself to what extent Pope Francis is informed about all the issues of a dystopia-bound world. In our world, there is always what someone says and our understanding of its face value, and then there are the insinuations and implications and euphemisms.
I have come to find that “conservatives” (especially the American type) are just as odious in my mind as so-called “liberals”. This particular dialectic, that I have often called Tweedledum and Tweedledee, is absolutely sterile and impotent as a tool for understanding the current issues in the world.
To what extent is the Pope “going along” with prevailing political trends just in order to keep the Church on the gaming table of world power? Just what Popes and bishops have always done since the Peace of Constantine… I have no idea, and everything just becomes more and more confusing as time goes on. I agree that name-calling will get no one anywhere. Nor will unconditional defence of someone who happens to be the Pope.
Indeed, we need to try to understand issues, not by forming rash opinions, but by reading and studying different points of view in such a way as to conserve our critical faculties and not get sucked up into anyone’s ideology.
You know, I’m not even sure we truly need to “understand issues” — or that we can. I’m not sure any of us are qualified to do that, as the complexities are truly mind-paralyzing. In fact, I tend to roll my eyes at anyone who claims to understand them. I don’t believe that is what the Gospel calls on us to do at all. Jesus, as I see it anyway, seems to focus far more on character, on attitudes, than on factual knowledge or on programs of action. Ultimately our mission is to “grow up into the image of Christ”, not to fix the world, for the latter is far beyond our ability; and not to defend any particular ideology, for all of them are seriously deficient.
Forget theology, ideology etc. I ask myself, is oil or coal of infinite supply? Does it do any good staying in the ground? Is the energy from the sun and wind of greater supply? Does it – and should it – cost more than capital-intensive mining? Does the resource of the planet belong to particular individuals, or to all inhabitants, including animals and plants? Do we have a greater right to exist on this planet than fellow animals or plants? Do we believe that all life – and this planet – and this universe – is God’s…..or ours….or, more accurately, the multi-nationals’? Just exactly what kind of ideal society or planetary regime do we think of? One where our great-grand-children will suffocate in? Or where we will ourselves have to fight each other to survive?
If I have a choice, is it better to curtail my consumption of petrol and walk more for health? (Those unable to walk need not ask this particular question, of course). If I can afford it, should I install solar panels on my roof or not? (The corollary question is, should solar panels be prohibitively expensive?). Should I support taxes and efforts and research to find better ways to feed and shelter humans with less ecological impact? Should I support intelligent birth control?
There are many such questions. I don’t need to spell them out for my intelligent co-readers. But most of the answers seem to me to be obvious and in one direction, even if I don’t know the precise measurements of science or the future, and indeed, irrespective of what they are. Do you not hear, dear friends, the call to a kind of altruism and generosity and sacrifice? Or would you say Christianity has nothing to do with such things?
Well put, my friend.
Here in the UK we’re sitting on tonnes of coal (the cheapest energy source?) and we’re not allowed to burn it.
I have not read it, nor shall I. I find it strange that this has become simply a political issue, and hence, any real debate will indeed simply degenerate into political bellowing. I find it strange that “liberals” will make statements such as : “All [not actually true] scientists agree about global warming etc.” yet most scientists also agree about the safety of genetically modified foods, but the same people who will blather on about global warming get very much crazy about modified foods. So it really seems to have very little to do with science at all, and is fundamentally political. Strange in the 1970’s it was global cooling which was supposed to kill us all (actually several cinema films from the 70’s have global cooling as their ending of all civilization. “can’t you feel it getting cooler and cooler and the days shorter and shorter”: see that rather dreadful film, “The Last of England.”) But it also appears that in the encyclical there is reference to not using air conditioning, while I write the temperature is 113, let’s please let his Holiness come and spend an afternoon here without air-condition (I am cheap so do not use air-conditioning, but an evaporative cooler, but the Pope is most likely apposed to those as well).
Climate is always changing and we have been in a warming period since the end of the last small ice-age, thank God, it is when the climate cools that we have real, global problems. The study of the Norse community of Greenland is interesting in this regard, they all died.
Forgot to add, I shall simply wait to read Patrick’s analysis. His analyses are always worth reading, and almost always spot on.
Dale, and others, may be interested that I have finally posted my thoughts on climate change. Unfortunately, it is not about Laudato Si because I lost interest in reading it, so the post is a few amateur observations and suggestions. It took three days to write, hence my lack of posting this week!
http://liturgiae-causa.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/a-few-thoughts-on-climate-change.html
I had a look at your new and passionate article, and I resonate with it. The bottom line is a choice between the conservation of our planet or the welfare of an ever-increasing world population. Technology keeps those people alive who would die without it. I would be inclined to believe that the world population was self-regulating in earlier times. We are born and live, and we take our chances with whatever will cause our death.
As I have said, I have no independent scientific opinion. I can only believe or disbelieve the articles I read. The agenda for claiming that human technology is damaging the planet and its ecology would seem to propose the solution of reducing the population, which is achieved by abortion, contraception or genocide (concentration camps or biological warfare, take your pick). How that fits into a socialism (Nazism was national socialism) in which social equality is paramount, I find it difficult to imagine. We Christians have to do everything to uphold the sacredness of life and our right to live, but there is a limit to keeping alive what would naturally die. The agenda for continuing technological progress whatever the cost to the environment is even simpler – making yet more money and power for the stinking rich who will, like Dives, take it all to hell with them!
The big problem is our addiction to energy – for transport and the manufacturing industries. Unlike you, I do drive and own a vehicle. In my present way of life, there is no other form of transport to take my wife to her commuter train and get supplies for the house – and for recreational activities. The roads are choked up with lorries, and modern industry could not continue without logistics and transport. Life would have to be completely redesigned, the Industrial Revolution rolled back. But, and it’s a big but, be prepared for a pre-technological way of life and death. They didn’t know what was in the future. If we go back to that from what we have, we are going to find it ruining our day! It is a choice to make. Some people live in “intentional communities” and rough it at the edge of the grid. I admire them and feel tempted to follow in that kind of way.
The issue of the coal in England, “if tha wants to work down ’t’ pit”. Joking apart from the Barnsley accent, how long would it last? Would it benefit us ordinary folk or just cause more smog and smoke that blackens buildings and causes all sorts of lung ailments? There’s scientific evidence for that. The solution here in France for the most part is nuclear energy, and wind farms produce less than 10%. If the nuclear power stations are safe, if someone can invent nuclear fusion or controlled antimatter reactions… Then we have to reduce our dependence on energy. The real problem is globalism and outsourcing because people want to be paid for their work! The rich bastard gets a thinner slice of the cake!
The problem of road transport and the consumption of oil (and its distillates) is dramatic. I dream of life on a sailing boat and mooring at a quiet island for the winter. That is cloud cuckoo land, because we need some kind of communication with the modern technological world in order to work and earn money. I need an internet and phone connection, which can work with 4G mobile networks. It has to be paid for. Now for the rest of society…? I’m sure many people have cars without needing them – they live in town and only have a car as a status symbol. I don’t have a SUV, but an infinitely more practical Renault van with 250,000 km on the clock. I can shift stuff around in it, use it as a car and save myself £100 plus a night in hotel costs when I’m travelling by camping in it. In England, the real problem is lorries and car drivers driving badly, hogging the middle lane of the motorway for example. Industry needs to localize its work more and become less dependent on logistics, perhaps through road transport no longer being an economic solution. Give me a sailing boat any day – but they won’t sail on land!
The solution will come from the peak oil theory proving true. The price of the stuff skyrockets, and we find ourselves with metal boxes on wheels usable only as horse-drawn trailers with the useless engine taken out – like in India. If that happens suddenly, a lot of people will die. See http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ which follows the peak oil theory and predicts the collapse of our civilization. We have to die one day, and we accept that if we are Christians.
There’s still some world left. Take your choice. I am amazed at the number of people desperately trying to get into England. They won’t be able to get a bank account or benefits or a job. Without those, housing costs are sky high. Even if they make it on a lorry chassis through all the checks and controls, they will wish they had never been born. Perhaps some of us can go to the countries those people came from!!!
For the things that have become familiar to us at home, like light bulbs, you begin to sound like the Romantic Ladies from the Great Invisible Empire. It’s understandable.
It is interesting that you should mention the sea. From what I see, the level seems to be receding. Estuaries get increasingly silted up. There are hundreds of old ports and docks for ships now inland, with only a trickle of a stream that wouldn’t take a rubber dinghy!
My own impression is that the world, like the Church, needs a hard reboot. You just pull the plug and switch the thing on again, and wait for the system to go through the stages of rebooting from autoexec.bat to its being ready for use. I have been out of town for many years. Town and cities, like France, are great for tourism and sightseeing, not for living in! We are supposed to worship at the altar of progress, but I see the other side. One lot of people pays for the others. As Boris said to Ivan, in Capitalism man exploits man and it’s the other way round in Communism.
It is difficult to form an opinion on how we humans are harming the environment, but we are in many ways. Not only the air gets polluted with smoke and poisonous chemicals. The seas are a right bloody mess with masses of plastic as big as England or France! Innocent sailors have been sunk by steel containers fallen off ships or having drifted away from Japan floating just under the surface. Another problem is the rubbish we throw away – food packaging from supermarkets. The material we throw away is brand new. It served to make the food look nice and clean. When the food is eaten, the packaging can’t be used again. Energy is needed even to recycle it. Perhaps more of us can go and live in the woods in yurts and wooden cabins, but that won’t solve it – we are just sticking our heads in the sand.
Perhaps we are doomed. Perhaps we can survive for the rest of our natural lives to try to pass something down to future people. Most “prepper” ideas are complete horseshit, but we can try to reduce dependence on technology to some extent by choosing the right way to live, getting on with it and assuming the consequences. We need skills other than writing and yakking on and on. We need to learn to use tools and do woodwork, metalwork, masonry, electricity, plumbing, farming, gardening – the skills people had in the past. I am very lucky in having worked with wood and having aptitudes for turning my hand to just about anything when needed. That would already be a start if you want to beat the gangs of human wolves who would be very hungry after a civilization collapse.
Fr Anthony,
I was loathe to say anything on population control as it’s a controversial subject. Sir David Attenborough alludes to the deforestation in Borneo in that short interview, which he says is the natural response to an increased population and its demands. I agree in principle that women should have control of their bodies and the right to determine how many children they have (if any). Man is perfectly capable of controlling populations; as you say concentration camps are a famous example. But Nature is just as capable too and just as capable of choosing some nasty way of doing it. Famine is a famous example. About a third of England’s population died in the famine of 1315, and a fraction of the people living in just the South East of England to-day were scattered about the whole of the British Isles in those days. Some degree of population control is needed, but take that to the extreme and we might become like China with a one child per family policy. And nobody wants to see that.
I can well understand your owning the van. I don’t blame you for it. What I strongly object to is the situation even within my own family; the status symbol, as you say, but also the sheer laziness. My father won’t go anywhere without his car, even the ten minute walk into town for four pints of milk. And cars are much bigger to-day than they once were. But try telling people that! I once confided my views to my father, and he asked in scorn whether I was becoming some sort of hippy!
It’s a very complex problem, and I see no one solution. People need to be somehow weaned off their hopeless reliance on energy. Try to rehabilitate ourselves. My views are expressed in the post but I am not skilled enough to offer any pragmatic solution. Perhaps there aren’t any?
…whether I was becoming some sort of hippy
Grow your hair for a couple of years and show him http://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/
Just make sure the defibrillator isn’t too far away! 🙂
Here’s mine:
Pragmatic solutions? Whilst you are out of work, couldn’t you get onto a course in woodwork and joinery? There are all the various building trades, but there are also fine arts involving precision manual work. Perhaps you could adapt better than you think… Generally if you believe you can do something, you can do it.
Patrick, read it, of course, well written and succinct. Yes, why even bother today to read papal encyclicals on anything to be honest.
One, well many, of the problems I have with the whole global warming issue are the hypocrisies of global warming enthusiasts. Al Gore is a prime example, he blathers on and on about rising sea levels, yet purchased a sea-front estate in California; or closer to home, the former dean of my department who made global warming into an orthodoxy that faculty had to believe (I am a problem child in that respect), yet, what did he do upon retirement? He purchased a Winnebago (for those in Europe who may not know what type of vehicular monstrosity a Winnebago is…look it up). If even true believers do not appear truly convinced enough to change their “life styles,” what about the rest of us?