We are sick unto death of the endless failed predictions of global warming doom. Not climate change doom. Global warming doom. They promised global warming. Never let them forget that.
I wouldn’t have written anything, except I bring you good news. Atheists are evidently excused from pretending from, or in actually, worrying about global warming doom! These fine people have enough on their minds anyway, trying to figure out why they should live when all life is without meaning.
Bad news for people of The Book, though. Seems they’re stuck with caring that the temperature might, just might, soar by a tenth or two of a degree over the next century.
Or so implies a fellow named Jim Antal.
Now I have no idea who Jim Antal is. The Chicago Tribune doesn’t seem to know that much about him, either, though that esteemed paper saw fit to quote from Jim Antal often and earnestly. Filled a whole article with Jim Antal thoughts. “Do you believe in God? Then you have a moral duty to fight climate change, writes Jim Antal.”
Seems this Jim Antal wrote a book called Climate Church, Climate World. Must be a good book, too, because Jim Antal quoted “a Yale study” in it.
Want to know what that Yale study said in relation to global warming doom? Ask Jim Antal. He “thinks a central reason we have ignored global warming is because the problem is a ‘long emergency’ and overwhelming in scope. ‘(N)euroscientists tell us that our brains are not suited to respond appropriately to long-term threats such as climate change.'”
Yet Jim Antal didn’t ignore the long emergency of global warming. And we can guess Jim Antal has a brain. Since neuroscientists tell us our brains are not suited to respond appropriately to long-term threats such as climate change, and Jim Antal is responding appropriately, we can guess his brain is categorically different than the brains of ordinary men. Jim Antal was able to overcome the neurological deficits mundane men share and see beyond into the land of frightening futures that no human before was able to see until Jim Antal came along.
Perhaps Jim Antal should consider donating his brain to Yale. Assuming we survive global warming doom. Which we probably won’t since none of us can care about it, even though Jim Antal tells us we should care about it, because our brains are not suited to respond appropriately to long-term threats such as climate change!
Poor Jim Antal is fighting a losing battle.
The paper says the book subtitle is “How People of Faith Must Work for Change.” This is where atheists are let off the hook. But for the faithful, must is a strong word. And we ought to heed it because the paper says Jim Antal a “longtime Congregational pastor and activist.”
I can think of no better training for scolding Christians about the doom inherent in the flow of externally heated fluids on a rotating sphere than in being a longtime Congregational pastor and activist. Maybe Unitarian Universalists know a tad more about cloud parameterizations, but nobody beats an activist Congregational pastor on the subject of global ocean currents.
How about an extended Jim Antal quote?
“I believe that people of faith the world over have the capacity to determine the trajectory of our common future,” [Jim] Antal writes. “Here in America, if Christianity continues to emphasize personal salvation while ignoring collective salvation, if we continue to reduce the Creator to an anthropocentric projection who privileges and protects humanity, however alienated we may be from God’s created order, then the practice of religion will continue to diminish and it will add little to the redemption of creation.”
I can only suppose this sounds-like-paganism-earth-worship is the kind of thing activist longtime Congregational pastors say. I don’t know. I do know that if you put the collective salvation of humanity before your own, you won’t be able to help anybody else, salvationally speaking. You’d be like the passenger on the decompressing airplane helping others put on their masks before putting your own on.
Here, though, is something that Jim Antal says with which I am in perfect agreement: “Americans, [Jim Antal] believes, must reject and rethink ‘our insatiable desire for material growth, our uncompromising insistence on convenience, and our relentless addiction to mobility.'”
But I think this is best for spiritual reasons, not environmental ones.
“endless failed predictions of global warming doom”.
A reader who wants to learn about how well climate predictions have fared might want to take a look at
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3224
and
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jul/27/climate-models-are-accurately-predicting-ocean-and-global-warming
In short, consensus climate science successfully predicted our current observed climate, and has an excellent record in making climate predictions.
“They promised global warming. Never let them forget that.”
Well, OK. Why would “they” want to forget that, since “they” were right?
People of faith will determine the future. Will Christians, collectively, recognize and respond to the existential threat posed by energetic Islam, or will we be conquered and destroyed? There is no third option.
The evidence suggests that Mr. Antal may, in fact, be a Vogon, whose brains exist primarily to cool the blood and process alcohol.
If Lee is posting climate propaganda, this should fit in fine and may serve as a counter-evidence test: https://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/
“They promised global warming. Never let them forget that.”
Well, OK. Why would “they” want to forget that, since “they” were right?
1. “They” aren’t right.
2. It’s necessary to “move the goalposts” when you’re wrong.
Lee
Sit back and relax … it’s in OUR hands
Jim Antal is just another Katherine Hayhoe
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
1) Jim Antal (from today’s essay):
“Do you believe in God? Then you have a moral duty to fight climate change, writes Jim Antal.”
The paper says the book [by Antal] subtitle is “How People of Faith Must Work for Change.” … Jim Antal a “longtime Congregational pastor and activist.”
2) Mystery Author (not in today’s essay):
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”
“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her [our Sister, Mother Earth] by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her water”
“{ } has spoken in particular of the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet, for “inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage”, we are called to acknowledge “our contribution, smaller or greater, to the disfigurement and destruction of creation”.”
“I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all. The worldwide ecological movement has already made considerable progress…”
“We must not think that these efforts are not going to change the world. They benefit society, often unbeknown to us, for they call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread. Furthermore, such actions can restore our sense of self-esteem; they can enable us to live more fully and to feel that life on earth is worthwhile.” [Thus, per this mystery author, even atheists will have a life purpose & meaning!]
“The majority of people living on our planet profess to be believers. This should spur religions to dialogue among themselves for the sake of protecting nature, … The gravity of the ecological crisis demands that we all look to the common good, embarking on a path of dialogue which demands patience, self-discipline and generosity, always keeping in mind that “realities are greater than ideas”.”
THAT Mystery Author goes on & on & on…the above is just a small excerpt. One gets the impression Antal’s book is similar in sentiment, but nowhere near so ‘over-the-top’ in extreme wording/analogy/etc.
Considering what Jim Antal said, the Mystery Author is every bit equivalent, perhaps even far more extreme.
With that in mind consider Briggs’ overall assessment of that kind of perspective:
“I can only suppose this sounds-like-paganism-earth-worship is the kind of thing activist longtime Congregational pastors say. I don’t know. I do know that if you put the collective salvation of humanity before your own, you won’t be able to help anybody else, salvationally speaking. You’d be like the passenger on the decompressing airplane helping others put on their masks before putting your own on.”
– Briggs
Either Briggs is wrong, or Antal & the Mystery Author are wrong (maybe they’re all wrong?..and all right?).
The Mystery Author’s complete work, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si, is at: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
In 2017 Pope Francis also said: ‘that the halting response to climate change reminded him of a “phrase from the Old Testament — man is a fool, a stubborn man who will not see” and went on:
“Anyone who denies [climate change] should go to the scientists and ask them. They speak very clearly … climate change is having an effect, and scientists are telling us which path to follow. And we have a responsibility — all of us. Everyone, great or small, has a moral responsibility … we must take it seriously … history will judge our decision.”
The Pope made this anti-capitalist climate doom remark in 2017:
“Our propensity to interrupt the world’s delicate and balanced ecosystems, our insatiable desire to manipulate and control the planet’s limited resources, and our greed for limitless profit in markets — all these have alienated us from the original purpose of creation. We no longer respect nature as a shared gift; instead, we regard it as a private possession. We no longer associate with nature in order to sustain it; instead, we lord over it to support our own constructs.”
An Annenberg Public Policy Center Survey found that the pope’s attention to the issue did little to change Catholics’ minds, with more conservative Catholics — only 24 percent of Catholic Republicans believe in climate change — “devalu[ing] the Pope’s authority” as a result of his words.
[Woe to those stubborn fools who do not see!!]
If Briggs is right…so much for Papal Infallibility…
REF: http://www.catholic.com/tract/papal-infallibility
Vatican II explained the doctrine of infallibility as follows: “Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they can nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly. This is so, even when they are dispersed around the world, provided that while maintaining the bond of unity among themselves and with Peter’s successor, and while teaching authentically on a matter of faith or morals, they concur in a single viewpoint as the one which must be held conclusively. This authority is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church. Their definitions must then be adhered to with the submission of faith” (Lumen Gentium 25).
Infallibility belongs in a special way to the pope as head of the bishops (Matt. 16:17–19; John 21:15–17). As Vatican II remarked, it is a charism the pope “enjoys in virtue of his office, when, as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful, who confirms his brethren in their faith (Luke 22:32), he proclaims by a definitive act some doctrine of faith or morals. Therefore his definitions, of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, are justly held irreformable, for they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, an assistance promised to him in blessed Peter.”
Crikey!
It’s not just the Holy Father who goes on and on, Ken!
Ken
See other posts and comments on Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato Si.
See comments and posts on infallibility and whether Laudato Si met the “standard?” of “Ex Cathedra”.
See also
http://rationalcatholic.blogspot.com.es/
and
http://the-american-catholic.com/tag/laudato-si/
FYI all:
“Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model” is apparently available online for free (link is good as of today):
https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/why_models_run_hot_results_from_an_irreducibly_simple_climate_model.pdf
Figure 2 is especially revelatory.
The paper “survived three rounds of tough peer review in which two of the reviewers had at first opposed the paper on the ground that it questioned the IPCC’s predictions.”
See also Matt’s January 14, 2015 report on that paper:
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/15095/
Dr. Douglas Hoyt, PhD atmospheric physics, use to maintain a score card on the global warming predictions. He hasn’t updated it in a decade but the warmist predictions were lousy.
http://warwickhughes.com/hoyt/climate-change.htm
According to the notation on the paper, it was published 2½ months after submission. As all those who have experience with scientific publication know, this is not remotely compatible with the claim that the paper “survived three rounds of tough peer review”. You’d be lucky to hear back from any single reviewer so quickly.
Even if you fall for Briggs’ tall tales (Orient’s equivalent of *Science* or *Nature*? no.), no “tough” review would have let something of this quality through. No harm done, however, as nearly nobody reads this obscure journal, and the paper has been disposed of handily by a couple of actual climate scientists™ who did bother.
Sorry, in the above I meant to say “accepted” where I said “published”.
Ray
Off-the-cuff, that appears to be a 97% failure …
Lee,
I don’t know about Briggs, but I keep pointing at the raw data. Plot the raw data. Plot it on an absolute scale. Plot all of the data. Do it for Sea Level. Do it for temperature. Do it for any variable of interest. After you have plotted all of the data, step back and ask yourself, which model didn’t match?
I explained for the first time the fundamental nature of the scientific method to my youngest yesterday. He was confused. He had been proving the hypothesis correct in everything he had been taught. I tried to explain the difference proving a hypothesis and failing to disprove a hypothesis. It is going to take a lot of examples to actually explain it. From my perspective on this subject, one side is proving they are correct, the other side is trying to point at the failure to attempt to attempt to disprove. Our bending author does a fabulous job, but I haven’t met many people who comprehend that “SCIENCE NEVER PROVES ANYTHING”. The best we ever do is fail to disprove and get up the next day and find a new and better way to disprove and try again. We never stop trying to disprove. Every hypothesis, every Law is tested again and again. We never stop trying to prove the hypothesis wrong. We just get to a point where we are suspicious when someone claims to have proved the hypothesis wrong (anyone saying they have an overunity device).
When the “scientists” falsify data, hide data, delete data, cherry pick data, cherry pick results, hide methods, delete methods, utilize methods that produce the desired (i.e. paid for) results no matter the input, and actively conspire to do all the aforementioned, is it still “Science”?