Laudato Si, Laudato No

De nieuwe Pauselijke encycliek, die gisteren is verschenen, heeft inmiddels internationaal tot veel commentaren aanleiding gegeven, zowel instemmende als meer kritische. De prominente aandacht die de Paus aan het milieu en het klimaat schenkt (zij het niet meer dan enkele procenten van een tekst van bijna 200 bladzijden), waarbij hij in nauwelijks bedekte termen lobbyt voor een positieve uitkomst van de klimaatconferentie in Parijs in december dit jaar, heeft hem veel krediet bij de milieubeweging opgeleverd. Omgekeerd hebben de meer kritische commentatoren in dit verband fijntjes herinnerd aan de affaire Galileo Galilei, waarin de RK Kerk zich eveneens anti– wetenschappelijk opstelde.

Ik pik er enkele commentaren uit.

Onder de titel, ‘Swiss ‘Weltwoche’ Magazine Fires At Activist Encyclical … ”Somewhere Galileo Is Chuckling”’, rapporteert Pierre Gosselin op zijn blog:

The latest 17 June 2015 edition of Weltwoche from Switzerland has a commentary on the Vatican and its encyclical on climate titled: “A Matter of Faith“. The commentary believes the Vatican is out of place with Its recent encyclical on climate science, reminding readers that the Vatican hardly has a stellar record when it comes telling Catholics what true science really is, and that today It is wrong with Its claim there is a consensus on the issue. …

The Weltwoche article writes in its introduction: With an encyclical the Pope is attempting to teach correct climate policy. The Catholic Church has long since always proven its sense for true science. Somewhere Galileo is chuckling.”

Weltwoche recounts the Church’s debacle surrounding Galileo, writing that it took the Catholic Church over 300 years to apologize for having falsely accused the 17th century physicist, who claimed the Church had been wrong in thinking the earth was the center of the universe. …

Yet under Pope Francis the Church appears to have learned nothing from its long history of intellectual blunders, and Its Little Ice Age and bad-weather witch-hunts. Weltwoche writes:

Pope Francis is now sending the encyclical “Laudato Si” to his bishops, which reads as the Amen to the reporters of the IPCC and the capitalism critics, such as Naomi Klein.”

Weltwoche describes how Pope Francis claims there is a “scientific consensus” and that as a result “mankind has to change its lifestyle“.

Lees verder hier.

Ook Nigel Lawson, voormalig minister van Financiën onder Margaret Thatcher en voorzitter van de ‘Global Warming Policy Foundation’ (GWPF), liet zich uiterst kritisch uit over de houding van de RK Kerk tegenover het klimaat en het klimaatbeleid. Onder de titel, ‘Carbon week: The church of climatism’, schreef hij in de Canadese Financial Post:

Throughout the ages the weather has been an important part of the religious narrative.

Climate scientists and their hangers–on have become the high priests of a new age of unreason.

How is it that much of the Western world, and Europe in particular, has succumbed to the self-harming collective madness that is the climate change orthodoxy? It is difficult to escape the conclusion that climate change orthodoxy has in effect become a substitute religion, attended by all the intolerant zealotry that has so often marred religion in the past, and in some places still does so today.

Throughout the Western world, the two creeds that used to vie for popular support – Christianity and the atheistic belief system of Communism – are each clearly in decline. Yet people still feel the need both for the comfort and for the transcendent values that religion can provide. It is the quasi-religion of green alarmism and global salvationism, of which the climate change dogma is the prime example, that has filled the vacuum, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as little short of sacrilege. ….

Hij stelt dat vele klimatologen zich als hogepriesters van een nieuw tijdperk van obscurantisme opstellen. Het beleid dat hieruit voortvloeit is in hoge mate immoreel, mede omdat het tot een massale overdracht van inkomen van arm naar rijk leidt via de subsidiëring van hernieuwbare energie.

… I am slightly surprised that it is so strongly supported by those who consider themselves to be the tribunes of the people and politically on the Left. I refer to our system of heavily subsidizing wealthy landlords to have wind farms on their land, so that the poor can be supplied with one of the most expensive forms of electricity known to man.

However, the greatest immorality of all concerns those in the developing world. It is excellent that, in so many parts of the developing world – the so-called emerging economies – economic growth is now firmly on the march, as they belatedly put in place the sort of economic policy framework that brought prosperity to the Western world. Inevitably, they already account for, and will increasingly account for, the lion’s share of global emissions.

But, despite their success, there are still hundreds of millions of people in these countries in dire poverty, suffering all the ills that this brings, in terms of malnutrition, preventable disease, and premature death. Asking these countries to abandon the cheapest available sources of energy is, at the very least, asking them to delay the conquest of malnutrition, to perpetuate the incidence of preventable disease, and to increase the number of premature deaths.

Global warming orthodoxy is not merely irrational. It is wicked.

Lees verder hier.

Paradoxalerwijs is dat een uiterst links standpunt voor iemand die tot rechts wordt gerekend, maar het is een standpunt dat door vele klimaatsceptici wordt gedeeld.

Een minder polemisch, neutraler, meer beschrijvend commentaar, van Joe Ronan, kunnen we aantreffen op de website van Bishop Hill.

Onder de titel, ‘Laudato Si – a cry for the poor’, schreef hij:

Why is Pope Francis writing about climate change? Because he cares for the poor, and wants us all to look at how we use the resources of the world. His objective is to ask each of us to look at how we use the resources available to us, and how to be good stewards of creation. Whether we consider ourselves as owners or tenants of this planet we are asked to use it’s bounty to the good of all, and to avoid laying it waste to the detriment of our brothers and sisters.

He looks at a number of ways in which the poor more than most suffer from environmental damage that man has control over. …

The climate comes in at paragraph 23 and here the leaked paragraphs that have had such wide coverage are reasonably accurate. Climate is a common good, and science indicates that man is having some effect on this. The language is sufficiently vague that I doubt he’ll end up in a Galileo scenario of pinning his colours to a sinking ship, but there is no doubt that the rather partial advisers he has had have coloured the thinking to a very large extent. Paragraph 24 provides perhaps the most obvious slip up, when it suggests “If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us”. There is no inkling that the pause has been mentioned to the Vatican ….

Ronan is kritisch maar eindigt per saldo toch met een positieve noot.

I would encourage you all to read the final section, even those of you not of a religious inclination. It deals with releasing real humanity from within ourselves, and perhaps is the type of writing that reflects most closely Francis’ agenda – the best flourishing of the human person, and the building of a good society. He recognises that the things that we do to ‘save the earth’ will not change the world, but will call forth from us each “a goodness that spreads”.

It is also a call to joy and completeness as humans, and a call to engage with those around us.

This is a flawed document in many ways: it has had input from a limited range of views, and on the technical side is badly referenced. It paints complex issues in simplistic terms and ignores the whole history of how technological development has been of enormous benefit to mankind.

What it does succeed in doing however is to provoke each of us to consider inside ourselves how we relate to our fellow travellers on this planet. Even though the letter is addressed to the whole world, it’s real target is you. I recommend it to you all, flawed and incomplete as it is, as a look into our own minds, and invites us to consider again our common humanity.

Lees verder hier.

De Engelse versie van Laudato Si is hier te vinden.

Voor mijn eerdere bijdragen over klimaat en aanverwante zaken zie hier, hier, hier, hier en hier.