Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.
So what is it? Dialogue or Solidarity consensus?
The encyclical is replete with contradictions, bot big and small, but the call for dialogue and debate is undermined by the reality at Vatican City.
One only has to look at the Vatican’s response to the delegation of renown international scientists who sought to provide contrary scientific data to refute global warming to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences(PASS) and to the Roman Curia. These prominent scientists, some NASA veterans who intensely studied the climate and earth’s atmosphere to ensure astronauts’ safe moon landing and return to Earth. These vets from the Apollo Space program were dismissed outright and ignored by the Vatican. The Vatican showed no interest in a dialogue or a debate. As Chancellor of the PASS, Bishop Sanchez Sorondo heatedly stated, “the science is settled.” So much for the exchange of ideas and contrary scientific opinions, according to the dictates of the encyclical.
But there is even more troubling and revealing evidence that the Vatican has no interest in dialogue and debate regarding an immense body of data and evidence which proves, at the very least, that man caused climate change is at best, disputed, and at worse, a hoax.
The same Bishop Sorondo and his counterpart PASS President Margaret Archer responded to the Heartland Institute’s expert panel with vicious invective seldom seen from the Holy See. Sorondo called the Heartland’s international team of climatologists, engineers and scientists, “Tea Partiers” and “Deniers” who are “funded by oil interests.” None of these blatantly political and demeaning comments were true and they expose the true political agenda and apparent lack of dialogue at the Vatican. But there is more.
Margaret Archer, President of the PASS, posted a scurrilous rant on the Vatican website against those who would dare to question the Vatican’s one sided global warming alarmist scientific experts and the radical UN population control experts who collaborated, consulted, and even wrote Vatican documents. This is politics as blood sport played out not in the halls of political machines, but in the hallowed halls of the Holy See. Vatican officials are intentionally and purposefully suppressing debate, dialogue and dissent by borrowing a page from Saul Alinsky’s Rule for Radicals. Rule #5, Ridicule your Opponent.
Throughout the encyclical the Pope states that man made global warming is accepted science and that there is a consensus among the scientific community. This is simply not true. Contrary to Papal encyclical assertions, the Vatican is not interested in dialogue or debate. High level Vatican officials freeze out (pun intended) the opposition, and engage in the politics of personal destruction.
In order to silence her critics, Margaret Archer haughtily reminded them that she was appointed by the Pope, and that left her critics, “out in the cold.”
Yes, Margaret, that is the very point we were trying to make. There is no global warming.
(Elizabeth Yore is an international child rights attorney and a member of the Heartland Institute delegation that travelled to Rome to ask for a dialogue about the suspect science and experts relied upon by the Vatican.)