COVER Olive baboon (Papio anubis) troops travel many kilometers each day as a group, remaining together even though group members often disagree about when and where to move. High-resolution GPS tracking of almost all members of a single baboon troop reveals that movement decisions are shared, and despite differences in rank and social status among group mates, no single individual dominates these choices. See page 1358.

The new papal encyclical on the environment is a ringing call to action, a critique of consumerism and a prophetic warning about the dangers of ignoring what Pope Francis calls “the ecological crisis.”

But amid all his soaring rhetoric, did the pope get the science right?

The short answer from climate and environmental scientists is that he did, at least to the degree possible in a religious document meant for a broad audience. If anything, they say, he may have bent over backward to offer a cautious interpretation of the scientific facts.

For example, a substantial body of published science says that human emissions have caused all the global warming that has occurred over the past century. Yet in his letter, Francis does not go quite that far, citing volcanoes, the sun and other factors that can influence the climate before he concludes that “most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases” released mainly by human activity.

Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, pointed out that the bulk of the evidence suggests that solar changes and volcanoes have slightly counteracted the warming effect of greenhouse gases.
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“Human activity is most likely responsible not just for ‘most global warming’ but all of it, and then some, because natural factors have been acting slightly in the other direction,” Dr. Mann said.

When reciting facts, as opposed to making judgments, the pope aligns himself squarely with mainstream scientific thinking. Indeed, those sections of the document could serve as a syllabus for Environmental Science 101 in just about any college classroom these days.

 

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/science/earth/pope-francis-aligns-himself-with-mainstream-science-on-climate.html

I do admire the guy though I make silly cartoons. I mean Pope Francis... He may have some faults like all of us, possibly less than the average punter, but his move on science is not an appropriation of it. It is a recognition of science that had eluded the Church since Galileo.

In his ENCYCLICAL LETTER ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME the pope is proposing a massive change of religious/humanistic culture into a "back to the future" style of vision...
Pope Francis chose this name ahead of many others that would reflect an association with the direct disciples of Jesus. Pope Francis chose to align himself with Francis of Assisi...
If you don't know the history of the Catholic Church, this choice might not mean much... Some popes took Paul, John or John-Paul then as a duet of disciples' name possibly to make sure they had a couple of direct conduits to the master. 

But here, Pope Francis associates himself with a poor friar clothed in a plain brown blanket who was a bird and nature lover. Straight away one could sense the cat amongst the pigeons. Not Pope Francis being the cat, but many of his conservative church dudes who compensate the privation of a sex-life with food, drink and cash, plus the power of self-importance as the aphrodisiac they need to survive beatifully in purple robes. One is never in a state of contemplation all the time. One needs to blink, feel the force within, feed the masses with the gospel and understand the frailties and demands of the temporal body.

So as soon as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina chose Francis as his new name, we had to know things were going to massively change... Back then, the Franciscan Order had grown at an unprecedented rate compared to other religious orders. Its organisation had not kept up with this growth and had little more to govern it than Francis' example and simple rule. To address this problem, Francis prepared a new and more detailed Rule, the "First Rule" or "Rule Without a Papal Bull" (Regula prima, Regula non bullata), which again asserted devotion to poverty and the apostolic life. This is a massive philosophical delicate inspiration from a leader of 1.2 billion people. 

Understanding nature in this day and age demands more than just feeding birds with bread-crumbs. The stakes are high. We are destroying the planet. Let's understand reality. A manicured garden in Croydon is not nature. Nature is complex and we are born of nature. 
For the first time in history, a pope actually understands as much as possible of this complexity. Copernicus and Galileo would be proud... I can already feel the spirit of Michelangelo running in my veins (though I am a fierce atheist).
"Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil. All these people accuse you and curse you... But brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people." said Saint Francis (named by his father after the French and canonised by Pope Gregory IX).

Suddenly one sees the most important leader of religion on the planet take a step back, breathe the fresh air and say:
"Brother Capitalist, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil. All (most) these people accuse you and curse you... But brother Capitalist, I would like to make peace between you and the people. Stop mucking up the planet and cough up some cash to help the poor while the people will feed you sustainably."
Francis blessed the Capitalist... because without the collection plate, the pope could not survive. Who could blame him... but one dude needs to tame the shrewd... not so much kill it. 

This is why Pope Francis employed someone like Pell to look after the finances rather than fiddle in the theology corner. Pell is a fierce denialist of global warming... meanwhile:
[Saint] Francis preached the teaching of the Catholic Church, that the world was created good and beautiful by God but suffers a need for redemption because of the primordial sin of man. He preached to man and beast the universal ability and duty of all creatures to praise God (a common theme in the Psalms) and the duty of men to protect and enjoy nature as both the stewards of God's creation and as creatures ourselves. On November 29, 1979, Pope John Paul II declared St. Francis the Patron Saint of Ecology. Many of the stories that surround the life of St. Francis say that he had a great love for animals and the environment.
This is the where the new Pope Francis gets its inspiration... This is why he carefully chose his name and now he is pushing the environmental barrow at what I would describe a breakneck speed.
With this I don't care if the Pope Francis believes in Vishnu, Allah or "brother sun"... Much is to be said for believing in nothing more but the health of this planet... One has to be careful though, it can become difficult to "serve two masters"...
The following quote from the Theologia Germanica depicts the conflict between worldly and ecclesiastical affairs:

The two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their work at once: but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were dead. For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward outward things, that is holding converse with time and the creatures; then must the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation. Therefore, whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for ‘no man can serve two masters.’"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart

 

This is why Pope Francis is going to confuse his rich supporters by opening both his eyes at the same time, to the point supporters will contradict him in order to continue their damaging profit making... The question of global warming is the most serious subject facing humanity's long term future and most of the rich don't want to know. Most of the populace, kept in the dark until now, have an opportunity to realise the extend of the problem which Pope Francis took on board holus bolus. 

 

The wolf in the legend now is a capitalist werewolf, and dealing with a werewolf is a different kettle of fish. A wolf is a suspicious wild dog easily captured with a piece of steak or a bone. A werewolf is a nasty creature with a crazy spirit whose habits of tearing people's heart apart, resides with the vicious desire for blood under the full moon. 

Thus, my dear man, Pope, Pope Francis, be careful. I know you will. By releasing your ENCYCLICAL LETTER, I know you must have diligently prepared to take on the most dangerous, sneaky and powerful lobby on the planet. I believe you have more than religious convictions in your arsenal and that you know the pitfalls: 

 

There is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically — as a human adaptation to living in the world— and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind? If religions are natural for humans and give value to their lives, why spend your life trying to persuade others to give them up?

The answer that will be given is that religion is implicated in many human evils. Of course this is true. Among other things, Christianity brought with it a type of sexual repression unknown in pagan times. Other religions have their own distinctive flaws. But the fault is not with religion, any more than science is to blame for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or medicine and psychology for the refinement of techniques of torture. The fault is in the intractable human animal.

Like religion at its worst, contemporary atheism feeds the fantasy that human life can be remade by a conversion experience — in this case, conversion to unbelief.

Evangelical atheists at the present time are missionaries for their own values. If an earlier generation promoted the racial prejudices of their time as scientific truths, ours aims to give the illusions of contemporary liberalism a similar basis in science. It's possible to envision different varieties of atheism developing — atheisms more like those of Freud, which didn't replace God with a flattering image of humanity. But atheisms of this kind are unlikely to be popular.

More than anything else, our unbelievers seek relief from the panic that grips them when they realise their values are rejected by much of humankind. What today's freethinkers want is freedom from doubt, and the prevailing version of atheism is well suited to give it to them.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/06/16/4255799.htm

In the end it's for all of us to decide on what planet we wish to live on, happily as much as possible without destroying the joint nor killing others. 
And the religion of the werewolf, the intractable imperfect human, is capitalism... You seem to know this.
Thank you.

Gus Leonisky
Your Local Atheist Servant...

 

It is striking how many traditional proponents of separation of church and state are now screaming at Republican Catholics to get in line and start taking their marching orders from Rome. All of a sudden church and state separation is an anathema: they want the pope to shove his teachings down their throat. Correction: they only want the pope’s position on climate change to be imposed—not his condemnation of abortion.

The New York Times, which normally loves church-state separation, is today expressing its hope that governments the world over will adopt the pope’s “unexpectedly authoritative and confident” encyclical. “Sadly,” it notes, “the encyclical, compelling as it is, is unlikely to have a similarly positive effect on American politics.”

This is a keeper. Never before have I read an editorial by the Times saying how sad it is that agents of the state are not taking their cues from the pope. Indeed, this newspaper typically congratulates Catholic pro-abortion Democrats for their “independent” thinking. But independent thinking is the last thing the Times wants to encourage now.

The Times is not alone in its duplicity. 

http://www.eurasiareview.com/19062015-church-state-separation-now-bemoaned-oped/

The point here is not about the Catholics, on which side of the conservative/progressive fence they are, to accept what the Pope said as the leader of the Catholic church, but as what he said as a human living on planet earth... Despite having a howler of a freezing day in Sydney (13 decrees C at 6:30 PM with a chilling 90 per cent humidity) June has so far been at least 2 degrees C above the new average for the month. 

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC. No matter how you look at the science, no matter how one poopooes the science, it's still is a FACT. And of course the pope — with an array of advisors, investigators and scientists at his disposal — would know. Don't believe the pope under the umbrella of religion, because he said so — do it because, as a human being, he knows.

read from top...

Today (22/06/15), the Sydney Morning Herald raised itself above the MMMM. Welcome.

 

 

This article is part of Climate for Change, a Fairfax Media series on global warming. Full coverage can be found here.

A climate for change is sweeping through our households, across Australia, around the world. After decades of downplaying the warnings about global warming - with false starts and political delays - our moral compass is being reset towards action.

Human-induced climate change is real. The risks of inaction are real and mounting.

The Herald today offers an opportunity to be part of something special - the climate for change. Our aim is to help Australians reconnect with the urgency of acting, by seeing how our nation is contributing more than our fair share to the problem but also how our best minds and businesses are hunting for solutions.

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We can all support them and do our bit. But fine intentions will mean nothing if our leaders do not do more. And that, ultimately, is up to us all.

The time is 2015 - not 2009 when the world split over how to tackle global warming; when the then prime minister Kevin Rudd was caught out and retreated; and when climate sceptic Tony Abbott swooped to defeat Malcolm Turnbull for the Liberal leadership.

It's not 2012 or 2013 when Labor's shenanigans and the carbon tax made it impossible to have a reasoned climate debate; when the climate sceptics capitalised and gained disproportionate sway with their boutique views.

It is 2015. The overwhelming evidence is that the Earth is warming and will heat further without concerted action. The Australian Alps, the Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait Islands will be severely affected regardless of adaption strategies. Rising sea levels will threaten some of your homes and contribute to more extreme weather events. Higher carbon dioxide levels will even reduce proteins in wheat and change the sort of bread you eat.

The effects of climate change can be managed. In most cases, though, the solutions require some sacrifice, for the common good.

Australia has lost time but all is not lost. There is a climate for change among voters to use people power to change the world. Australian households have begun to choose energy sources wisely. We can keep making responsible, budget-savvy decisions. The Herald this week will offer advice on how.

The climate for change directly affects Australians who fear for the future of their children. Ahead of the key United Nations meeting on climate change in Paris in late November, 63 per cent of people believe the Abbott government should commit to significant reductions in emissions so other countries will be encouraged to do the same, according to the Lowy Institute poll out last week. Support among 18-29 year-olds, who will have to live with the decisions of our leaders today, is 70 per cent for a significant commitment from government. The proportion of people who believe we should not take any steps with economic costs has shrunk from 18 per cent to 12 per cent.

As Australian Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt writes in the Herald, "I fear for my grandkids and humanity if we don't tackle this."

Globally, China has ratcheted up its response and is expected to announce a target year for peak emissions soon. The US has done more. Nations at the Group of Seven meeting this month questioned Australia's commitment. Our government left so many questions unanswered.

The G7 has flagged agreement in Paris to reduce emissions to restrict global warming to 2 degrees by the end of the century. That will require Australia to do more. It may also mean that up to 90 per cent of Australian dirty coal power generation infrastructure is shut over time - unless storage for carbon falls as fast as the costs of renewable energy and batteries.

The climate has changed economically, too. Mr Abbott says coal is the energy of the future for Australia. It will be for a while, but every economic expert and industrialist knows it will be a gradually diminishing part. The opportunities beckons for Australia to save money though more efficient energy use and create better jobs as the carbon economy becomes less valuable. As Dr Schmidt writes, Australia has arguably the best renewable energy sources in the world.

The climate has changed pragmatically as well. The carbon tax was inflexible and politically unworkable. But there are other ways. Scrapping most of the architecture of the cap and trade emissions reduction system put in place by Labor was a big setback, yet enough has been saved - including knowledge - to leave hope. The renewable energy target has been scaled back, but remains a key weapon. The government listens to the climate sceptics, but their arguments are losing out to scientific evidence and moral leadership, including from Pope Francis.

Many of Mr Abbott's colleagues know his position on global warming is unsustainable. While the first auction under the Direct Action plan to pay emitters to cull emissions seemed positive, it rewarded many projects already under way that will reduce emissions after 2020. Doubts remain about how much Australia will rely on incorrect projections of emissions levels to meet its target of 5 per cent reductions on 2000 levels by 2020.

Most experts know the government has the seeds of a better system in Direct Action's safeguards mechanism. That would stop emitters from exceeding their baseline emissions levels and prompt a market in carbon credits that could extend globally. Mr Abbott has blocked such a pricing system, but it could be created relatively simply. Even Labor is working on that. The alternative of returning to a cap and trade system is possible, although politically more risky and it may take longer.

In the meantime the government will announce its post-2020 emissions reduction target in coming weeks. That detail, and the UN meeting in Paris, give Australia the chance to show the sort of moral leadership in the Papal Encyclical last week.

"The urgent challenge to protect our home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and intergenerational development, for we know that things can change," the Pope wrote. "Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded."

Australia can adopt a moral stance only if we do more in our own backyard. We need that message to get through to our leaders.

The climate for change is real. We can be part of the problem or we can be part of the solution. The choice is ours.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/climate-for-change-our-action-plan-to-save-the-future-20150621-ghtjws.html