Saturday 27th of April 2024
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when tony abbott is more catholic than the pope...

catholics

 

Few American Christians let their faith get in the way of their politics. They simply ignore church teachings or find creative ways to interpret biblical passages to justify their political views. That is why I don’t expect the new encyclical from Pope Francis to cause much of a shift in people’s opinions about climate change.

The pope says human activity is causing a calamitous spike in global temperatures. The climate shift is melting polar ice, causing sea levels to rise, creating destructive extremes of weather, destroying ocean ecosystems and generally making a mess of the planet. The culprit in this assault on God’s creation is unfettered industrial activity driven by short-sighted greed, the pope asserts, and those who will suffer the most from this are the world’s poor.

“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods,” Francis wrote in his encyclical. “It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades.”

If you are a Christian who already accepted the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change, you are, of course, cheering for Francis. You believe that he is expressing the true ethic of benevolent Christianity. But, if you are a Christian whose conservative political views put you in the same political camp as the climate change deniers who control the environmental policies of the Republican Party, you are not going to have a sudden conversion, like Paul on the road to Damascus. No, you are going to reject Francis and take your cues from more reassuring spiritual guides — such as Rush Limbaugh.

In the gospel according to Rush, environmentalism is the new home of communism and Pope Francis is a fellow traveler. During his radio show on June 16, Limbaugh — not for the first time — said the pope “sounds like a Marxist”.

“But he doesn't even disguise it, folks, in this encyclical,” Limbaugh said. “Doesn't even disguise it!  Every other word seems to be about how unfettered capitalism is destroying the world and how the rich countries have to give more money to the poor countries to make amends.  I mean, that's -- call it what you want -- Marxism, socialism, what have you.”

Limbaugh declared climate change a hoax, made the preposterous claim that global temperatures have been falling for a decade and then questioned why the pope would make a big deal of this issue.

“Is climate change an enemy of the Catholic Church?” he asked. “Is climate change an enemy of Catholics? Even if it is happening, as they say, is climate change a matter of faith? Is it something that the church believes is a weapon being used against the faithful? I don't know, folks. It just doesn't wash here. And that's why when I first heard the pope start talking about economics, just like in this encyclical on global warming, it just sounded like pure, not even diluted, Marxism.”

Soon, a woman called in expressing deep concern that her church was in the hands of a bad man. “I am a Catholic, and I'm in so much pain today at the possibility that my pope is spreading Marxist error,” the caller said.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83863370/

 

warming in the pacific...

Sometime in the mid 1990s, probably unnoticed by anyone, a region of the Pacific that is home to more than a dozen nations experienced something known as a “climate expulsion”.

That was the point in time when the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere pushed temperatures higher than anything that natural climate changes alone could have delivered.

The finding comes in a new study from scientists at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology and published in the International Journal of Climatology.

Scientists examined temperatures between 1953 and 2010 in an area of the Pacific that includes the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The study analysed data from weather observations in that west Pacific region and found temperatures have been rising by about 0.15C per decade.

To find out what was behind the temperature increases the researchers ran a series of climate models to try and reproduce those real world temperature observations.

Dr Scott Power, senior principal research scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology and one of the study’s authors, told the Guardian: “The only way these models can replicate the warming that has been observed is if they incorporate the increases in greenhouse gases. It is clear as day that that part of the world has warmed up.

“What’s also interesting from the study is that you can see that after about the mid-1990s, every year has been warmer than it was prior to the early 1970s. We looked at this in the models and they tell similar stories. At a certain point the temperatures in this part of the world have exhibited what we would call ‘climate expulsion’ – the greenhouse gases have forced the temperature variability beyond the earlier historical experience.”

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2015/jun/26/study-blames-greenhouse-gases-for-climate-expulsion-driving-temperature-rises-across-pacific-nations

wet T-shirts in paris, london, madrid...

Britain experienced its warmest July day on record as roads melted, trains were delayed, and bottled water was handed out to truck drivers caught in huge tailback on the M20 due to the Calais strike.

Heathrow was the hotspot – both politically and physically – as the mercury clocked 36.7C, the highest in July since records began in the mid 1870s with the introduction of standardised thermometer exposure, and edging out Wisley, Surrey, which saw 36.5C in 2006.

Parts of the UK – which was on a Level 3 “heatwave action” health alert – had higher temperatures than in Barcelona, Ibiza and Athens as the Met Office weather map was a rainbow hue of purple (very very hot), red (very hot) and orange (just hot) .

Paris and Madrid proved hotter, recording 39C and 37C respectively. 

Extra water points were laid on at Wimbledon as the championships experienced the hottest day in its history at 35.7C, topping the 34.6C seen during the scorching summer of 1976. A ball boy collapsed and was taken to hospital, while Judy Murray added her voice to calls for a “heat rule” for male players to bring them into line with rules of female players. Bookmaker William Hill offered odds of play being suspended because of heat, rather than the traditional rain, of 10/1.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/01/heatwave-hits-heathrow-temperature-airport-flies-past-32c

Global warming is real. The denialists are deliberately IGNORANT bastards who are stopping us from solving this GROWING problem... There is enough EXTRA (anthropogenic) CO2 in the atmosphere to make temperature rise for another 500 years, possibly 5000 years. At present trend, with existing CO2 in the atmosphere, the rise of temperature in 500 years will be more than 10 degrees Celsius. THIS IS WHY IT IS URGENT for humanity TO STOP INJECTING MORE anthropogenic CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

WE HAVE TO STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS...

comedy...

'Minister approves 35km² hole in environment'The Backburner (satire) writes: "Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt has given approval to the Shenhua Watermark coal mine..."