Picture: Climate Change jerks vandalize La Sagrada Familia Church in Spain

Hands off my cathedral, kids:

Greenpeace climbers hang a big banner reads "World Leaders Make The Climate Call" at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. AP/David Ramos {what does that even mean?!}

In honor of your stupidity I'm going to keep my electric space heater on all night. Seriously.

update - and here's another photo {ph/t - The Courtier}:

I'm not sure if this was a separate occasion, or what the timeline was. But I hope they were prosecuted.

"Climate change to get major attention in 2009"

CNS Blog:

Climate change and the vital importance of protecting God’s creation is going to be the focus of a major campaign opening in 2009 and coordinated through The Catholic Coalition on Climate Change.

The coalition, under executive director Daniel Misleh, is planning to introduce an ambitious effort to reach all of the country’s 19,000 parishes through what is being called the Catholic Climate Covenant: The St. Francis Pledge to Protect Creation and the Poor.

I want to hear your comments before I make mine.

Up next? Climate Change.

I'm a man-made global warming skeptic. There, I said it. When the world was getting warmer, I admitted it, but didn't attribute it to human activity. Now that it's getting colder, I don't attribute it to human inactivity.

Being a skeptic takes some guts when CNN publishes articles like this on a daily basis:

"Climate change is happening faster than previously predicted according to a new World Wildlife Fund report.

Bringing together some of the most recent scientific reports and data, "Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner" reveals that global warming is accelerating more rapidly than the predictions made in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007."

Then I sit back, sip a cup of tea, and read something that strikes me as far more sane:

In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.

Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.

[Helpful graph:]

Now where was I? Oh yes:

For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."

Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.

It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.

Well, let's just hope annoying news like this doesn't get out before the democrats can spend billions of dollars on "climate change" legislation in the coming year.

And to be clear: I have no problem pursuing energy alternatives, but pursuing them only to reduce carbon dioxide emissions strikes me as imprudent and frankly, more than our economy can handle right now.

Recent reports suggest global cooling + increases in arctic ice

Because I'm feeling somewhat masochistic and this topic always gets heated:

"Heart-ache: Temperature records indicate … global cooling?" - Hot Air

Quoting this article:

"All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously…

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it."

Now, hold onto your fur coats, I agree with this article that says "one winter does not a climate make." However, can we also agree on this observation?:

" ... if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

That's really all I ask, at this point.

Holy See sends delegation to Climate Change Conference

Considering "the Holy See is usually represented at such meetings" I'm not sure why it deserved a mention in today's Vatican bulletino:

The 13th session of the conference of States parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is being held on the Indonesian island of Bali from December 3 to 14.

A communique made public yesterday afternoon affirms that the Holy See will be present at the Bali meeting with a delegation led by Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, apostolic nuncio to Indonesia, and composed of Msgr. Andrew Thanya-anan Vissanu, nunciature counsellor in Jakarta, and of three local experts from the Philippines and Indonesia: Fr. Benito B. Tuazon, Fr. Alexius Andang Listya Binawan S.J., and Vera Wenny Setijawati.

"Given that the sessions of the Convention on Climate Change are held once a year in various countries," the communique reads, "the Holy See is usually represented at such meetings with a delegation led by the apostolic nuncio and made up of experts from the area, so as to take advantage of local resources and to achieve a broader and more differentiated vision of the questions being examined."

Meanwhile, "a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment."

While stateside, "A U.S. Senate committee is scheduled for an historic vote on a global warming bill this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday. Environmental groups are planning a flurry of press conferences [today] to try to influence the vote."

Student at Clinton Q&A told to ask about climate change

On the '08 campaign trail, Hillary Clinton staffers have been taking heat for apparently trying to plant questions among audiences in what are intended to be open Q&A sessions.

CNN has an exclusive interview with a Grinnell College sophmore who was approached (and did so) in Iowa.

The planted topic? Clinton's planned response to the effects of global warming and climate change:

Gallo-Chasanoff, whose story was first reported in the campus newspaper, said what happened was really pretty simple: She says a senior Clinton staffer asked if she'd like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.

"I sort of thought about it, and I said 'Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates' energy plans?'" Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night.

"'I don't think that's a good idea," the staffer said, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, "because I don't know how familiar she is with their plans."

He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.

"The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she added. " It said 'college student' in brackets and then the question."

Topping that sheet of paper was the following: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"

You can watch the student describe how she was approached.

'07 shaping up to be record low year for hurricanes

*begin provocative statement*

"Somehow this has to be related to Global Warming."

*end provacative statement*

P.S. Newsbusters takes a look at NBC's presumption that the CA wildfires were caused by global warming. While kowalski tells us to expect "Climate Change" to replace "Global Warming" as the enemy we are fighting against (in the winter months, at least). Meanwhile, Christopher Alleva puts his finger on this tendency to "politicize natural disasters" and why it is so wrong-headed.

More food for thought.

CNS's excellent coverage of the Vatican's seminar on global warming

I'd like to copy the whole article, but I'll restrain myself and just pull about every other quotation, along with my comments in italics. Hopefully this adds some clarification to the discussion. You can read for yourself here.

First, things got somewhat rowdy:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Despite being held in a cool, climate-controlled conference room, some early discussions at a Vatican-sponsored seminar on global warming and climate change got pretty heated.

The rifts and tensions still dividing the global debate on the causes of and remedies for drastic climatic shifts were gently simmering in the small microcosm of the two-day Vatican meeting.

The seminar, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, gathered some 80 experts representing the scientific, political, economic and spiritual sides of the climate-change debate at the Vatican April 26-27 to discuss "Climate Change and Development."

"I have to commend the planners," said Lucia Silecchia, a professor of environmental law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, because "nobody can accuse them of bringing in a group of people who will agree with each other."

Disagreements even spilled out into the corridor during the closed-door seminar's first morning break when a Vatican official had to use his pastoral prowess to calm one participant."

The scientific community has been so divided and so bitter" over the climate-change debate that experts who disagree with each other don't talk to each other, Silecchia told Catholic News Service.

Martino made some good clarifications to reporters (that weren't presented in most MSM reports I read):

Nonetheless, he [Martino] said, the Vatican is cautious about what sort of pronouncements it makes about global warming.

Church leaders are aware scientific findings can sometimes be skewed by special-interest groups or overblown by an audience-hungry media.

This tendency to take ambiguous scientific findings and skew them for gain comprises about 100% of my disagreement with the enviromentalist lobby.

The church does not want to curb sustainable development, especially in impoverished nations, nor does it see population control as a way to conserve dwindling resources. There is a middle ground, many church leaders say, that sees sustainable economic growth, the environment and human development as partners, not enemies.

But when 5 percent of the world's population gobbles up 20 percent of the earth's resources, lifestyle changes are important, said Cardinal Martino and Pope Benedict XVI.

I can agree with all of these points. So often, however, environmentalists propose exactly "curbing sustainable development, especially in impoverished nations" and "population control" (think the United Nations and their horrible-coercive programs) as the solution to limited resources (and I would add "failures in distribution" to the causes of global hunger and poverty).

Silecchia [ professor of environmental law at The Catholic University of America in Washington] said in some ways the environmental movement "has become its own new religion," and this could be offset by a wider recognition of the church's own tradition of God asking people to be stewards of creation.

That's right. The best way to oppose the growth of this "new religion" is to demonstrate how the Christian tradition and Catholic church already provide guidance on issues of economic and ecological responsibility. We have the principles within our tradition and don't need to be frightened by fear mongers.

Australian Bishop Christopher Toohey of Wilcannia-Forbes said the church's message of hope and love of life can offer direction and inspiration, which "is somewhat missing" in the world debate.

"The church is not just another voice telling people to conserve energy and preserve the planet. It has the potential to bring its vast tradition to shed light on a troubled human family," he wrote.

The church can "provide motivation, inspiration, love for life itself and for the earth and all of creation, to genuinely love those things and care for them," he told CNS.

Instead of letting disagreements in the global warming debate continue to stall decisive action, "we have a Christian duty to live simple, responsible lives whether climate change is happening or not," he said.

Amen. Whether climate change is happening or not (I remain unconvinced by those who argue that it is, drastically, and by demonstrable recent human activity), we do need to be good stewards of our property.

As a postscript, this AP coverage seems to have Martino admitting that global warming could actually be beneficial to humanity, or at least acknowledging that many people are of that opinion:

VATICAN CITY: Vatican officials closed a conference on climate change Friday that heard from scientists, ministers and religious leaders about the negative — and sometimes positive — impacts of climate change.

"Not all the scientific world is crying disaster," Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told Vatican Radio at the start of the two-day conference he hosted.

"There are a good number of scientists who consistently don't view these climactic changes in a negative light, and in fact say that these phenomena recur over the course of years and eras and sometimes they can have favorable results for agriculture and development."

That said, some of the invited panelists were of the view that a warming planet is not all bad.

Among them was Craig Idso, chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. The organization publishes the weekly online newsletter CO2 Science, which often reports on what it says are the benefits of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Other invited guests disputed any benefits, saying the increase in global temperatures was dangerous to the Earth and its most vulnerable people. [More...]

Well, I'm happy to see that both sides of the debate were represented at the J&P's conference.

Pope Benedict, climate change & Cardinal Martino.

Reuters ran a story today entitled, "Pope should talk climate change with Bush: cardinal".

I realize this is a sensitive issue with many people, but it's important and I'm interested.

Going on what the article says, Cardinal Martino said that he "believes the Pontiff should raise the dangers of climate change and global warming with U.S. President George W. Bush when the two meet in June."

Admittedly, Martino was careful with his remarks, saying "It's not for me to say what the Pope and President Bush should discuss but certainly they will discuss current issues and therefore I imagine and I hope they will (discuss climate change)," [continuing:] "It certainly merits it."

Martino's council for justice and peace is hosting a conference on "climate change and development" this weekend, which prompted the Reuters story as well as a message from the Pope, in which he said that he hoped studies could lead to "lifestyles and production and consumer methods that aim to respect creation and (aim for) sustainable progress." All very fine and good.

Of course, I'd like to see his full message (and this is the cue for industrious readers to pop me an email or drop a link in the combox!) so I can see whether the Pope actually came out and said anything about "manmade global warming." My understanding is that to this point he has not.

Martino went on to claim that willfull damage to the environment is a sin. Now, I have no problem with this statement, as long as it is specified. Burning down trees needlessly or contaminating drinking water can be wrong, but I've often seen the concept of good stewardship twisted into some sort of moral imperative that we all (to randomly pick an example, but not an extreme one) use halogen lightbulbs or buy electric cars.

And I get especially nervous when Martino says that (according to the Reuters article) "all religious groups should be involved in environmental causes and raise awareness about global warming." I also don't feel comfortable when he makes comments like this:

"We have to start at the level of elementary schools, to make sure children are taught to respect nature and be aware of the problems of the world. We can't wait until they are older. This has to be done naturally in religion classes, in religious groups everywhere," Martino said.

In a perfect world we could educate children about anything and everything. But I think that in practice, especially in elementary school, the lion's share of time in religion class should be spent on, well, God, the Sacraments, the Saints, Virtues, Commandments, and the list goes on for quite awhile. Nevertheless, we'd all count ourselves successful if kids manage to receive even an entry-level formation in those areas.

I'm not saying that Cardinal Martino is suggesting global warming and ecology replace these subjects, but I do think that in elementary education, Cardinal Martino's set of issues are actually far down on the list of objective priorities, especially in religion class.

Let the parents spend their time fighting about global warming and CO2 emissions.

I'm sure this isn't my last post on this topic, so we'll leave it here for now.

Update: From Gabe in the comments:

I think Cardinal Pell's comments on global warming in which he calls global warming "superstition," "nonsense," and "semi-religious" make a lot more sense than Cardinal Martino's comments.

I'm glad I just got finished saying in another post that it is "always well worth listening to Cardinal Pell", because it just came true again. And I knew I had heard someone else credible (and episcopal) describe the enthusiasm of global-warming advocates as being "semi-religious."

Update 2: Zenit has released some partial coverage of the conference here.

[photo: Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters]