Renowned climatologist Pope Francis is back with a totally science-backed riff on “climate change.” While it was typical Francis babble about man-caused (anthropogenic) climate change, it was made newsworthy by noted Canadian philosopher and author Jordan Peterson who promptly suggested His Holiness should stick to poping.
In comments made to CBS Evening News host Norah O’Donnell, aired on April 24, the 87-year-old Pontiff decried people he described as “deniers of climate change.” Oh, and Francis also judged such people as “foolish.”
There are people who are foolish, and foolish even if you show them research, they don’t believe it. Why? Because they don’t understand the situation or because of their interest, but climate change exists.
Welp, okie dokie, Your Holiness — except no, which we’ll get to.
CBS noted that Francis’s brief climate comments will be expanded in a longer “60 Minutes” episode on May 19, followed by an hour-long program on May 20. Cool; I can’t wait to not watch.
In contrast to Francis’s declaration, Dr. John Clauser – the Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 2022 alongside two other scientists for his work in the field of quantum mechanics – has argued that “misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience.”
I’m in. Tell me more, Dr. Clauser.
The pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.
Al “Polar Ice” Gore and John “Existential Threat to Mankind” Kerry were unavailable for comment.
Here’s more about Francis’s dabbling (meddling) in the climate-change debate:
Pope Francis has indeed made the talking point of “climate change” a central one in his 11-year pontificate along with the promotion of an “ecological spirituality.”
His 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si’ has become the reference text for numerous Vatican and papal initiatives focused on the so-called “green” agenda. In it, Francis speaks about a “true ecological approach” which listens to “both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”
The document has given rise to the Laudato Si’ Movement, which aims to “turn Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’ into action for climate and ecological justice,” as the mass divestment from “fossil fuels” is inspired by the Pontiff’s environmental writings.
Last October 4, Francis published a second part to Laudato Si’ in the form of Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum, in which he issued stark calls for “obligatory” measures across the globe to address the issue of “climate change.”
“It is no longer possible to doubt the human – ‘anthropic’ – origin of climate change,” wrote the Pontiff, before later calling for mandatory alignment with “green” policies:
If there is sincere interest in making COP28 a historic event that honors and ennobles us as human beings, then one can only hope for binding forms of energy transition that meet three conditions: that they be efficient, obligatory and readily monitored.
While climate hustlers Gore and Kerry weren’t available, someone who was very much available was Jordan Peterson, who offered a few suggestions to Francis — in classic Peterson fashion — saying the Pope “seems to be about [climate change] constantly when [he] should be saving souls.”
Peterson continued, referencing “Gaia,” the pagan name for Mother Earth:
That’s how you save the planet, not by worshiping Gaia. I don’t see for the life of me what the Catholic Church has to do with the ‘climate crisis. Just the formulation is wrong; the priority is wrong; you save the world one person at a time.
I’m neither a pope nor a philosopher, but it seems to me that Peterson was right: Stick to poping, Francis. Save the flock — and let climate experts like Al Gore and John Kerry save the planet.
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