Much of what we face as opposition by the Anti-Catholic groups in our nation and in Western Europe is based upon Junk Science. Is this an appropriate topic here? Has the Church said anything officially about this? I'm talking about abortion as a choice; the false claims of global warming; the false claims of over population; etc., etc. The HHS mandate is part of this as well.

What is the junk science around global climate change?

It is virtually all junk. If you have been keeping up 30,000 scientists are filing a class action law suit against Al Gore and his friends. Global Warming is not as extensive as once taught and it has no proven correlation with anything man does.

While I can well believe that climate change is a natural process, I have no problem with people making it an issue du jour if it means making us ask questions about our own consumption of resources and the things we burn.

Having said that, I think your suggestion that 'it has no proven correlation with anything man does' is probably an exaggeration as well.

Climate changes all the time--that's why it's climate. The climate on the moon does not change, which is why it has no climate. The real question you are asking is whether anthropomorphic climate change is true, to which the answer increasingly appears to be probably not, but if so, very marginal indeed. Even the IPCC doesn't stand by the claims it was making just four years ago. But, assuming that "global warming" (to give this scare its original name, until it became apparent that the world wasn't warming after all) is true, it's certainly junk science to try to counteract it by rolling back man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Even the IPCC admitted that, if its (impossible to achieve) goals were met, it would only reduce the projected temperature (now proven to be bogus) by a fraction of a degree--not much of a result for pushing the entire world into poverty. But, hey, think of the polar bears (who, by the way, seem to be more numerous than ever--not bad for an "endangered" species).

Quite so, Stuart. I'm not sure why anyone would believe this nonsense any longer.

Insofar as I am no economist, but rather have to develop an understanding based on my discernment of others' expertise, I am wary of polemics.

I have no problem with your assessment of climate change, Stuart; I would find the reticence to acknowledge any human contribution to it easier to accept, though, if it wasn't concomitant with statements that seem so excessive.

Your outline of the issue of overpopulation some time ago was helpful. Can you - or anyone here - speak with clarity and with (at least some) authority on a more appropriate response to the climate change issue than asinine targets and knee-jerk reactions?

You don't need to agree about the motives behind or the results to come from any of this. The point is that the people who propose to enforce major change on all the rest of us have shown themselves to be overwhelmingly ignorant and repeatedly wrong about the whole matter.

From the "ice age" scares of the 70's, to the recent retreat from speaking of "global warming" (after it became clear that there was, in fact, no warming) to the complete failure of the IPCC reports to predict anything with accuracy, these guys just don't know what they're talking about.

I don't know why anybody would listen to them.

Ditto.

Yeah, put more crap into the air. Oh and drill baby, drill. Stir up the shale with impunity. Big Tobacco "scientists" for years just could not see, would not trust findings that tobacco + the cardiopulmonary system make for wheezebags and worse. Do you think it is only liberals who know how to bend a statistic to conform to their political bias?

Do you think only conservatives smoked?

It's all junk science that defends man made global warming. Climate change has occurred for as long as there has been a solar system. Thirty thousand scientists can't all be wrong, can they?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ

Carson, the matter isn't about who smoked. The point is about scientists and, in view of the myriad methodological flaws that can come to pollute research, the willful or inadvertent nulling of the null hypothesis.

The bankrupt left-right spectrum has little useful place in Christian discourse.

Sure they can, at least until more cogent research is provided by the other thirty thousand scientists who beg to differ. The point is, dismissing an estimable scientific segment as promoting global warming to be probable as "junk science" is not, in any respect, the definitive word on the matter; in this regard it's simply the side you want to be on, your own bias. Hot button issues like this get politicized and become divisive. It ain't small dry stuff like finding out that neutrinos actually are not faster than the speed of light. "Junk science", though: that damning phrase seems better applied to crystals and copper bracelets.

I don't mean this impolitely, but I have no idea what you are talking about. As an aside, there have been plenty of ruminations on topics on this forum that I scratch my head over, wondering why they have any "useful place in Christian discourse."

I honestly don't know if we should be concerned about "global warming." Perhaps our recorded meteorological "history" is flawed because it was recorded during the world's "cool" period and we are now returning closer to "normal." This I know, if the continental trend continues I can plant my tomato plants in mid-May instead of late May.

What puzzles me about the alarmists is why they aren't screaming for coastal zoning to prohibit any constructiio on the future flood zones, i.e., all the coastal regions. They can't even impose it in New Orleans where there has been actual catastrophic damage. To me they are being stupid in the least; even hypocrites and they deserve no respect.

I want to address Carson's point further but will wait for the global warming discussion to cool.

Here's a fun read which will demonstrate the truth of the global warming alarmists to all who are disingenuous.

http://www.infowars.com/climate-alarmist-calls-for-burning-down-skeptics-homes/

I mean that neither side of the liberal-conservative spectrum has a monopoly on error, or evil, or stupidity, and appealing to either as a source of guidance is a mistake.

Serious and thoughtful people who are paying attention need not even consider the sins of either side of the political spectrum in order to determine that the primary proponents of fighting climate change are, charitably, hysterical fools.

I very much agree with JDC. I'm shocked that the Church, apparently, has said nothing about this scam.

Especially in light of the solutions that global warmists have proposed, including mandatory contraception, a universal one child policy, energy policies that would condemn most people in the third world to perpetual poverty, as well as their general attitude towards mankind as a plague upon the planet to be obliterated.

Oftentimes, it is such tributary issues as you identify, Stuart, that expose the darker, even diabolical side, of the original issue.

I still won't be trading in my bicycle for an SUV, though. I feel far too happily smug riding past the mile-long queues of mums taking their children the half-mile to school every morning in Range Rovers that have never seen a speck of dirt.

@Carson:

I suppose it depends on what you define as the Church saying something about the issues you originally raised. Philip Sherrard (not perfectly) tries to draw on patristic wisdom in addressing ecological questions, for example, in his 'Rape of Man and Nature'.

I mean that neither side of the liberal-conservative spectrum has a monopoly on error, or evil, or stupidity, and appealing to either as a source of guidance is a mistake.

Serious and thoughtful people who are paying attention need not even consider the sins of either side of the political spectrum in order to determine that the primary proponents of fighting climate change are, charitably, hysterical fools. [/quote]

Oh really? "Serious and thoughtful people," with a modicum of an attention span (?!) should easily dismiss the proponents of climate change as obvious buffoons huh? On what charitable basis, hmmm? You don't have to be a research scientist in this field to at least allow...to even presume...that scientists who are proponents of climate change, and apparently there are very many, did not get their scientific chops from , or are affiliated with, dubious institutions of higher learning. What are you saying.. that.they be talking whack stuff because they're obviously pseudo scientists who've received their credentials from learned schools of applied pataphysics and balloon animal husbandry?
I am not a climate change scientist. Are you? Is there anyone who is who is contributing to this debate? Are there any research scientists whatsover contributing to this thread. So, what is informing the dismissive hubris of this thread?
Maybe it really has nothing to do with science at all.

If Paul has an answer to my initial question I'm way past ready to read it. I'm well past discussing whether or not man-made global warming has any basis is fact. It does not. What I'd like to know is this: "Has the Church spoken about such junk science?"

The Church is not well positioned to speak on the issue of science per se; churchmen are not, as a rule, scientists, just as scientists, per se, are not theologians. Each functions in his particular realm and should respect the competency of the other. But the Church is well positioned to speak on the subject of truth and integrity, and the necessity of dealing honestly with each other in both the private and public spheres.

Moreover, the Church does have a moral obligation to speak out about the unique status of man in God's plan of creation, and against any and all schemes that place man in a subordinate position to nature, and above all, to those ideologies that would tolerate the abolition of man, or the condemnation of the vast mass of humanity, to abject poverty, suffering and death, for the sake of restoring some sort of pristine earth.

This sort of "Gaiaism" is nothing less than an idolatrous faith, a kind of pantheism in which all the material world--except mankind--is sacred and deserving of preservation. Man, and man alone, is held responsible for any and all perceived evils committed against Gaia, for which the only acceptable form of atonement is death.

Either you're being ironic or you haven't really been paying attention. At least you have read my remarks carelessly, reaching conclusions about my meaning, quite unsupported by the words I used. I say "charitably" because it's the best I can conclude about folks who propose, for instance, a one child policy on the basis of perfectly incorrect predictions.

I agree completely.

I well agree. The problem is that there has been so little positive commentary on the appropriate relationship between Man as the pinnacle of creation and the rest of the created order. As a result, Christians seem to fall into one of two extreme groups: those who oppose the environmental lobby for its disordered understanding of Man, and those who fall in line with it out of a well-intentioned desire to 'do right' by the rest of creation.

It behoves Orthodox and Catholics alike to resist the polemical and offer a considered, theological iteration of creation.

Not that I am an uncritical reader of Sherrard, but I mention his work a second time as it got either buried or ignored above:

The Rape of Man and Nature
An Enquiry into the Origins and Consequences of Modern Science

and

Human Image: World Image
The Death and Resurrection of Dacred Cosmology

The unfortunate thing is those who write against modern society and its technology do not realize that only modern society and its technology free man to be at all concerned about the environment. And, in fact, the environment today, in the United States, Western Europe and most of the rest of the developed world, is in far better condition than it was one hundred or two hundred years ago. The United States, for instance, is more forested today than it was in 1492, because we, unlike the Indians, do not engage in slash-and-burn agriculture. The wild heaths of Scotland were, up to the early Middle Ages, covered by the Great Caledonian Forest; all those trees, and most of the trees of the great forests that covered England, were sacrifices for timber and for firewood. By the early 19th century, a great energy crisis loomed as the wood was giving out--but James Watt gave us the steam engine, which allowed the mining of deep seams of coal.

Electrification has been perhaps the greatest boon to mankind and the environment alike, because it allows us to use less of the earth's surface to sustain our population. Today, the worst polluters of water and air are in the Third World (I include China), where wood and dung are burned on open hearths for heat and cooking, where modern sewers and water purification systems are unknown, and the burning of trees is the leading cause of desertification. Electrification--using coal-burning power plants--would rapidly lift the bottom billion out of squalor while resulting in a net improvement of the environment. And, as these people begin to prosper, and no longer need be concerned with the fundamentals of survival, they will--just as people in the West have--begin to think about the environment, because environmentalism is a rich man's hobby (and, yes, you are rich as compared to most of the people in the world).

Those, particularly a certain type of Christian, who think that the problems of the environment can be solved by turning our backs on our present economic system and modern technology, while at the same time also returning to the Biblical imperative of "be fruitful and multiply" want to have their cake and eat it, too. You must choose: if you want people to have children in abundance, you must accept modern agriculture and technology to support the population; if you don't people will either not have children, or they will have children who will live and die like flies.

The earth has been hotter than it is today; it has been colder than it is today. The temperature of the earth has been swinging dramatically for tens of thousands of years, since long before man was a factor on this planet. To believe that human activity can significantly affect the climate of the earth one way or the other is an exercise in hubris, which is why it attracts secularists so easily: man, being the center of all things, can do anything. If climate is changing, man made it so, and man can change it back. That's folly, and Christians should eschew it.

This may help Slavophile.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012...qulsiM.facebook

This looks like a very good seminar. http://climateconference.heartland.org/

I don't support abortion, I don't support a one child rule, and I don't see anything in the nature of serious scientific research in the matter which presumes that these consequences are hidden agendas. Again, talk about the merits of the rigors of methodologies used in global warming research, pro or con, without politicization, and stop throwing in forgone conclusions,
Paying attention: you start your thread with a disparging view positing "junk science' Like I said, this thread doesn't seem to be about science per se. in the main.

That's because "junk science" ain't science--it's politics masquerading as science. And, if you have not been listening to what the advocates of global warming have been proposing as "solutions" to the "problem", please do not blame me.

If some stuffy professors want to publish papers that say "it's getting hot in here and you're to blame" I won't protest.

But if you think that's what's happened, again I say, you're not paying attention.

But you've hit on it: it isn't about science.

You are right. It isn't about science at all. It's about political leanings and the desire of men to rule over others. More specifically, it's about the right wing Capitalist military industrial complex fearing the loss of even one dollar of profits, and the left wing, abortionist, government should run everything crowd desiring to tear down free enterprise and replace it with Socialism.

Somehow, the Christian faith gets lost in both of these positions.

I find it amusing to see folks defend the anti-climate change idea from "science" when all the think tanks that "debunk" climate change are heavily funded by Exxon Mobil.

Methinks I smell a rat in the woodwork. I would be a lot more likely to believe the "scientific climage change debunking" if they didn't have their hands held open, palms up behind them, receiving massive funding from oil companies!!

I also find it strange that people on the conservative right don't realize something about their "records" and record keeping. The world has only seen the Industrial Revolution for about 120 or so years. Anything prior to this is based on limited pollution and putting of toxins into the atmosphere. Nothing like what we are doing today. The earth is a closed system. Yet every year we are pumping more and more chemicals into the system. While the system is self-cleaning, how come people don't stop to consider that there may just be such a thing as overwhelming it beyond its capacity to self-regulate and correct?

Quite frankly, I find Catholics who listen to and drool over the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who is an unashamed proponent of Capitalism and the evils that go with it, as well as Catholics who listen to and drool over left wing rantings, to be acting against their own best interest as spiritual beings and Christians.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I am smart enough to know that A.) you can't pump a continuous stream of toxins into a closed system without that system responding in a negative way B.) this whole thing is agenda driven from the left and right C.) both sides are quite capable of (and have in the past) lying to get what they want. They don't care about the consequences, only about either protecting Big Oil and Capitalism, or promoting Socialism and a One World Government.

And in the end, we will all wind up suffering as the truth goes unfound and uncared for by those with an agenda to fill.

Oh, please. Let's drop the cliches. They are no substitute for reasoned discourse.

You would do us a great favor if you could prove this. It would also be helpful if you could demonstrate that I or anyone else on this forum were drooling over Rush Limbaugh. You don't seem to have much faith in your brothers here.

Quite disappointing.

BTW I was wondering if you think the Weather Channel is controlled by or even supported by Exxon Mobile? TS Eliot tried to get us to as much as possible judge literature on the basis of integrity and truth and not upon the biographies of the persons who wrote the literature. It's a transferable principle. Even if it could be demonstrated that Exxon-Mobile owned the many scientists who have the courage to challenge this nonsense you still would not have demonstrated that their challenge was unworthy or based upon falsehoods.

Irish, You kind of jumped the shark when you got to Exxon. The first paragraph I like. I never minded a good cliche.

I think St. Albert the Great would approve of what Tennessee lawmakers did here:

http://junkscience.com/2012/04/26/willia...science-result/

ooo,ooo,ooo, another good article. I like the comments as well.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/26/global-warming-half-politics-half-religion/#.T5kwr2G38sY.facebook

The problem with Junk Science is that it is part of the Evangelical wing of the new religion of Secularism financed by what is called "Statism". As such opposing it is a serious religious matter. I continue my search to discover what if anything the Church has officially said about it.

Carson --

Get to your keyboard and do some research. Read Common Dreams to get some balance. Listen to some left wingers, even if you don't agree with their abortionist and homosexual loving views (which, as a good Catholic, I don't either).

Right winger politicos are terrible liars. They play us Christians by constantly claiming they are "pro-life" and when they get elected, they do NOTHING to attack Roe v. Wade. We are being used by them.

Here. I did your work for you:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/maps.php

Click on the tab that says "Skip Intro" and it will take you to the maps that show the connections. If you don't think this is a country that is by the rich, of the rich, and for the rich, my brother, you are living in la la land.

A Catholic should not have 100% allegiance to either side of the political aisle. Neither party represents our Catholic thinking or interests. It is beyond time that Catholics realize this and start a Catholic political party. Somewhere we can go and really vote our conscience instead of holding our noses when we pull the voting lever.

Not a cliche. We are a country of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. Willful ignorance of these facts as demonstrated by history, both past and current, does not change these facts. The most recent obvious example is the 2008 economic meltdown. Perhaps you would like to give me another explanation of why the criminals on Wall Street who made this happen are still walking around free and getting bonuses.

Dwight D. Eisehhower warned this country about the military/industrial complex in his speech when he left the White House. Was he using cliches also?

The minute I saw Ronald Reagan's face on the page my brain shut down.

It was buncombe then and it's buncombe now. I know. I crunch the numbers--it's why they pay me. Do you know the size of the defense budget as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product was under good old Ike? It averaged 12% over his two terms, during a time when we were not fighting any major wars. Under the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s, defense spending accounted for only 7% of GDP. And, while defense spending slumped to only 3.6% of GDP under Clinton, it rose to only 5.5% of GDP in 2008, at the height of the war in Iraq (combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan accounted for just 1% of GDP per annum from 2003-2011).

Defense under Eisenhower accounted for close to half of total U.S. Federal expenditures. Today, defense accounts for about 18% of Federal expenditures. On the other hand, Social Securty, Medicare, Welfare and interest on the debt now account for more than 50% of all Federal expenditures, and 100% of all Federal revenues.

It's also important to remember that, under Eisenhower, we had a conscript military, manned mainly by draftees making minimum wage. Today, we have a professional, volunteer military force and must provide them with competitive wages and benefits (which I consider barely adequate, considering what our soldiers, sailers, airmen and marines do). Military Personnel (MILPERS) costs, which include pensions (all other government workers pensions are paid out of a general fund, not out of agency budgets), amount to roughly 26.5% of the defense budget. Operations and Maintenance (O&M)--the money to pay for fuel, food, training, spare parts and equipment overhaul--accounts for about 30%. The remaining 43% is mostly split between Procurement (PROC)--money spent to buy new equipment--and Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation (RDT&E)--money spent to develop the next generation of equipment. At present, PROC accounts for about 25% of the defense budget, while RDT&E accounts for about 18%.

Since I assume you want the troops to be paid, for veterans to receive their pensions, and for military families to receive health care, you can't cut much from MILPERS. And I also assume that you want our troops to be well trained, their equipment to be well maintained, and for them to have adequate stockpiles of fuel, ammunition and spare parts, so there isn't much you can cut from O&M. So, that leaves Procurement and RDT&E. But, together, these amount only to about $258 billion. Sure, there are some programs that can and ought to be eliminated, others that can be stretched out over time, but, overall, we have not invested much in new equipment since the 1980s--all our tanks, armored vehicles, aircraft, ships were designed in the 1970s and 80s, and procured in the 1980s and 90s. Like cars, these things don't last forever. So, again, what are you going to cut? Are you saying that a country with the size and wealth of the United States cannot afford to pay out 4% of its Gross Domestic Product on its own defense--which, I might remind you, is an enumerated power, something that the Federal Government is authorized to do, and which only it can do.

As for the industrial side of the military industrial complex, how many defense companies can be found in the top 100 companies in the U.S.? Answer: none. In fact, the combined defense revenues of the Big Six defense companies (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Inc., Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics) is less than $200 billion, or less than half the annual revenues of WalMart ($422 billion). Walmart was also a lot more profitable than any defense company, with a profit margin of 24%, as compared to average profits of about 10% for the defense industry.

The entire defense industry in the United States--at all levels, prime contractor and subcontractor, manufacturing and services combined, has revenues of only some $475 billion, in an economy of some $14 trillion. So, defense companies account for only 3.6% of the total GDP of the United States--that's hardly a dominant position, or one from which the defense industry can extort or bribe additional funding from the government. If defense is so powerful, why isn't it making more money?

People who speak of our "outrageous" defense expenditures usually have no idea how much we spend on defense, as compared to what we spend, say, on feminine hygiene products or snack food or video games. They also have very little conception of the benefits, both direct and indirect, that the U.S. military provide not only for our country, but for the world.

Try to remember when there is a tsunami in Indonesia or a hurricane in Haiti, or an earthquake in Turkey, and relief supplies are piling up in warehouses around the world because all the airports, seaports and roads are blocked or destroyed, that it was the U.S. military which actually delivered the goods, repaired the infrastructure, treated the injured, fed the starving. That never shows up in our "humanitarian assistance" budget, but it's just as--if not--more valuable than a bag of rice purchased by the Swedish government that cannot be delivered where it is needed.

We, and the world, also benefit from the stability that the U.S. military brings to the world. If you think the world is a bad place because the U.S. military is so active, try to imagine a world where it isn't.

But, in the meanwhile, maybe it would be better to get informed before spouting bromides about complex topics of which one knows little.

If you think any country exists today that is not for the rich you live in La La Land.

I know it is totally off-topic, but in light of what StuartK just said about the American military and what it does, I thought that, if none of you had heard this radio editorial (as uploaded to YouTube, of course!), you would find it well worth it.

The context of the commentator's words is explained at the beginning of the 4 1/2 minute clip, but the words themselves remain relevant.

My opinion is that the Federal government should be cut to about 25% of its present size and should be limited to defense and coinage. The Church should take care of the rest. For that matter let the rich pay for all wars. I find Neil's ideas stuck in a Socialist dream and I find the state control most of our lives to be repulsive. That should take care of it.

Irish

The premise of the website is faulty. If you start with the premise that global warming is man made and you do not bother to prove it then everything follows. This premise has not been proven. In fact it has been dis proven. It is a political starting point. The vilification and demonization of our scientist and corporations follow.

God bless you, Slavophile.

Glad you liked it. That editorial deserves to be heard.

I can pretty much see now that if Dorothy Day happened onto this website and made statements, she would also be accused of being a "Socialist" or anything else other than a faithful Catholic who took the words of Jesus seriously.

Honestly, guys, just how much armament do we need before we say "enough?" I think we have the capacity to blow the world up about 10 times over with all our weapons and yet we are still insecure?

Is there something wrong with limiting our military to a defense model instead of constantly using it to invade nations? Is there something wrong with responding to an actual beligerance rather than bombing someone because we "think" they might do something nasty to us?

I agree with your assessment of the federal government, Carson. Military and money. That's all they should do, and those things should be tightly regulated.

I think this is all an exercise in futility to talk about these things. I see our country as a train running downhill without brakes and loaded with dynamite. No one is interested in stopping it. Right and left wings both have their agenda and they could care less about the destruction of this country as long as they get what they want.

My hope is that after the crash, the Catholics of this country, what's left of it, will unite and form a Catholic monarchy loyal to the Holy Father and the magisterium and run the country as a Theocratic Monarachy. Couldn't be any worse than the 200+ years of "democracy" we've had.

Irish we agree with the results needed. I don't know why you wish to label opponents. The point of this thread is about Junk Science and whether or not the Church has said anything specifically about it. I'm still surprised that we have no direct guidance on this from the Church. Still, I'd love to see a Catholic Monarchy.

I'd rather the Church not chime in and stick to the Gospel. The last time it said Galileo was practicing junk science, and that didn't go well.

Even as stewards of God's creation, we can do better.

As for Catholic Monarchies, I feel that experiment has been attempted as well, no?

I don't think you understand the issues there. The controversy had nothing to do with science. Copernicus, a faithful Catholic, had already said most of what Galileo did.

Again, you don't understand history. You should do more reading.

The controversy was heliocentrism. The Church rejected assertion of it and tolerated conjecture of it.

Yes I do. You should.

This is a productive exchange.

If you really only accept the secular reports that blame the Church and ignore the real history of Catholic Monarchy then I don't know what I'm supposed to do. If you are open minded enough to discuss the real history of Catholic Monarchism I'm open to that.

Galileo insisted that the Church and her scriptures were wrong. He would not stop claiming that so the Church cut off his head...O wait. They didn't do that at all.

You destroyed that strawman very effectively.

Here's a basketball guy who understands History. After the Clippers amazing win in game 1 their GM observed: “I’ve watched too many times where a front office brings in its own players, and the coaches aren’t on board and you end up with a separation of church and state,” Olshey said. “This was always our team.”

Seems like a sound insight to me.

It appears that the Pontifical Academy of Science agrees with man made global warming. I guess I must reevaluate either my common sense or my faith in the Church.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011...for-our-era.ars

If one is concerned about the environment....plant a tree.

If one is concerned about hunger, plant an apple tree.


Simple science, simple theology. We need not spend billions of dollars and an extreme amount of resources unnecessarily.

If you want to make an additional statement, join the Arbor Day Society.

I agree with Paul.