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GOP Take on Pope Francis over Climate Change

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by rocketsjudoka, Jun 13, 2015.

  1. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member
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    The GOP challenges Pope Francis regarding Climate Change ahead of a potential encyclical that will urge action on climate change as a moral imperative.

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/13/climate-change-conservatives-catholic-teaching

    Angry US republicans tell Pope Francis to ‘stick with his job and we’ll stick with ours’

    The US right will launch pre-emptive attacks on the pope’s stance on climate change

    Leading figures on the American right are launching a series of pre-emptive attacks on the pope before this week’s encyclical, hoping to prevent a mass conversion of the climate change deniers who have powered the corps of the conservative movement for more than a decade.

    The prospect that the pope, from his perch at the pinnacle of the Catholic church, will exhort humanity to act on climate change as a moral imperative is a direct threat to a core belief of US conservatives. And conservatives – anxious to hang on to their flock – are lashing out.

    “The pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours,” James Inhofe, the granddaddy of climate change deniers in the US Congress and chairman of the Senate environment and public works committee, said last week, after picking up an award at a climate sceptics’ conference.

    Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic and a long-shot contender for the Republican nomination, told a Philadelphia radio station: “The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we’re good at, which is theology and morality.”

    A majority of Republicans in Congress deny the existence of climate change and oppose regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Among the ultra-conservative Tea Party set, climate change scepticism reaches epidemic proportions, about 80% of those on the far right, according to the Pew research centre. Only one of the nearly 20 Republicans running for president will acknowledge the danger of climate change, another long-shot contender, Lindsey Graham.

    The fossil fuel industry, including the American Petroleum Institute lobby group and Peabody Coal, has cast fossil fuels as a route out of poverty in the developing world. Ultra-conservative and climate change denial thinktanks, such as the Heartland Institute, which has been funded by the oil industry, have argued that climate change was the cure for drought and famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s.
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    “In the US for the past 10 years we have allowed climate change to become an ideological political issue instead of being the moral issue that it is,” said the Rev Mitchell Hescox, leader of the Evangelical Environmental Network. “The idea that climate change is a liberal issue has just permeated the thought of those in the conservative movement, and those in the denier campaign have taken advantage of that to continue to drive home the message that climate change is not a moral issue,” added Hescox, who identifies himself as a conservative.

    But it gets much harder to dismiss climate change as a fringe concern of liberals such as Al Gore, and environmental regulations as a sneaky first step to sweeping regulations and a government takeover of private lives, once the pope becomes involved.

    “If I were a Catholic climate denier, I would be worried about the pope,” said Patrick Regan, who teaches the politics of climate change at Notre Dame University. “And if I had a vested interest in not changing climate policy, the pope would be a threat to my political stance.”

    In the case of climate change, conservatives face multiple threats to the world view.

    This week, the pope will cast climate change as the moral cause of our times. Over the summer, Barack Obama will finalise new rules cutting carbon pollution from power plants. In September, the pope will be back to stir up talk of climate change again, in the first ever speech by a pope to Congress – just at a time when hard-core conservatives had hoped to be voting on long-shot legislation to block the power plant rules or cut climate aid to developing countries.

    Meanwhile, Jay Faison, a conservative Christian businessman from North Carolina, last week pledged $175m of his own money to try to get Republicans to face up to the reality of climate change and the American Enterprise Institute, the establishment conservative thinktank in Washington, gave a platform – and respectful hearing – to two Democratic senators launching a bill for a carbon fee.

    The church has made an effort to prepare the ground for the pope, with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting leading Republican and Democratic Catholics in Congress on climate change.

    “I think sceptics have their work cut out for them to overpower the pope’s influence,” said Marc Morano, a climate change denier notorious for a blog that attacks scientists. “The pope being involved in this is a huge coup for promoters of manmade global warming,” he said.

    It also puts conservatives in an uncomfortable spot – not unlike the Reagan era of the 1980s when bishops came out against nuclear weapons. “Conservative politicians will be in a position now of being where many liberals are when it comes to Catholic teaching,” Morano said. “It makes conservative politicians look like they are against Catholic teaching.” Other pontiffs have called for “creation care”, and Francis’s immediate predecessor at the Vatican, Benedict, was seen as the “green pope”. An encyclical raises the prospect of speeches on climate change from the pulpit of more than 17,000 Catholic parishes.

    The discomfort will only increase in September when the pope is due to address the US Congress, said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island, who has made more than 100 speeches about climate change in Congress.

    “Speaker John Boehner is a very proud and sincere Catholic, and I think it can’t not have an effect,” Whitehouse said. “I also think it will change the debate in public because it isn’t just an encyclical that goes up on the Vatican website. Every Catholic school will teach to it. Every Catholic parish will teach to it. Catholic universities will teach to it. It will be a significant force in the community and create very significant ripples.”Those ripples will likely travel well beyond Catholics, who make up about a quarter of the US population. Other conservatives will be influenced by the pope’s message too, said Hescox and they are unlikely to be receptive to the conservatives’ attacks.

    “I think it is very hard to discredit the pope,” he said. “This completely destroys most of their arguments that climate change is not real, that it is funded by a “mass UN conspiracy”, that it is all to do with Al Gore and not to do with people of world.”
     
  2. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member
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    My own commentary is that while that I do think that climate change is being affected by human actions and we should take action on it. I don't think policy decisions in the US should be based by what the Pope says. While I've been impressed by many of the stances that the Pope has taken and welcome him putting his authority behind this issue I still think this argument should be focused on science rather than bringing religion in it. Even if some of those on the denial side have brought religion into it (for example man can not affect the work of God).
     
  3. Bobbythegreat

    Bobbythegreat Member
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    .....okay.

    I'm sure US Democrats would take heed of the Pope's advice if he was against the notion of man made catastrophic climate change rather than saying the exact same thing US Republicans did.

    What I want to know is, what's Carrot Top's take on all of this?
     
  4. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Member
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    Evangelists distrust Catholicism anyway, so politically this isn't risky. The Pope is low hanging fruit, mix in climate change and it's a winner from multiple angles. It reinforces the "globalist elitist secret takeover" narrative they are fond of.

    Back when Catholic JFK ran, Birches and the like tried to push the narrative that JFK was going to be taking direct orders from the Pope about how to run the country, and there were significant numbers who believed it.

    Their natural inclination seems towards purity over inclusiveness, though, and this won't exactly increase appeal in new sectors, like predominately Catholic Hispanic populations. But again, that'snot a change in strategy. Us vs them seems to be their go to play.

    I think if the situations we're reversed, Description wouldn't directly attack the Pope the way they seem to avoid direct attacking him on abortion these days.
     
    #4 Ottomaton, Jun 13, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2015
  5. Dubious

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    It's part of their Hispanic appeal. Got to get those Latino's vote, I know, we'll discredit the Pope, that'll be good.

    Jeb Bush 2016!
     
  6. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Member
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    It's just so stupid that we're still debating climate change. It's way too late to have an impact. Our climate is changing and the tipping point has passed. We need to start thinking about how we will live with the consequences of rising sea levels and a warmer planet now. Cutting Co2 emissions is like putting a bandage on a gun shot wound.
     
  7. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Member

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    A little overblown about the "angry" Republicans, and the GOP has yet to develop or execute a plan against the Pope's letter on climate change - which will be released in several days. I don't know if there is even a strategy. They've got until September to craft something and I'm sure it will be diabolical at worst.
     
  8. Amiga

    Amiga 10 years ago...
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    Politically, I think this is right.
     
  9. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    Or maybe just stop using clerics and minorities as political cudgels.
     
  10. Dubious

    Dubious Member

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    culture is indelible

    It's certainly within the Popes purview to say humans are the stewards of God's Creation. It's an important message for folks with a high reproduction rate.
     
  11. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member
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    Except as the article notes Rick Santorum is Catholic and there are many conservatives who are Catholic too.
     
  12. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Member
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    I cried laughing on this one. Yes, Rick, people should listen to the 98% of scientists, (and closer to 100% when you take out the scientists that are paid by oil companies to produce propaganda) who all say Climate Change is happening at an alarming rate.
     
  13. justtxyank

    justtxyank Member

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    Stupid Sweet Lou!

    We shouldn't trust the church on an issue like Climate Change because they aren't scientists, obviously.

    We shouldn't trust scientists on the issue because they are in it to get rich. (Somehow)

    We should trust Republican politicians because they have no incentive to lie to us about climate change. It doesn't benefit them politically or financially to support the position that climate change is a myth.
     
  14. Dubious

    Dubious Member

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    is it 1984 yet?
     
  15. mc mark

    mc mark Member

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    Pretty sad when the Pope is more progressive than the republican party. Actually it's not sad at all and the reason why the GOP is a dying cause. GOP candidates better tread lightly on this. Catholics take their politics very seriously.
     
    #15 mc mark, Jun 17, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2015
  16. leroy

    leroy Member

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    Because Carrot Top also has a degree in chemistry?
     

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