The Vatican Goes Green, Calls Pollution a Sin

It is clear that the Pope is being swayed by current fashion and this is no sensible place to dock one;s moral compass.

"Green" standards have absolutely no basis in any kind of moral judgment and the belief that a Vatican run on solar power has  a higher moral standing than a Vatican run on natural gas or oil cannot be explained.  The Vatican can spend more money and if it wishes to waste money--is this smart?  I would suggest that it is not smart to waste money and I think this has a good basis.  As for the belief that one should not have "excessive wealth"--this is some kind of joke coming from a palace like the Vatican that owns so much valuable artwork that the liquidation of only 20% of its holdings would represent quite a potential boon for starving children around the world.  The Vatican pays so little in taxes and sits on such a huge pile of what could surely be called "excessive wealth" (although I reject the concept of "excessive")--the demand that other people abandon their wealth is a sure bit of hypocrisy. 

Propoer regard for the environment IS absolutely a moral value.  This has nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels which is as clean as wecan manage right now.  It may be true that in 50 years when we can employ hydrogen or unimagined technologies--burning fossil fuels today is not "disregard for the environment"--rather it is high regard for mankind.  There is no scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels harms the environment and if the Pope is being swayed that there is such evidence he should get out of bit and read the evidence.  But conjecture for the future hardly seems necessary given the fact that we have been burning fossil fuels at a high rate for many, many decades so degradation, if it was real, would be amply evident and it is not.

Pollution is a problem, real environmental problems are a problem.  They may or may not be issues to concern a Pope but what is important is that these problems be real and not fantasies or oddball theories from non-scientists attempting to sway the opinion of the gullible.  "Carbon offsets" are a pure scam and this is not opinion.

Any shul that pushes a green agenda as moral purpose should be condemned.  A shul that seeks ways to cut energy use, on the other hand, should be applauded because it is conserving money that could be used for other things.  

Tamar brings us more news concerning the many ways our culture is degraded.  The Pope cannot figure out whether or not the Church's  role with Hitler was exactly moral but it is damn sure solar panels elevate and point the way to higher truth.  

Truly depressing. 

There is no scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels harms the environment

This is factually inaccurate, David. I've heard the argument that there is no scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels causes global warming, which is also factually inaccurate, but your denial that it creates pollution that brings harm not only to the environment but to human beings is a new one on me.

Proper regard for the environment IS absolutely a moral value.  This
has nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels which is as clean as
we can manage right now.

No, it's not as clean as we can manage right now. The lifestyle of consumption and of waste causes at least the US to use much more than our share of fossil fuels and emit much more than our share of proven-damaging pollution. Besides which you've just contradicted what you said here:
"Green" standards have absolutely no basis in any kind of moral judgment If proper regard for the environment is a moral value, then surely a moral judgment about how we have that proper regard requires some standards?

Look, you can't tell me that belching millions of pounds of stuff that less than a pound of can kill you in a closed room doesn't have any harmful effects, not just on pretty forests and spotted owls, but on the people who have to live where much of it concentrates. Surely Judaism tells us not to harm people? A shul that says care for the environment is a moral issue (which you just said yourself, see above) should be condemned? Someone who condemns such a shul for that reason should be laughed at and ignored. Or do you mean something other than "proper regard for the environment" by "green agenda" and if so can you talk about what that means? Is it any relation to the "homosexual agenda," which I'm still looking for?

This is not to say I'm thrilled about the Vatican's move, either. If the morality of the Vatican were actually based on harm, I would say that the Pope is right on on this one. But actually it rarely has anything to do with harm and often creates more harm than it prevents. (Hitler certainly being one example; thank you, David. Another: Condoms anyone?)

Yes, Cavanaugh--you are correct and I typed too quickly--I did say that the burning of fossil fuels can cause pollution--I did not mean to say that such burning "does not harm the environment." This was a mistake and I apologize.

The point that we could switch is a cost benefit analysis and not a moral argument. By that standard, we will always be morally incorrect. Burning clean no- lead gasoline may be a net environmental problem but it is a big boost for mankind. Gasoline is a lot better than burning coal. When technology offers better solutions we will go from clean to even cleaner. This will not make us more moral--only more advanced technologically.

When the Pope is speaking--is he speaking about India and China and the much more dirty developing world or is he speaking about the clean Americans?

Gasoline is less dirty than coal, I agree, but that doesn't make it clean. I take your point that if there is no alternative available, then using what's available is not immoral. However, I think it's immoral to refuse to reduce the use of harmful things that we can reduce the use of, and to refuse to use cleaner technologies that are available to us for what they work for, and our leaders refusal to support development of cleaner technologies. It's not okay with me to be passive and just await the miracle of science unfolding. Technology develops because humans decide to push forward investigating a particular thing, and what drives that is almost always profit, at this point; it isn't a passive process, nor is it free of the effects of greed and power-hunger.

As far as whom the Pope is addressing, do you mean the clean US that produces 6,049,435
metric  tons of CO2 emissions annually to China's 5,010,170
and India's 1,342,962? China topped us just this year for the first time, but just like petroleum (because coal is also a fossil fuel) being marginally better than coal does not make it a clean fuel, China's emissions growing faster than the US' does not make the US a clean country. Our emissions are still growing by about 13% a year. Why am I using CO2? Regardless of CO2's greenhouse effects, it's a good index for our other emissions, and the statistics are easier to manage than a breakdown of every major chemical component of concern.

 Not to mention the fact that a significant amount of pollution is produced in China from the US sending garbage there to be burned because it's illegal to do it here.

Our leaders have nothing at stake in refusing to accept cleaner technologies and yes, profit is important as a market force.  Profit is beautiful.  No one is passive in this process.  I have no problem with gasoline as a fuel source--my biggest problem is that we are not drilling for more of it and reducing the price dramatically so everyone will benefit.  Gas will be replaced by our market-based system when alternatives develop--the process is fine.

But you obviously have a grave misconception that is shared by the Pope and others concerning Co2 emissions and CO2 is not a "pollutant."  Pollution is a problem.  Co2 emissions are another matter. 

Here is a quick entry from an authoritative  source :

 CO2 is neither an “ambient” air pollutant like NOX and SO2,
nor a “hazardous” air pollutant like mercury. It does not foul the air,
impair visibility, contribute to respiratory disease, or bio-accumulate
as a toxin in fish. Putting CO2 in
the same regulatory pot with noxious substances makes for an arbitrary
hodge-podge, not an “integrated” strategy. However, mixing up climate
policy with pollution control is shrewd politics. Any stand-alone CO2 bill would be instantly tagged as a Son-of-Kyoto ploy and shunned by most members of Congress.

As air quality management, “4-Pollutant” bills are horrendously wasteful.

· It costs billions more to reduce air pollution as a “co-benefit” of CO2 reductions
than to control air pollution directly. An Energy Information
Administration (EIA) study makes this clear. Reducing NOX and SO2 emissions 75 percent below 1997 levels by 2005 would cost $6 billion. Reducing CO2 emissions
7 percent below 1990 levels by 2005 would cost $77 billion. If the
three requirements are “integrated,” the total cost is $77 billion – $5
billion less than the sum of their separate costs. That $5 billion
“savings” is due to the “co-benefits” of “integration” – the fact that
CO2 reductions entail ancillary NOX and SO2 reductions,
and vice versa. But, if your goal is cleaner air, then you haven’t
saved any money at all. Rather, you have spent $77 billion to achieve
$6 billion worth of SO2 and NOX reductions. In other words, you have wasted $71 billion.

 Al Gore's EPA could never suggest that Co2 is a pollutant--it is the single most important life-enhancing element on this earth.  Only a court and the political process could come up with this kind of off-the wall suggestion.  It is absurd on its face.  Almost all co2 is a natural product and the by product of life itself.

You emit carbon dioxide everytime you breath, so unless you are holding your breath, you are sinning.

"Natural" is misleading here; asbestos is natural, but you still don't want to rub it all over yourself. CO2 is natural, and if you have too much of it in your body you will die. (That's why we exhale it, Anonymous.) CO2 in the environment, locked up in the earth and in plant life, is natural; too much CO2 in the atmosphere will kill us. What's immoral is continuing reckless behavior that throws this cycle out of balance, increases free CO2 far beyond the ability of the remaining plant life to take it back up again, and endangers the future of life. This is obvious to anyone who's ever learned about the carbon cycle. "Authoritative sources" using Sophism to make you think otherwise are either themselves ignorant of science or are immorally lying to you.

I regret that this is such a scientific debate.  The facts against global warming hysteria is very strong and the fact remains that we simply have no evidence of anything happening yet.  All the fear mongering has netted us so little.  I tell all the mavens who claim that the disaster is always 10 years away--at long last--let's pencil in 2015-2020 and let's see what has happened.

 More nothing. 

If I see a bus coming your way while you stand in the street, but can't prove whether it will hit you in a second or a second and a half, I promise not to stop and take more measurements before yelling a warning.

no one single person is capable of throwing the carbon cycle out of balance, so no one single person can be held responsible for polluting the environment.  So no one single person can commit the sin of polluting.  It's called tragedy of the commons. 

Cavanaugh, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming_Wager

your example rests on a false assumption, which is that there is no cost associated with trying avoid the bus.  A more accurate example is that there is a bus coming your way, and the only way for you to avoid it is to jump off a cliff and risk breaking your limbs, should you do it.  

Cavanaugh, please consider why the public at large and most informed Americans find no reason to fall for the chicken little warnings of the global warming disaster crowd.  Believe me, if this was a realistic fear, I am one to buy insurance and not mess around with realistic chances of catastrophe.

I don't buy it because I pay attention to the science.  I have followed this subject closely for about 15 years and I know all the personalities on both sides well and the evidence.   It is reasonable to conclude that there is no realistic chance that catastrophe is coming and you hold basic "truths" about the reality which are false.

It is a truly dangerous world.  With Islam blowing up the peace of the world in dozens of ways, with radical groups taking airplanes as weapons and crashing them into buildings and bringing our nation into near panic and economic turmoil--we surely need no evidence to understand that this is a threat.  But the Left is trying to suggest that this is an over-rated threat or not a threat at all and the REAL threat is planetary catastrophic warming.  This is a tragic scenario in which we can doom our country by abandoning  a fight against a real threat and embarking upon preventing a phony one.

If you look at the science, you will see clearly that worrying over a catastrophic planetary climate event  is not worth the worry.  It is a good idea to look at reducing oil purchased from our enemies and producing it ourselves.  It is a good idea to save money.  But morality remains a matter that rules the affairs between men and between man and the Almighty.  It is surely not a matter of morality concerning whether or not one recycles the most worthless thing on this planet--newspapers.  The dangers are therefore clear.  We are not only at risk  abandoning a fight that represents a real threat, not only we risk embarking on a worthless campaign to save a planet which would do just as well without the effort--we also risk re-writing our cultural understanding of morality under a green equation which has nothing to do with genuine morality.

The stakes are high.  Choose life.