Personally, I would like to see practical ways of acually reducing fossil fuel demands but this is much harder for the church, except in their own properties, and easier for governments.
The environmentalists have faced stiff resistance in my life time not because anyone likes coal or oil, but because there were no alternatives. It isn't like the Catholics have ever had a point of doctrine like "and yea, your electricity shall only be sourced from fuels that are greater than 60% carbon by mass, for the atomic number 6 is especially holy!". They already have a longer term time horizon than most nations.
Being a good steward of nature is and has been a very important part of Catholic doctrine for a very long time.
I view religion as a large corporation, they have finally realized the long term impact of CC will be bad for business. Just like corporate BODs they are increasingly asking management to put forth a climate strategy. And investment firms that are moving their portfolio away from fossil fuel, it’s just modern corporate policy to have a stance that protects shareholder value in the long term. But really it’s just something to point to when asked “what are you doing about the climate?”
A bit of a rant there, but to reiterate, I don’t see how this influences action in a meaningful way. I’m glad they are doing it, it’s better than not.
Maybe the ideological match is that this pope seems very fond of the idea that every human is equal, to the point one should not be measured by how much they work or how peaceful they are. And therefore, countries which have already implemented good things for climate change such as regulating their population and reaching lower density, should not, according to this pope, benefit from any permit to collectively consume as much as a dense country, which means that grossly overpopulated countries must not perform larger efforts than the West, and which also means that the country who grossly overpopulates itself is still bound to win the power balance. The West man holds, in this pope’s ideology, a very sour place anyway, he is practically the epitome of the current progressist ideology.
If the former, I would say the Western man holds a pretty powerful place in this Pope's ideology.
Which, you know, we’re seeing that on the 3 main topics of our lives currently (feminism, racism and covid), so it’s not like it never happened.
In the last 15 or so years I have read hundreds (probably well over 1000) science papers about various topics. Those in climate change seem to me to be scientific enough compared with other fields.
Also racism and feminism are very far from main topics of my life, maybe because I am from a different part of the world and also left most social networks. But the climate change seems to be still happening around here.
CC = Climate Change
CC = Catholic Church
And various religious movements have had their moments of realizing economic change by educating and motivating their adherents to demand it. (E.g. racial equality boycotts)
If more people come to believe that they have a moral obligation to do what they can to prevent climate change—including by supporting government interventions and investments, and gracefully accepting higher energy costs and energy taxes—then maybe we can hope for a break in the political logjam that is preventing energy reforms from being implemented in the United States.
Papal infallibility today doesn't seem to be what it was in the past in the minds of many American Catholics, however. There has been a surprising amount of direct criticism of the pope among conservative American Catholics in recent years, many of whom seem to place their political loyalties ahead of their loyalty to the church (which I have found surprising).
That’s not how Papal infallibility works. It has to be explicitly invoked and only for matters of faith and morals. Furthermore doctrine cannot be changed. The Pope can’t speak infallibly about science. So Catholics are free to accept or not what he says on the subject. That’s not the case for abortion. We don’t get to say we disagree with the commandment against killing human beings and remain in good standing.
Also do not confuse loyalty to the Church with loyalty to the clergy. There is quite a lot a Catholic can legitimately be critical of there.
That’s a very cynical statement. Goes to show why both sides will never meet in the middle of the road with thinking that way.
Voting republicans doesn’t mean I am against climate change reforms. The issue at hand is how practically we deal with it and reduce demands on fossil fuel and transition to clean energy. Policies touted by a lot of left leaning politicians aren’t practical and many of them know it but they say it anyway. Look at California and its recent outages to any demand spike of utilities as an example.
Your point stands, Democrat solutions addressing climate change are definitely pretty bad. That being said, at least they have some climate change policies they're pushing for right now instead of kicking the can down the road. Can you honestly say the same about Republicans?
My own take is that you can avoid ecological devastation only through population reduction and in the short term by not up-leveling the Third World via mass immigration and industrialization.
Almost like pulling the ladder from under us after we're at the top. Doubt it would mean anything unless it's backed by sanctions, military action or intelligence operations to topple governments that attempt to pull their countries out of poverty. That would make us decisively "the bad guys", regardless of motive.
Perhaps one answer would be to allow people to swap citizenships. If you are feeling guilty enough, you could move to Lagos and someone there could move to Palo Alto.
Since this would necessitate birth control, it would be in direct conflict with the beliefs of the Catholic Church and couldn’t be supported by the Pope.
What we (the world) will be awash in is Moslems and sub Saharan Africans unless those curves get bent via behavior changes, resource depletion, or war. I can't say that the Pope is much involved in that situation.
Like the 15% of (mostly-sub Saharan) Africa that identifies as Catholic? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Africa
hah. Partly answered.
I really meant only to reflect the reality that by voting for a Republican you are voting for someone who will use their power to prevent climate change reform. Is this actually controversial at all? I'd like to see the counterexample.
Sure, some voters may have other things in mind when they vote Republican (for instance, taxes, or abortion) but the end effect of that vote is that if the person they vote for is elected, reforms to prevent or slow climate change will be less likely to be implemented. Do you disagree with this as a factual matter?
> Voting republicans doesn’t mean I am against climate change reforms. The issue at hand is how practically we deal with it and reduce demands on fossil fuel and transition to clean energy.
I am incredulous that you actually believe that today there is any kind of Republican plan to "reduce demands on fossil fuel and transition to clean energy" that has any chance of doing anything in any way to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.
Even if there were such a plan proposed by a small clique of Republican politicians, it would never be implemented by any Republican-controlled legislature or executive because, as a whole, the party still sees fossil fuel energy as a moral good (see: rolling coal), rejects pollution regulation (dismantling it at every opportunity), and dismisses climate change science as a fiction promulgated by their political enemies in order to further a diabolical agenda.
Even if you can assuage your own guilt by telling yourself that the individual politician you are voting for supports some kind of "Republican climate change plan", your vote for that politician will make any reform less likely to be implemented than if you had voted for their opponent. As a factual matter, no Republican-controlled legislature will ever enact climate change reforms into law, and no Republican executive will ever implement any climate change plan—not even a Republican-authored plan—within the next 10 years, unless we see a sea change in sentiment broadly within the party.
> Goes to show why both sides will never meet in the middle of the road with thinking that way.
If there was a reasonable prospect of a "middle of the road" plan to slow climate change that the Republican party would actually support—meaning, would actually help push through Congress—then the Biden administration and the current Congress would pass it in a minute and immediately begin implementing it.
The reason that this is not happening is because there is no plan whatsoever that the Republican party will put any support behind. I wish there was such a plan.