Katowice’s Hot Air
At the World Climate Conference in Katowice, Poland, which wrapped up on December 15th, 196 countries – well, representatives from said countries, including our own ‘climate specialist’ Catherine McKenna – have enthusiastically endorsed battling climate change, that it is real, and that we must reduce carbon emissions by 30%, or is it 50%?
Activists are not satisfied, and one was on the CBC this morning waxing hot under the collar, adding to the Earth’s alleged rise in temperature. Not that I minded, mind you, as the temperature dipped to minus 17 centigrade outside, minus wind chill. Still too warm. The zealots want coercion, and, in the words of the glam rock band Queen, they want it now.
‘Scientists’ – and those scare quotes are advised – have now claimed we have twelve – or some say eleven – years left before ‘irreversible climate change’ occurs. How do they come up with that number, which evokes the most apocalyptic, and apoplectic, of the mediaeval end-timers, circa December of 999?
Not that the ‘climate changing’ is itself irreversible, for the climate is always changing, but that – and here they get rather vague – that the climate will change in ways that are unpredictable and ‘out of control’, that is to say, apocalyptic.
One may recall the Paris climate summit of 2015, where nations pledged to keep the planet’s temperature from going above a ‘two degree increase’, again, by severely reducing ‘carbon emissions’. Did they succeed? Is the Earth warmer or cooler? Who’s to say?
One wonders. Good King Cole realized that his regal powers stopped at controlling the wind and the waves and the levels of the ocean. Our current wunderkinds have no such monarchical modesty.
As the Earth swings around the Sun – if one is a Keplerian, which most scientists I presume still are – we are approaching the point of the winter solstice, December 20 – 21st on our Gregorian calendars, named after Pope Gregory XIII, when it is coldest in the northern hemisphere, warmest in the south, due to the Earth’s approximately 15 degree tilt along its axis, which affects how sunlight glances along and warms its surface. Yes, dear reader, heliogenic ‘climate change’ is alive and well and well-nigh irrefutable, accounting for a far, far greater swing in temperature than the paltry Parisian two degrees. Where I live, the range is more than 70 degrees centigrade – or Celsius, if you will – from minus 40 in winter, to plus 30 in summer. Or even more, some extreme days. All due to that raging nuclear inferno 93.5 millions miles away which we have named the ‘Sun’.
Everything else is hypothetical, and should be treated as such. Let us not destroy the world economy, nor our standard of living, nor, most of all, our human population and future generations, for the sake of a zombified ‘consensus’ of world scientists, enforcing a dogmatic orthodoxy upon their members and the populace.
I will leave you with words of sober warning from Michael Crichton, sometime physician and author of Jurassic Park, amongst other bestsellers, in a provocative speech he offered at Caltech in 2003, on whether aliens cause global warming (well worth a read to find out). A main theme in the address is the ‘consensus’ of global warming, now, generally, ‘climate change’ – with which apparently 98% of scientists agree. Of course, the ‘98%’ is itself rather dubious, not least since those who doubt, even a smidgen, are immediately shunned, finding themselves mysteriously unemployable. It is a quasi-Darwinian feat of self-selection.
But here is Crichton:
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
And we’re being had on quite literally a global scale.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→