Scientists and Religious Leaders Discuss Climate Change at Vatican

[cbayer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/world/europe/scientists-and-religious-leaders-discuss-climate-change-at-vatican.html?_r=0

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
APRIL 28, 2015


Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations during his visit to the Vatican on Tuesday. Credit Tony Gentile/Reuters

VATICAN CITY — For a 2,000-year-old institution hardly known for its mutability, there was a sense of urgency at the Vatican on Tuesday when scientists, diplomats and religious and political leaders discussed climate change and its impact on the world’s poor.

“We are the first generation that can end poverty, and the last generation that can avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations said at an international symposium on climate change organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The event presaged a keenly anticipated papal letter on the environment that Pope Francis is expected to issue in June.

Mr. Ban met with the pope ahead of the one-day conference here and told reporters afterward that the pope’s message in his scheduled papal teaching, known as an encyclical, would come at “a critical time,” one that “demanded a collective action.”

“Climate change is approaching much faster than one may think,” he said.

more at link

[trotsky]

1. Was overpopulation discussed? n/t

[cleanhippie]

2. The Scientists tried to bring it up but were met with an unbreakable debate point.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. A major forcing variable on anthropogenic carbon load in our environment.

I'm guessing family planning was not discussed. Rendering the whole thing impotent and pointless.

[rug]

6. Here's the agenda.

http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/2015/protectearth.html

Unless you prefer staring at cleanhippie's chimpanzee.

[bvf]

7. Maybe you should conduct a poll.

Put me down for looking at a picture of a chimpanzee with its fingers in its ears.

About the same, either way.

[gcomeau]

3. I can only imagine that discussion goes something like...

Scientists: Provide all the actual useful information, try to convince religious leaders to tell idiots who listen to them instead of the scientists to pay attention to said information...


Religious Leaders: Hmmm... well... we guess so (assuming a best case scenario)... followed by eventually marching off to tell people it's ok to believe those science guys when they say water is wet and the sky is blue.




The fact that that discussion needs to occur at all is just one of the many items on the long list of ways religion causes harm to the world.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. If religion is what it takes to get people to do something about this, we're fucked.

[bvf]

8. But consider how much good it's done

in the cause of gender equality.

Wait. What?