Conference of the Parties 26 - COP26

This week the Conference of the Parties is to take place in Glasgow.

The Prime Minister of Australia is attending, though it seemed to take a bit to get him there, and he brings to the Conference The Plan the Deliver Net Zero the Australia Way. Having read the document I realise why we refer to him, affectionately, as Scottie from Marketing, as it is long on spin and short on detail. In short I think what it really says is we plan to have a plan, and you can trust us.

I gather the Kiwi Prime Minister has a plan, but want's exemptions for Agriculture.

I seem to read the President Biden would like to have more to bring than he does. England and Europe seem to have performed better. India it seems has intent but no plan, China has plans but low on commitment.

I am aware the Pope Francis is likely to be in attendance. There was a recently released joint Statement from Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew, ad Archbishop Justin, attached.

 

There is evidence that carbon dioxide cools, rather than warms, the atmosphere.

Besides, the climate models being used to predict future global warming are flawed.

 

I don't want to fall prey to ad hominem arguments, however both these articles are published on specific approach websites, and clearly promote a position that is counter the vast majority of work done in the area.



I posted the joint statement, and here is the tail end of it. What do we make of that?

 

This is nonsense. Do glasshouses cool the air inside them? But glass reflects more energy back than clean air so it must have a cooling effect!

 

This is very interesting, indeed.

But what bothers me, (no source) is that 12 year old's are worrying about removing plastic from oceans, saving baby whales and chickens but know nothing about saving an unborn child.

Eh um... The USCCB says that poverty must be alleviated as well as changing the laws for abortion on demand. It is an AND/BOTH not an either/or.

I live in Africa, so it is not easy for an entrepreneur to take care of the environment, keep the penny forward and provide one's children's basic education.

*Just an opinion, IMHO, no offence intended. *

 

If the greenhouse glass were made of CO2, your analogy would be valid. Nope.

 

Religious leaders are not scientists, and religious leaders are able to be deceived by false statements concerning science. Or are you holding up Francis, Bartholomew and Welby as climate experts, that we should accept their word on a scientific issue?

Actually, citing Welby on this site as an authority on anything these days is rather interesting....

 

Um, yeah, we can't trust anything from NASA when it's referenced on a "specific approach website," now can we?

 

Absolutely no offence taken. I agree with you in so far as it relates to the politicisation of children.

There is a wide range of ecological issues including plastic pollution in the oceans, preservation of endangered species, free range chickens, organic farming practices, which relate to the health and welfare of the human family, and the health and welfare of the planet where the human family is destined to live for the foreseeable future.

The earth with it's bountiful store may be treated as a gift from God to do with as we please, or as a sacred trust for generations yet to come, not simply for children yet to be born, but for children of children yet to be conceived. And indeed there is a sense in which both these things are true. Entrepreneurs, be they in Africa, America, Europe or Australia, like all of us, are not called to lock the environment away and not make use of it, for that is not the purpose of the gift, but neither are well called to rape and pillage it's resources without a view to the future. I think we are all being asked to have a mind for wider issues, not simply cash in the tin.

South Africa and Australia contribute each about 1% of Carbon emissions. The USA, China, Japan, Germany, India and the Russian Federation contribute about 60%. Australia get's hammered on the per capita numbers because we have a lot of land, a relatively small population and much of the land is not given over to forest, and probably could not be.

I live in the city of the largest coal exporting port in the word, so the economic argument is not lost on me.

 

An interesting point. Firstly however we should not that Francis has a degree in Science, and a significant published work addressing many environmental issues addressing both science and faith. It is a good read. and can be found on this link. https://www.vatican.va/content/fran...-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

I also not that Anselm (sometime Abbott of Bec and later Archbishop of Canterbury) argued in Cur Deus Homo that science and religion with followed with integrity would arrive at the same conclusion, as both were concerned with the pursuit of truth.

As it so happens I am a member of a church in communion with the Ancient See of Canterbury, and my view is that we should hold what he says with some respect, so too Francis and Bartholomew, not that I am duty bound to receive everything that they say, however when the three speak in concord as they have in the joint statement, it does deserve some respect. I believe this is an Anglican forum, and whilst it remains so, I think it is fair to expect that we will support leadership wherever it lies. I have spoken well a number so the Gafcon leaders at times, and I believe that the leadership on both sides represents people of good heart and will. If this is to become a Gafcon only site, then I will pack up my bags a leave.

 

Why is glass different from CO2? I'm using your articles logic, but applying it to something we can observe trivially. Take a trip to your local botanic garden, walk inside a greenhouse and tell me the air is colder inside than outside. By your articles logic it should be colder, because glass reflects heat.

NASA doesn't say CO2 has a cooling effect. NASA says CO2 reflects solar energy. Your source claims that means CO2 must have a cooling effect, ignoring that CO2 also traps energy inside, and it traps more energy than it reflects - the net result being a greenhouse effect. This is exactly how greenhouses work. Glass reflects more energy than air. Glass also traps more energy inside. Glass does not cool the air inside a greenhouse, CO2 does not cool the planet.

 

Well, I must concede that you're correct: the article doesn't say CO2 actively cools the planet. It says CO2 reflects 95% of the sun's rays; CO2 also absorbs certain heat-causing wavelengths of solar energy and dumps the heat back out into space. (CO2 does not absorb or affect all heat-causing wavelengths, though.)

Glass does not reflect heat energy very well; have you ever stood in sunshine at a window on a sunny day? (Indoor cats love that warmth!) But the glass in a greenhouse does prevent convection currents of air from carrying the heat away, thus trapping the heat. (An exception would be glass with special "low-emissivity" coating.) That's why the greenhouses are also called "hothouses" on this side of the pond. So the glass traps the heat inside, but (as the article says) CO2 keeps most of the heat outside before it ever gets in. This is why I said that a glasshouse is not an accurate analogy for atmospheric CO2 (which comprises only four one-hundredths of one percent of our atmosphere, btw).

 

No, there is not. That is nonsense.

The last time I checked, this is an Anglican site. As an Anglican, i.e., as a Christian in communion with Canterbury, I care a great deal what the Archbishop has to say, and have very little interest in schismatic groups or their aims.

 

I should have said, CO2 helps prevent warming.

 

https://www.anglicancommunion.org/m...LLxbeAB1A3XkmC50DU9XXUzgORnjeAWY2-Uw8qpwLnWKI

I am not sure why I had not seen this earlier

 

Faith actors should leverage both their capacity and influence to
advocate for urgent, bold climate action by leaders and key stakeholders.
They should also utilise their capacity to transform hearts and minds
away from destructive attitudes and behaviours towards responsible
creation care.
"Urgent" climate action? "Bold" action? The document writers have been deceived into believing this tripe.
Who gets to define what the "destructive attitudes and behaviors" are, and what will constitute "responsible creation care"? They're giving carte blanche, rubber-stamp approval of the Anglican Communion to "do what thou wilt" to whomever will decide these things. The actions taken don't have to be reasonable; the Communion has already approved them in advance!

Governments, especially those in the Global North, must fulfil
their financial commitments to climate finance, scale up development
assistance to support mitigation and adaptation initiatives, encourage
financial institutions to provide grants, rather than loans, and consider
broad-based debt relief for financially overburdened countries.
The rubber-stamp folks are placing the full weight of Anglicanism behind pressuring governments (who must fulfil whatever financial obligations are decreed of them) to 'cough up' the money to finance the salvation of the climate. And the Communion supports 'leaning on' the banks to give rather than make loans; it calls this "just financing". All because there's some sort of crisis, the nature of which is neither stated nor supported with scientific reasoning.

Look, climate change is real. That is, climates change all the time; climates of various regions and continents, even the global climate, have been fluctuating ever since Adam and Eve left the garden. What sort of hubris is this, that men should think they can play god, that we can change the ebb and flow of climates on an entire planet? Only the Almighty is capable of doing this. The earth has warmed and cooled and warmed and cooled, over and over, for millennia.

Let's not fool ourselves. The ones behind this current "climate change" a/k/a "global warming" mania are not doing this to stop pollution. They're not doing it to 'save mankind'. They've manufactured a false narrative that if we all don't join together, surrender our individual and national rights in favor of a global initiative with global rules and mandates (and global taxation, too!), we're going to burn to a crisp in just a few short years. And it isn't so! All they want is power, money, and control. And I find it totally shameful and reprehensible that Welby and his bunch would be dumb enough and foolish enough to throw their weight behind this!

Anyone who wants to join the Cult of Climate Worshippers, go right ahead but count me out!

 

According to what? Have you not read, “by man came death?” I’m pretty sure human beings don’t need divine help when it comes to exercising their destructive capacities. You are treating climate change differently only because you want it to be different. It’s hardly hubris to believe our own observations.

 

Meh. Consider the relative value of man's "observations" about climate:
1932

1947

1961

1969

Man's observations on climate shift like the wind's direction. And they keep missing the target! It's always a crisis... which never unfolds they way they predict.

Hubris....

 

Or Pragmatism. Based on what we know and ascertain at a particular point in time we assemble to make the bast possible decision based on what we know. If later, we know more or no better we may revise those earlier conclusions.