Katharine Hayhoe: Responding to the Pope
June 23, 2015
CNN gets reaction to the Papal encyclical from Scientist and Evangelical Katharine Hayhoe.
Below, Hayhoe’s own 90 second “Elevator Pitch” for climate science includes an appeal for an ethical argument.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
June 23, 2015 at 11:01 am
“… an appeal for an ethical argument …”
Coming from a woman who insinuates that skeptic climate scientists are ‘paid industry shills’ ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hayhoenova-2011.jpg ) while citing a pair of sources that in no way back up her claim, that is really rich.
One can’t get more politically suicidal that sticking to this ‘moral imperative’ talking point, particularly when a certain person seen around the inception of it is a person who could sink the entire issue if his ‘paid industry shills’ accusation was placed under hard scrutiny in front of the whole world. http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=865
June 24, 2015 at 7:31 am
Russell, I’m going to have to start paying you myself.
June 24, 2015 at 9:47 am
Can we instead pay YOU to ban Russell from the site? I’ll chip in a Benjamin. Yes, he may be useful as a bad example, but his one-note song is so inane and B-O-O-O-RING that hardly anyone bothers to reply to him anymore. I myself am getting tired of poking holes in his monotonous bullshit, and I am a more dedicated troll hunter than most.
Russell refuses to talk about the science of AGW (probably because he has no real understanding of it), keeps bringing up the “G Brothers” (Gore and Gelbspan) that are now ancient history and irrelevant to the AGW issue, and keeps insisting that he is not a whore for Heartland and the fossil fuel interests.
Please! Name your price! Russell has outlived his uselessness on Crock!
June 24, 2015 at 12:33 pm
now this is getting interesting..!
June 24, 2015 at 12:45 pm
I am NOT kidding.
Russell takes money to do the wrong thing, and I see no reason why you shouldn’t take money for doing the right thing, which in this case would be akin to pulling one of the more obnoxious weeds in your garden and improving the view for your visitors.
August 6, 2015 at 3:50 pm
*ahem* I’ve already suggested that Tom Steyer, and by default, Desmog, Greenpeace — and why not? “d.o.g.” and Peter — can skip the middleman and deposit money straight into my own bank account, if they are so certain money buys my words: http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=1930 Wouldn’t it be the right thing to do, in outbidding the folks he feels buys my words?
Peter, do ask yourself: why is it that “d.o.g.” feels a need to silence me? Is it perhaps because of his outright inability to dispute a word I say in any of my online writings?
Would he be perfectly ok with a more wealthy benefactor paying you to censor his own comments, instead? Try this experiment for a bit, send all of his comments into a moderation hole and see just how long it takes before he labels you a Koch shill.
August 6, 2015 at 4:52 pm
Buy YOUR words, Russell? I spend my money on things of value, not garbage. You are a man without honor, would likely not keep your end of the bargain anyway, and your minimal knowledge of climate makes you useless for my purposes. I would only hire someone who knew some science, and not some shill that can only parrot the same old conspiracy theories about how Gore and Gelbspan colluded back in the last century.
I also wouldn’t waste my money on a drunk, and that’s what you’re sounding more like with every comment. It’s enough that we enable you by giving you replies that you can turn in to Heartland for your whore’s dollar. Spend some of that money on the booze that seems to be taking you down
And Russell must be getting frantic with his suggestion that I be “moderated” here as an “experiment”. No, Russell, I will be here waiting for you each and every time you show up to earn your whore’s dollar. I will make a counter-offer to Peter, though—-One dollar a day for every day Russell’s horseshit is “moderated” into oblivion—up to a max of $100.—-and Peter knows I’m good for it.
August 11, 2015 at 1:28 pm
“…. by giving you replies that you can turn in to Heartland for your whore’s dollar ….”
Friend, everybody here would LOVE to see how you prove that. Me, my assorted pals, plus the lot here at ClimateCrocks.
August 11, 2015 at 2:52 pm
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/global-warming-skeptic.html#.VcpQ87XLCGk
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/koch-industries/
http://ecowatch.com/2015/02/23/climate-deniers-funding-fossil-fuel-industry/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html
August 11, 2015 at 2:53 pm
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/global-warming-skeptic.html#.VcpQ87XLCGk
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/koch-industries/
August 11, 2015 at 2:55 pm
http://ecowatch.com/2015/02/23/climate-deniers-funding-fossil-fuel-industry/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html
I can go on for pages with links.
August 12, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Yessir. And all those endless pages of url links will only serve one massively undermining purpose. Not one of them will prove I’m paid to do the bidding of Heartland or anyone else, and not one of those will provide you with a shred of evidence proving any money donated to any skeptic climate scientist came under instructions to lie. Otherwise, instead of providing entire web links, you’d be able to point straight to the devastating evidence: full context document scans, undercover video/audio transcripts, leaked emails, money-transfer receipts, etc
What part of your own continual wipeout with your enslavement to guilt-by-association do you not understand?
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“Two Thumbs Up for this comment!” — Sinclair & Cook
August 12, 2015 at 7:22 pm
What part of your own continual enslavement to being a lying whore do you not understand, Russell?.
BTW, Russell, I got Merchants of Doubt through Netflix and watched it last night. A terrific documentary. The book was long and a bit dense in spots, but the movie was fast-paced and full of great visuals. Perhaps a bit over the head of Joe Sixpack in places, but anyone who watches it can’t help but come away understanding the game that you and the heartland whores have been playing for decades.
I can understand why it scared you so much when it came out that you had to badmouth it (without even seeing it). I’m going to buy a copy and loan it out, just as I do with Inconvenient Truth.
And I will ask you once again for your explanation of why you were on the addressee list for Fred Singer’s nefarious emails—-think I’ll start counting—-this makes the THIRD time I’ve asked you. (maybe the FOURTH?)
PS M of Doubt featured Marc Morono prominently—-I can not believe how willing he is to make an ass out of himself in public—-it was as bad as that famous interview Peter did with him in which he shot off all his toes. The denier community needs to hire a keeper for him—-he is a danger to what they are trying to accomplish with his big mouth, big ego, and small brain.
August 13, 2015 at 2:40 am
it’s amazing how many things you dumbold say of others that apply right away to you. Anyways…I am not wasting time writing comments here. I suspect Russell is neither.
It’s you the one who thinks a worldwide conspiracy is pushing the planet towards destruction.
It’s you the one wasting time writing stupid comments, that of course will not do anything to stop the worldwide conspiracy and/or to help the planet avoid destruction.
But go on, one can imagine your feeling, protecting life one keyboard hit at a time!!
August 13, 2015 at 9:29 am
It’s amazing how clueless you are, Omno. It’s good that you say you are “not wasting time writing comments here”—-does that mean you are going to go away? We can hope.
Your cluelessness is evident in your saying that you “suspect Russell is neither” (sic)
FYI, Russell is not wasting his time—-he’s working—-he gets PAID to go out onto the web and sow stupidity and doubt wherever he is allowed to. It’s his job—-a merchant of doubt whoring for the fossil fuel interests. Do you have a job, Omno?
The rest of your inane maunderings here rate only a WHAT?? and a ZZZZzzzzz…..!!!
August 11, 2015 at 4:51 pm
Really? Boring?
But you’d like to chip in to stop him from posting ..
That is the kind of logic we are used to from the dishonest, “green” activists.
No logic, no science, no truth, no honor, no moral ..
It’s all about the money ..
August 11, 2015 at 5:31 pm
Oh no! Here’s Drooldy, coming around like a mangy old dog and sniffing at butts on a tired and nearly dead thread.
Are you a subcontractor for Russell Cook? Does he share his whore’s dollars from Heartland with you?
June 24, 2015 at 9:51 am
GO AWAY, Russell! You are boring us to death!
(And stop giving us links to your site. A warning to all—if you go there, both you and your computer will suffer loss of IQ points)
June 24, 2015 at 10:14 am
Says the paid industry shill!
June 24, 2015 at 10:40 am
Yep, and more specifically, the paid industry shill who is paid to troll the world insisting that he and the other paid industry shills are not paid industry shills.
Somehow, i think that the vast majority of thinking people will agree with the “insinuations” that deniers are whores more than they will with Russell’s “insistences” they are not.
Russell is by his own admission a nobody that walked in off the street and accepts $$$$ from Heartland to be a denier troll—-with NO strings attached. It doesn’t matter to him whether what he says it true or not, only that he gets paid for saying it, and he expects anyone to NOT think that he’s a shill? LOL
August 11, 2015 at 1:34 pm
Dude. Da-yum! “… to be a denier troll …” is a string attached to a handler instructing someone to deny climate science and to seek out and troll comment sites.
“… only that he gets paid for saying it ….” That would be another string. You just keep shooting yourself in the foot, while “Gingerbaker” parrots you without any evidence to back up his accusation. This working out really well for you, isn’t it?
——————————————————————————————————
“Two Thumbs Up for this comment!” — Sinclair & Cook
August 11, 2015 at 2:35 pm
August 11, 2015 at 2:42 pm
Lyrics modified a bit to fit Heartland and Russell.
Oo-oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo-oo
When I’m bullshitting you
Oo-oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo-oo
Will you believe too?
Oo-oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo-oo
That means I offer my BS to you to be your own
If you refuse me I will be blue, waiting all alone
But if when you hear my BS call ringing clear
Oo-oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo-oo
And I hear your answering echo so dear
Oo-oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo-oo
Then I will know our ignorance will come true
You’ll belong to me, I’ll belong to you
June 23, 2015 at 8:19 pm
This must be national “Love the Pope Week.” On this, and pretty much all the liberal sites, everyone is having a lovefest with the Pope because he’s decided that global warming is real. That’s nice.
I can’t find a single word from anyone pointing out that this same Pope is totally against birth control (and, of course, legal abortion) for women.
Well actually, I did find one mention about the irony of the Pope being against birth control while confirming AGW. That was on an AGW-denialist web site, theregister.co.uk, a site I don’t normally read, but it turned up in an online search.
Over on Alternet there is a good article about women in Latin America (and even the USA) rotting in jail because they had miscarriages, and thus suspected illegal abortions.
Overpopulation and global warming are two sides of the same issue. The one thing the Catholic church could do to help ease the burden of AGW would be to allow women to be something else besides baby-producing machines. Admittedly, family planning will not entirely eliminate AGW, but it’s at least one major step in the right direction, and one that the Catholic church could show leadership in. Not to mention that women shouldn’t have to rot in jail for having a miscarriage as a matter of principle, regardless of what that does to the Earth’s climate.
June 23, 2015 at 9:21 pm
Another one with blinders on.
Overpopulation and global warming are NOT two sides of the same issue. The “overpopulation” on this planet is mainly occurring in the undeveloped world. Global warming is mainly a product of the exploitative capitalist model of the developed world.
And the Pope’s message is NOT that he has decided global warming is real, but that global warming is a moral and ethical issue that has nothing to do with the straw men of abortion and birth control.
The one thing the Catholic church could do to help ease the burden of AGW is to have the Pope speak out strongly about the need to find an alternative to the exploitative capitalist model of the developed world so that the developing world can have some hope of advancing WITHOUT making the mistakes that we have made.
But wait! He just did that! Did you miss it?
And as for “Admittedly, family planning will not entirely eliminate AGW…”, one can only say “WOW”, and point out that family planning is VERY far down the list of steps that need to be taken VERY soon to avoid AGW catastrophe. Why do you wast time ranting about it?
June 23, 2015 at 9:25 pm
> Why do you wast time ranting about it?
Why do you waste time responding to my posts? Can’t you find another hobby?
June 23, 2015 at 9:36 pm
I have many hobbies, Cy, and one of them is pointing out biased thinking, logic fails, and just plain bullshit in Crock comments.
You made such a comment, and I pointed out its shortcomings. Is one of your hobbies evading responsibility for the dumb things you say? I’m actually surprised, because your comments are usually on a much higher level than these.
If these comments are all you have to say about the Encyclical and its significance, I will not ask this time, but simply state definitively that “You missed it”
June 23, 2015 at 10:56 pm
I’m willing to defend my views, even when unpopular. If you’ll agree to bury the hatchet, I’ll respond to your posts. But if it’s going to be a pissing contest, I don’t have time. So if you’d like to accept my olive branch, here it is:
I didn’t draw that myself. I always was a lousy artist.
So, what say we “reboot” the relationship? Have we got a cyber-handshake here?
June 24, 2015 at 10:28 am
I have no problem with someone defending “unpopular views”. I DO have a problem with people who defend indefensible positions and distort truth.
Anyone who does that deserves to have a “hatchet” applied to their foolishly over-extended neck. I’ll put my hatchet away when you abandon this embarrassing train of thought (which smacks more of simple anti-Catholicism than any intelligent argument about contributors to AGW).
You say you “don’t have time”, and yet you made perhaps an even more egregious comment later in this thread—-6/24 at 5:14 AM?. That’s an “olive branch”?—looks more like poison ivy to me.
June 24, 2015 at 7:19 am
Wait a minute. Now you DO think climate change is a real issue? Or is that just for the sake of your argument about birth control aka attempt at discrediting what the Pope has said?
June 24, 2015 at 4:48 am
Crock of the week is a climate change and climate change solutions based site, with a nice format of education, music and film clips. I enjoy reading each update as they come and reactions too. It is not a birth control/abortion discussion site (although I expect these sites do exist). I am sure there are some very strong arguments about abortion, but it is completely out of scope for this site.
The fallacy that the Catholic Church and the Pope are invalidated on talking about the moral and ethics of venting CO2 into our Earthly common atmosphere, because they are take sides against abortion is very very weak.
It reminds me as similar to the attacks on Leonardo DiCaprio for allegedly using private jets, thus invalidating his climate change work. Just about any other famous figure, (Richard Branson, Al Gore etc.) who speak on slowing climate change are subject to the same attacks.
It seems to be a common tactic which I found pathetic.
June 24, 2015 at 5:14 am
I don’t know if it was accidentally or on purpose, but you left out “birth control” which was my main talking point (abortion being secondary, and a much hotter potato for the Catholic church to handle).
The Catholic church opposes birth control, and millions of unwanted babies get born every year thanks to that. If the Pope wants to help ease the problem of CO2 emissions, a nice and easy place for him to start would be to lift the Papal ban on birth control. It would be a moral decision widely applauded, and would make the lives of many people better. Since the Pope is regarded as infallible by Catholics, his word on this subject would be the final word.
The Pope and the Catholic church can talk all they want about CO2 emissions. But that talk accomplishes nothing. All this week that the Pope has been talking, and what did the US Congress do? They passed Obama’s fast track authorization for the TPP trade agreement, which will almost certainly help to make CO2 emissions worse. The cynical TPP pretty much tosses all environmental regulations out the window if they “interfere with commerce.” Of course, I’m sure Republican President Obama will have some nice words for the Pope.
The Pope can do nothing about the corporatocracy that rules the USA (and perhaps the world). But he can do something about birth control. He has the power to do that. With just one statement he can make the lives of millions of Catholics easier, and help ease future CO2 emissions. But he won’t do it.
June 24, 2015 at 5:52 am
Sorry, you did mention birth control in the first paragraph but not the second. My eyesight is not so good right now (having had a recent surgery). But I stand behind all the rest.
cheers,
Cy
June 24, 2015 at 5:54 am
Sounds like a complete red herring to me just to completely deflect the thrust of the thread, try asking Islam to allow pork consumption, the family living in the house next to me have 6 children (they are not Catholics). my mother came from a family of 10 (they were not Catholics). In China there is/was a 1 child law in effect (there are many Chinese Catholics). Catholics are free to chose birth control or not (if they can afford it or is a service provided by their governments).
June 24, 2015 at 9:53 am
Well said!
June 24, 2015 at 10:17 am
You offer an olive branch and yet you “stand behind all the rest”? You don’t want to get in a “pissing contest” and yet you insist on making even more dumb statements and throwing out biased political hyperbole and rhetoric?
FYI, many Catholics, particularly in the developed world and the more advanced countries in the developing world, have long rejected the Church’s teachings about birth control. Catholics are NOT the major contributors to the overpopulation problem.
The Five countries with the largest Catholic populations are Brazil. Mexico, the Phillippines, the U.S., and Italy. Their birth rate rankings are, respectively, 109. 102. 58, 147, and 207. (Note that The Phillippines is the least developed of the five)
37 out of the 40 countries at the top of the list are in Africa, and the middle of the list of 221 countries is heavily populated with more countries from Africa and the Middle East and South Asia—-not Catholic countries.
You continue to embarrass yourself with this straw man. Get educated.
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=25
June 25, 2015 at 9:25 am
And yet Africa is the focus of the RCC’s anti-condom outreach program.
nd, considering that the RCC has a two thousand year-old program against birth control, might one not reasonably ask what world population might be now if such a program never existed?
June 25, 2015 at 11:07 am
You’re out of touch yet again, GB. Haven’t you heard the news? POPE DROPS BAN ON CONDOMS
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/the-pope/8148944/The-Pope-drops-Catholic-ban-on-condoms-in-historic-shift.html
And where did you come up with the idea that Africa is the “focus”? Since the ~170 million Catholics in Africa make up only about 16% of the population, it would seem to be a low ROI to focus there.
Why not focus on South America (425 million Catholics—39%) or even Europe (260 million Catholics—24%). Lots more of them there in both numbers and percentage of population.
And thanks for the laugh of the day. Talking about “two thousand year old program against birth control” and using the word “reasonable” to describe your thought processes and so-called “argument” is a side-splitter.
June 24, 2015 at 11:09 am
I don’t mind the Catholic Church being criticized for its position on birth control, because it should be. The issue of population DOES extend to the developed nations as well as the undeveloped nations:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723861/
The Pope addressed this a while back:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/01/20/pope-says-3-children-per-family-is-about-right-catholics-dont-need-to-breed-like-rabbits/
But this is still not nearly good enough. We have to start thinking about reducing populations, sooner rather than later, and doing so voluntarily is by far the most humane way of doing that.
However, the Pope has received a fair share of criticism for the recent encyclical, and I think a good practice is to question why that is. I’m not surprised that you are finding mention of birth control from conservative sources, because they are grasping at any straw to deflect the core messages of the document, and hypocrisy is stock-in-trade for the far right. I also detect a lot of anti-religionism and ant-Catholicism in the criticisms.
It’s okay to criticize, especially if the criticisms are just, but when comments become mostly or solely about that criticism, and ignore the main points of the topic, it’s far more likely that other agendas are at work.
I personally don’t think humanity will be able to “turn the bus around” on devastating environmental and resource issues. I wish this wasn’t the case, but I don’t see the political, governmental, business, or public awareness that will allow us to do so. What we have now is a world citizenry where maybe half is concerned about climate change (taking perhaps the largest environmental issue, but still just one of many) and half is not. Of those concerned, most of them think status quo responses will be effective in addressing the problem. The percentage that actually thinks substantial change is needed, which is what the science says is necessary, is a small minority – and that small minority tends to infight about what solutions are best (nuclear vs. renewables, degrowth vs. growth, more technology vs. addressing behaviors, capitalism vs. socialism, and so on).
We’re just a bunch of monkeys screeching at each other, in my opinion. We have little to no control over our fate.
That said, the ONLY way I see that we might have a chance, in a world of limited global concern about climate change, is if we have representatives from those demographics typically against climate change mitigation start speaking out in favor of it, and forcefully so. I think people like Katharine Hayhoe and the Pope are the only ‘bright spots’ we really have – not mentioning but not forgetting those who have spent years or decades working hard for these issues.
The question becomes, would it have been better for the Pope to say nothing? Or Katharine Hayhoe to say nothing? Do they help or hinder our chances?
To me, they’re the ones giving us any chance at all.
(The TPP is an important topic, but it’s too much to go into here. The Pope’s encyclical, btw, does talk about problems with trade and corporate interests as well.)
August 11, 2015 at 3:31 pm
Interesting ain’t it, facing a worldwide crisis of massive proportion, with the Pope himself pushing for a solution, the warmist d.o.g, focuses on…picking up Internet fights with unconvinced people who will be further polarised by the same fight.
Priorities are priorities
August 11, 2015 at 5:41 pm
First, Omno, I do not pick fights with cripples, i.e., fight battles of wits with those who, like you . are only half armed. Deniers are not “unconvinced”, they are “unconscious”, and the only “polarization” they suffer from is having their heads up their anuses.
Second, it CANNOT be a coincidence that Russell Cook, Roald J Larsen, and the incomparable Maurizio Inanio Maunderio Morabutthole are all commenting on the same day on a tired old thread. I smell a conspiracy of morons brewing. Will civilization survive??!!
August 11, 2015 at 5:59 pm
QED. Your world is burning, but you can only smell conspiracy.
I’m just glad my world doesn’t need be saved from the likes of you. Really.
August 11, 2015 at 6:29 pm
ZZZZZZzzzzzz……!!!
August 11, 2015 at 7:22 pm
Preventing Big Oil from ruining the world, one spam at a time. Be proud, be very proud!!
August 11, 2015 at 8:37 pm
ZZZZZZzzzzzz……..!! Again and again and again and again and………………………………………………
August 12, 2015 at 3:41 am
Again and again you waste time in stupid comments. You behave just like one would expect if you didn’t really believe any actual climate change risk existed.
August 12, 2015 at 6:23 am
Again and again you waste time in stupid comments.
ZZZZZZzzzzzz……!!!