A Gospel of Fear

A Gospel of Fear

There is a truism in science dating back several centuries that states the book of science is always open. Man-Made Global Warming a.k.a. Climate Change is the first and the only scientific issue where the book has been not only shut but also locked and guarded from any revision, modification or amendment. This unprecedented dictate is totally against the basic spirit of scientific inquiry!

Science is based on evidence, and observation, not computer projections. There is no evidence, except maybe a broken hockey stick, proving that human beings have contributed to any change in the climate.

Scientific inquiry has been corrupted and poisoned by thousands of government-oriented scientists who have sold their collective intellectual souls to the gods of ignorance, irrationality and propaganda. At its best man-made climate change is a hoax and should be relegated to the junk science trash bin.

At worst it is Marxist agitprop. Truth is no longer the goal. An autocratic elite with its own agenda has used the rampant fear of an Apocalypse of imminent world destruction to herd the collective masses into a Luddite return to a way of living that lacks technology, comfort and a long lifespan.

On the wings of a utopian dream of saving the world their plan can only result in a world enslaved in an Orwellian nightmare of violence, repression and poverty. Pope Francis has marched headlong into the bitter fray, joining forces with the Gnostics of unreason and anti-Science. With his encyclical, Laudato Si’ mi’ Signore, (“Praise be to you, my Lord”) he has endangered, not only his own credibility but that of the Catholic Church as well. Past and future encyclicals will not receive the respect, which they are normally due. They will fall freely into the category of Papal Opinions that have little or no bearing on the way a person lives.

The Pope’s thesis is that climate change is one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. The planet is warming and humans are the primary cause, particularly due to the use of fossil fuels (which cause greenhouse gases) and deforestation for agricultural purposes.

In 2015 Ross Douthat, an editor for the New York Times, succinctly explained that Laudato Si is a document aligned with the scientific consensus on climate that excoriates the modern scientific mind-set as, in effect, a 500-year mistake. It’s a document calling for global action, even a new world political authority, that’s drenched in frank contempt for the existing global leadership class.

Pope Francis seems to have a blind spot for government involvement. The Social democracies are spinning out of control because of their Marxist fiscal policies. As President Ronald Reagan said, government is not the solution! It is the problem! This is not only a fact but also a truism.

It’s a document that urges a rapid move away from fossil fuels while explicitly criticizing the leading avenue for doing so — a cap and trade regime — as too “quick and easy,” too compromised by greed and self-interest, to “allow for the radical change which present circumstances require.”

Pope Francis’s predecessors attempted versions of his double pitch — urging Catholics recognize environmental devastation as a manifestation of the individualism the church has long condemned, while inviting secular leaders to consider religious alternatives to our present way of life. But its urgency, sweep, and apocalyptic flavor may make Laudato Si’ more immediately influential, more likely to make both audiences think anew.

While Pope Francis gets A’s for his compassion, humility and energy, he deserves an F for his economic analysis. He ignores what markets and finance have historically done to provide cleaner air, water, and greater food security for millions of people the world over.

According to the Green Environmentalists, public policy should reduce carbon emissions and promote renewable sources of energy. Renewable energies are untested, unpopular and unavailable on a universal scale.

The whole question is moot because their science is also dead wrong! The planet has been naturally cooling for 18 years. The skeptics and deniers are right. As an explanation the environmentalist left says that the sun has produced less heat in that time. Sounds very natural to me. This is the way it has always happened with or without mankind.

Economics has actually helped well-intentioned people achieve the goals of poverty reduction and sustainable development, even as much work remains to be done. Any system reflects the character of those who act in it, so personal and social ethics remain fundamental.

According to the Green Left, the only way planet sustainability can be achieved is through the systematic embodiment of birth control by any means, including abortion and even infanticide. While protecting all forms of endangered species, unborn babies are completely absent from their list.

I know that the pope is for the poor and is very pro-life but he clouds the issue with his false science and lends weight to those who are determined to rid the earth of all of its inferior beings or what Adolph Hitler called useless eaters. His science is not in step with his inner beliefs nor with 2000 years of Church teachings.

I say all this with a heavy heart because the Pope’s statements undermine virtually everything I was taught to believe through 22-years of Catholic school education from 1st grade through a doctorate in American History.

His encyclical also undermines the 31 years I have spent defending human life in the womb because the key to the Green Environmentalism he has adopted is the elimination of 85% of the world’s population through abortion, euthanasia, passive starvation, and eventually war.

The pope’s internal logic is systemically flawed. He ignores the basic nature of the environmental movement he has joined. Progressivism is founded in eugenics. When applied to man-made threats, the solution resides in the purging of billions of people from the planet.

Obamacare with its implicit promise of Death Panels fits this scenario perfectly because it is essential to their mechanical determinism. Euthanasia, starting with physician-assisted suicide, is the next menace on the thanatological horizon. By eliminating productive businesses and their millions of global jobs, the world’s poor will increase and millions will starve to death.

If resource constraints are really as severe as the pope implies, and technological solutions as limited in power, it isn’t entirely clear how the planet can sustain the steadily growing population the Catholic vision of marriage and fecundity implies.

This is a pope who has brought joy and inspiration to millions around the world. Yet with Laudato Si’, he has infected his message with a classic pessimism that is laced with fear and threats of an Apocalypse just around the corner. His gospel of joy has become one of fear and trembling. Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain.

This is a very sad day for Catholics all around the world. The pope has sided with the Neo-Malthusians, who erroneously believe that the world’s resources are finite and that an almighty government can somehow steer seven billion people into a prosperous future, relying solely on government’s ability to manage, coerce and harness all the means of production.

For that vision one need only look to Russia in the 1930s, China in the 1950s and Cuba in the 1960s. God help all us…not just the poor if this becomes the driving engine of the future!

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Written by
William Borst
3 comments
  • At one time it was the scientific consensus that the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, continents do not drift, the the universe existed in a steady state, etc.,etc, etc. As John Adam’s said ” facts are stubborn things”. At present we many opinions and models but not many facts. If scientists would stick to doing science we all would be better off.

  • Perhaps you should consider ‘ Evolution’ in regards to your first paragraph ? Just a thought. Good write regardless.