So the Vatican, under the auspices of its Pontifical Academy of Science, directed by Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, is hosting another global warming soirée. The first was not a rousing success, seeing as it failed to stop the planet’s climate from changing.
But then, the planet’s climate has never, can never, and will never cease changing. No power on earth can ever stop climate change.
So don’t put too much hope in the new conference, “Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility: Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health.”
The title should shock you. Why? Because the planet cannot have “health.” It cannot therefore have a lack of health. Only living organisms can have health or suffer its deprivation. The planet is not a living organism. It’s not an organism of any kind.
Our planet is a beautiful sight from orbit. It’s our home and we should treat it as a gift of God. But, strictly speaking, it’s a rock in space equipped with a coat of air, soil, and water in which some things live. We call this coating “nature” or “the environment,” of which we are not separate, but rather an intimate, part. The air and water is not itself alive. Scientists used to know this.
Return of the Pantheists
Yet it’s not surprising Archbishop Sorondo should choose an unscientific conference title, which implies the false (and surely heretical) view that the earth is an organism. Why? Because one of his speakers is the pantheist Hans Schellnhuber, whom we have met before.
Perhaps overawed at being made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his services in frightening the population with exaggerated threats of doom, he now goes by “John.”
Our John believes the planet is alive, after a fashion. Being “alive”, he says the planet can suffer “syndromes”.
Can you guess what causes these “syndromes”?
People.
The way to cure the earth’s sickness is thus obvious, at least to John. Eliminate the source of infection. About that goal, more in a moment.
Tipping Points and UFOs
Our Johnny will speak on “Climate Change Extremes, Tipping Points and Health Risks.” A “tipping point” is a date before which if we do not “do something” we will be forever doomed (to suffer a changing climate). Many, many of these tipping points have come and gone, and surely we can expect many more.
Yet not unlike the cult that keeps advancing the date at which the UFO invasion force will arrive, the effectiveness of tipping points as warnings is starting to wane. Johnny might better serve science if he could instead speak on why he always looks like he’s been sucking on an unripe persimmon.
Mad scientists like Schellnhuber want fewer people. Mad economists, like Jeffrey Sachs,do too. Sachs advocates either killing people before they can escape the womb, or preventing their birth.
