Diocesan parishioners sign petitions on climate ch

[concerned]

This year's Public Policy Weekend in the Diocese of Rochester took place Feb. 2-3, when parishioners were asked to sign petitions encouraging their state legislators to take immediate action regarding global climate change.

Global climate change is an issue all Catholics should be concerned about, regardless of their own personal feelings and beliefs about the validity or seriousness of the issue, according to Father Brian Cool, chairperson of the diocesan Public Policy Committee and Catholic chaplain at the University of Rochester.

"There are plenty of people who believe this is not an issue or it is not as severe as some may believe," Father Cool wrote in an e-mail interview with the Catholic Courier. "Yet I really don't think anyone can argue with the fact that we as Catholic Christians are stewards of the earth, and as such we have plenty of opportunities to become better stewards."

Becoming a better steward and taking good care of the earth means taking precautionary measures to slow or prevent developments -- such as global climate change -- that have the potential to harm the earth and its citizens, Father Cool maintained.

Parishioners were asked to embrace their call to stewardship by signing the petitions about global climate change, which was this year's advocacy issue.

New York produces more carbon-dioxide pollution than 99 developing countries combined, according to materials distributed by the Public Policy Committee. Under the new Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will take effect in 2009, power plants in the Northeast -- including New York -- will be required to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions and pay a fee for any pollution in the form of greenhouse gases that they still release. These fees will provide a new source of income for New York, but the state government has not yet determined how the income will be used, according to materials distributed by the Public Policy Committee.

The petitions circulated during Public Policy Weekend encouraged state leaders to use this income to foster energy efficiency and conservation efforts, fund renewable-energy initiatives, and help poor and low-income New Yorkers pay their utility costs.

Every little bit helps.

[dgriffin]

What crap! If a petition comes to my church, I'll get up and leave.

[concerned]

WHy. I think this does address our need to be better stewards on earth guarding our resources.

[dgriffin]

Maybe, but do you feel you should be signing petitions in church?

[frankcor]

I believe climate change is serious. I believe we should develop ways to preserve our natural resources. But it is the height of human arrogance to even suggest that man can do anything to alter the impacts of the energy output of the sun, orbital mechanics, convection and radiation energy losses from the surface to the atmosphere and beyond.

Having said that, I believe it is very smart to limit the toxins we produce and put into the air and water. But to fool ourselves into thinking that we can legislate climate change is a huge waste of human energy that would be better spent preparing ourselves for the inevitable changes (improved food production, alternative energy, cleaner air and water).

I'm beginning to think that meteorology courses have no science prerequisites.

[dgriffin]

"New York produces more carbon-dioxide pollution than 99 developing countries"
Depending on the countries, that could be true just from NY's 19 million people exhaling.
I really don't want to live in a mud hut. I really don't have much choice when I fill my car's tank with fossil fuel and burn it when I (used to) drive to work. Frankly, I personally don't have the wherewithal to change very much at all about my carbon footprint that would make a big difference. I think that's a realistic appraisal for most of us.

And signing a petition seems to me a little silly, to be honest. Signing it in church, when put in front of me by a group of clergy who I would hope had better things to do in anticipation of the coming of Christ, just seems wrong.
One friend who is a priest works in an hispanic parish in the Bronx among the downtrodden. He's delivered babies as well as heard confessions and bailed guys out of jail and worked to get some into treatment. A kid I went to school with is today over in Kenya dodging bullets, a missionary brother who has dedicated his life to working with the poor. These are people who actually do what they preach. I don't have any friends at diocesan headquarters. I would tell the Rochester Diocese that if they have clergy sitting around on committees worrying about global warming, they should send them off to New Orleans, Kenya or the Bronx where they can put their ideals into action for the real work of Christianity.

[frankcor]

[strikeslip]

This whole global warming stuff is a bunch of clap trap designed by governments to control people and earn money for certain people/corporations. Conserve energy -- sure. Get off of foreign oil -- sure. Plenty of good reasons to "go green" -- but I am sick and tired of the junk science that has gotten general acceptance.

[dgriffin]

Hi Strikeslip!
I hadn't thought of it as a conspiracy, per se, as you describe, but I suppose it could be. I'll have to give it some thought. If we start with a couple of basics.....first, there is some warming going on, but any geologist or meteorologist knows that climate can be chaotic, not over eons, maybe, but certainly over centuries, say like over the span of modern civilization. Given we're in a warming trend (although there is evidence, I think, to refute that), the first question is "is it a bad thing" and the second is usually "what or who caused it." Let's say it's a bad thing, although, again, there are those who argue it might be a good thing (more food, etc.). Who or what caused it. Either no one or us'uns. Despite the oft quoted phrase, "the world's scientists agree," I really haven't read anything that would convince me that "global warming by humans" is no longer debatable. I think it is.
OK, from here I have to ask who will profit from the global warming scare and how will they do so. Sure, some politicians, academics, any company that wants to market something that fits in, like Y2K Survival Kits, fallout shelters and Presidents' Day retail sales.
I need something more compelling that that. Any thoughts?

[frankcor]

How about internationalists who want the United States to pledge allegiance to international law, like Al Gore and Justice Kennedy?

[dgriffin]

Good one. Goes to a better argument, too, I think. And that is the US participation in the World Community ... a reason why we were pilloried for not supporting Kyoto, even though most people never clearly understood that we were not the only nation to refuse to sign and we certainly had good reasons not to. There is a certain attraction to the idea that "We the world are One," but upon investigation it appears the US gives more than it gets. But what's new?

[frankcor]

How many more jobs would have been lost in Oneida County if the US had signed the Kyoto Treaty? Sometimes when I hear Al Gore talk, I wonder if he wants us all (except him) to live in caves and burn candles. How many of us would be willing to lose our jobs in order to allow China, India and other developing nations to burn coal?