I have great respect for the Pope’s sincere wishes to end pollution and poverty. We all share the same sentiments. The solution is to use cheap coal-fired electricity and not to demonise coal and other fossil fuels. The Industrial Revolution and the growth of East Asia and India shows that with cheap coal-fired electricity, people are brought out of poverty. It has happened to hundreds of millions of people over the last 20 years.
Burning coal releases CO2. This is the gas of life. Plants feed on CO2 and there has been a greening of the Earth with the slight increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The food for all life on Earth has been wrongly demonised as a pollutant. Some 97% of CO2 emissions are natural.
The planet has not warmed for more than 18 years, models predicted a steady temperature increase over this time and a predicted hot spot over the equator has not eventuated. The models are not in accord with measured reality and are rejected. The science on climate change is far from settled, there is no consensus and there is no demonstrated evidence of human-induced global warming.
This high atmospheric CO2 content was removed into sediments via living organisms and was eventually sequestered in sedimentary rocks. There has been no compelling case made for the need to reduce CO2 emissions by humans, models of future climate have overestimated the projected rate of warning and have totally ignored the possibility of global cooling. Geology and history show us that global cooling kills people and destroys ecosystems.
The Pope’s promotion of renewable energy shows that he was poorly advised. The Pope has only listened to a small group of green left environmental activists and atheists, some who are in a warm embrace with communism. Wind, solar, wave and tidal forces do not have the energy density to keep modern society alive. Construction of wind and solar industrial complexes release more CO2 than they save and are inefficient, unreliable and need back up 24/7 from coal, gas, nuclear or hydro. In order to try to make renewable energy more competitive, governments have increased the costs of conventional electricity to the point where there is fuel poverty in Western countries and employment-generating businesses are closing down or moving to countries with cheaper coal-fired electricity. The Pope’s solution to perceived problems is agrarian socialism using wind and solar power.
No Third World country trying to escape from poverty can afford renewable energy and it is only Western countries that use renewable energy because they are wealthy. Wealthy countries didn’t become wealthy overnight and centuries of the evolution of free trade, democracy, creativity, resource utilisation and property rights made wealth creation possible. Governments, collectives or international treaties did not create this wealth. Individuals created it. By denying poor countries access to fossil fuels, Pope Francis condemns them to permanent poverty with the associated disease, short life and unemployment.
The Pope seems to have swallowed hook, line and sinker the new environmental religion that competes with Catholicism. The Encyclical is an anti-development, anti-market enthusiastic embrace of global green left environmental ideology and much of the Encyclical is a denunciation of free markets dressed up as religious instruction.
Most Encyclicals are about hope whereas Laudato Si’ is actually a depressing doomsday view of the future without evidence, science and discussions about uncertainty. The Pope shows concerns for the poor yet only offers constraints that would make the poor poorer. There are no scientific references in the Encyclical even though much of it is supposedly about science and it attempts to use science to make comments about the future.
Global living standards have improved, people are wealthier, fewer people live in abject poverty and more people have access to sanitation, clean water and electricity. There is still a lot to achieve. The toll from diseases has decreased, people live longer, fewer people are killed from extreme weather events and there has been no increase in economic damage from extreme weather events.
All in all, the world is a better place. A slight increase in CO2 in the atmosphere had increased crop yields and has increased forest area and productivity. The net impact of a slight increase in atmospheric CO2 has been beneficial to the biosphere.
The Third World and the developing countries desperately need to escape from poverty. The Pope’s concern for the world’s poor will amount to nothing unless they can have safe drinking water and affordable and reliable electricity for heating and cooking. No longer should the poor die from the smoke emitted by burning dung, leaves and twigs in huts.
Only when Third World children can do homework at night using cheap coal-fired electricity can they escape from poverty. Abundant cheap electricity can be used to pump water and treat sewage. Separate reticulated water and waste water systems have saved more lives on Earth than any other invention. Cheap electricity powers civilisation and creates wealth and jobs.