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Despite the santorum splattered about, the Pontiff of the Church Universal and Triumphant [EDIT: This is actually referring to the Roman Catholic Church, not the Church Universal and Triumphant] is going to agree with the climate change consensus in an encyclical to be released on Thursday. Early leaks give some idea of the content.
Pope Francis is preparing to declare humans as primarily responsible for climate change, call for fossil fuels to be replaced by renewable energy and decry the culture of consumerism, a leaked draft of his much anticipated statement on the environment suggests.
The source for this somehow concerns Australians, but we will take any indication of infallibility where we can get it.
So the humble submitter has to wonder, does this mean that climate-change deniers are now to be considered heretics, rather than just Petro shills or anti-environmental conservative conspiracy theorists? It does add a entirely new dimension to the debate, and I hope that God will forgive your Conservative asses for screwing up Her creation in the quest for profit.
UPDATE - janrinok 18 Jun 12:36UTC
is it possible to update/append aristarchus' post "Pope Affirms Anthropogenic Global Warming" (https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/06/17/0317256), as follows:
Update: The encyclical can be read and downloaded here.
I am not affiliated with the submitter, aristarchus, or the pope. I have a slightly paranoid reason for asking for this update; it is my experience that, whenever politically important documents are published, the actual document often gets overshadowed by an enormous load of blog commentary, providing a bit of "damage control" and "spin". It is my fervent opinion that the readership of Soylentnews deserves to read the actual source documents. (It's only 82 pages long, in this case, anyway).
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday June 19 2015, @09:46AM
No, it was not flamebait, it was an attempt to draw out the climate-deniers once again, so the drones would be sure to have the correct addresses. And there has not even been that much flaming! Or snowballing, as the case may be on the floor of the US House of Representatives. Do you imagine there could be a "proper debate" on this issue, when the deniers are impervious to rational argument, evidence, or impact of clue sticks? Santorum is our poster boy here, he disagrees with the Pope. Not a very good Catholic, then. I have no problem with that, but when 97% of scientists, and the head of your religion say you are wrong, it takes a special kind of crazy to stand by your own very idiotic opinion. But he is not alone! Pat Buchanan, JEB bush, Newt Gingrinch, five of the Supreme Court Justices, I imagine Rubio (but not Cruz, either Ted or Tom, they belong to crazy religious cults), all these conservative Americans are now lapsed Catholics. I hope this makes protestant, agnostic, atheist, or Hindu (Hi, Jindal!) deniers feel smugly superior. They are just as wrong, however, still.
Yes, it is good to have a link to the encyclical itself, and yes it might have been better to have a new submission rather than this update. But I was not going to submit it, were you? And "petty rumours"? Pray tell, what "'petty rumours" do you refer to? The original post dealt with very authentic and substantial leaks, not rumours at all. Geez, there is no pleasing some people. You put out obvious flamebait and they go for it hook line and troll sinker, and then they complain about how it was not up to "standards"! So let me repeat: Anthropogenic Global Warming is real, it is happening, and if we do not take concerted global action soon, your stock portfolio will be worth nothing, as will all those Kruggerrands you have hidden in the backyard. 97% of scientists say so, I say so, the Pope says so! There is no debate. No, you do not get an opinion on this, since you are incapable not only of rational thought, but of ethical reasoning as well. And you think "news sources" will have any better level of discussion than what we have right here on SoylentNews? I find your lack of faith disturbing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @03:20PM
That's what they said about Ignaz Semmelweis. He got thrown in an insane asylum where he got water boarded and beaten to death (as was the 'best medical practices' at the time) because he wouldn't stop telling doctors that if they would just wash their hands many fewer patients would die.
The crowd consensus can be dead wrong too. Do you have any evidence that when the individual disagrees with the majority, more often the majority turns out to be correct?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @04:31PM
Because something that happened hundreds of years ago, being asserted with exactly zero evidence, physical, published, or otherwise, is exactly the same thing happening today. Not a false analogy at all, its an exact match to today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @04:59PM
I'll reiterate:
Do you have any evidence that when the individual disagrees with the majority, more often the majority turns out to be correct?
I would guess exactly the opposite, but would not present this guess as fact like you do. I'd guess that, in all cases where there is a status quo, scientific progress can occur only by those who question it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @08:59PM
What people think has nothing to do with the facts. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that humans are causing the world to heat up due to all the CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere. Those are the facts, facts and evidence don't depend on who "agrees" with them and whether or not they're the majority. In your cited example of Ignaz Semmelweis, he had no evidence and no scientific explanation for why washing one's hands would reduce mortality, so he was rightly mocked and ignored. Facts and evidence dictate what should be believed, rather than having one's mind already decided at the start and then cherrypicking evidence to support it. If you have no evidence to support your claim, you should not expect anyone to believe you, and if you believe something contrary to the evidence, you should expect to be called out for being delusional.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2015, @10:30PM
You appear to be uninformed. He did have evidence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis [wikipedia.org]
His evidence was no worse than that for vaccines (vaccine licensed this year then reported cases dropped!) which is commonly accepted.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday June 20 2015, @08:50AM
There is a certain irony, not missed by the longer term and more highly educated Soylentils, to a reiteration by an Anonymous Coward. Is this your first time re-iterating, or have you engaged in this activity before? Well, we really do not want to know. But as to the substance of your "reiteration".
Do you have any evidence that when the individual disagrees with the majority, more often the majority turns out to be correct?
Oh, dear! Could it be that the entire thesis of anthropogenic global warming is just group think run amok? Could it be "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"? Well, yes, maybe. But it is not that the majority do not think so that makes it not. Pay close attention here, since obviously you are a bear of little brains. The minority could be correct. That is almost always true. Until, of course, the matter is settled. Could they still be right, even after the matter is settled? Yes, that is certainly possible, but the degree of possibility is much reduced. OK, here is what I think is your problem: just because an opinion is a minority opinion, that does not necessarily mean it is wrong. Fair enough. However, it does, usually, mean that it is probably wrong.
What would be the difference here? Oh, yeah, not opinion, but evidence! Do you have any idea how many minority opinions are out there? One I have heard is the the whole Global Warming thing is being promoted by carbon traders! Hmm, plausible. Any evidence? Others, however, think it is a conspiracy of Americans who were screwed by the Oil Companies with artificial $4 gasoline during the Bush Administration. That could be. Some think the earth is just getting closer to the sun. Some think the earth is the center of the universe http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/09/14/geocentrism-seriously/ [discovermagazine.com]. And some think that they are the absolute reincarnation of the God Ra!! You may be wondering what I am getting at, if you are not one of the wackos referenced above. Here it is: the minority views always, and let me reiterate, always, outnumber the majority view. So, statistically, the likehood of any one of them being correct is diluted to the point of homeopathy. Suck on it.
Now, the missing part of your argument is where the minority view does in fact have actual evidence that it's position is correct. Well, why didn't you say so? So, the climate change deniers can show that climate change is not occurring, . . . by suggesting . . . that maybe . . . there are other explanations. Well, thank you for your input. It certainly was enlightening. Could I interest you in some crystals that would show your aura, and help you stop Anthropogenic Global Warming and herpes?