Ed Mazza writes that Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum says he loves Pope Francis, but he wants the pontiff to stop talking about climate change and "leave science to the scientists." Santorum's comments come as the Pope, who holds a degree as a chemical technician and worked as a chemist before turning to the priesthood, has become increasingly vocal about climate change. "The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists," says Santorum, "and focusing on what we're really good at, which is theology and morality, When we get involved with political and controversial scientific theories, I think the church is not as forceful and credible."
But Santorum's not a scientist either so using Santorum's own logic why is Santorum more qualified than the Pope to discuss climate change? "I guess the question would be, if he shouldn't talk about it, should you?" asked Chris Wallace of Fox News. "Politicians, whether we like it or not, people in government have to make decision with regard to public policy that affect American workers," answered Santorum, adding that while "the pope can talk about whatever he wants to talk about," he questions the Pope's use of his moral authority to combat the issue of climate change.. Santorum — a devout Catholic — disagrees with the Pope's stance that climate change is man-made and has often called climate science "political science," arguing that a scientific consensus on climate change underscores this point. "All of this certainty, which is what bothers me about the debate, the idea that science is settled," says Santorum. "Any time you hear a scientist say science is settled, that's political science, not real science."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:13PM
You said that with some authority.
The most likely effect of CO2 is more clouds (to compensate any additional energy retention with albedo)
More clouds? srsly? how does that work, then? (please give chapter and paragraph of the IPCC AR5 Working Group I report where it says CO2 increases cloud formation).
if it does the things that have been claimed,
Svante Arrhenius must have been a liar then, when he wrote about the greenhouse effect of CO2 in 1906. (yes, 1906. not 2006.):
(editors: Arrhenius has been dead for 88 years so I think it's safe to quote this much from his book. And thanks for the UTF-8 support!)
tl;dr version or for the non-100-year-ago-Swedish-readers is this somewhat related xkcd cartoon: http://xkcd.com/1379/ (the one with the Ice Age Units) [xkcd.com]
In the long run it should require fewer resources to be comfortable.
I did not understand this sentence. Why should it require fewer resources to be comfortable?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:34PM
Plenty of .edu and .gov links supporting that can be found by googling for ``increase in global temperature will increase precipitation''.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:07PM
Check out figure 13 here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JA085iA13p07903/abstract [wiley.com]
On Venus, latitude and time of day are only extremely weakly related to temperature. Actually, barely at all. Why do you think this is so?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @02:59AM
Actually, Figure 8 makes my point even better:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JA085iA13p07903/abstract [wiley.com] [wiley.com]
So on the Earth, I expect the effect of CO2 to be lower temperature near the equator and higher near the poles. both regions will move towards mid-latitude temps. Why? CO2 absorbing/emitting IR is an efficient way to transfer energy around. The average temperature be the same, because non-equilibrium energy content is obviously not stable. If energy accumulates due to this process, there will be something, I would guess increased albedo from clouds (just like Venus has lots of CO2 and very thick clouds), that will take care of any issues there. Although it is possible that the atmosphere will thicken somehow (volcanoes?) to increase the energy it can hold. That, would be a problem.