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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the controlling-the-papacy dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:13PM

    by fritsd (4586) on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:13PM (#194243) Journal

    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.):

    Svante Arrhenius, Världarnas Utveckling (1906), p. 54

    "
    Nu antogo Fourier och Pouillet, att luftkretsen kring
    jorden har egenskaper, som påminna om glasets i afseende
    på genomskinlighet för värme. Detta har visats
    sedermera vara riktigt af Tyndall. De luftbeståndsdelar,
    som spela denna roll, äro de i jämförelsevis ringa mängd
    förekommande vattenångan och kolsyran, samt ozonet och
    kolväten. Dessa sistnämnda förefinnas i så ringa mängd,
    att man ännu ej tagit dem med i beräkningen. På den
    sista tiden har man fått rätt noggranna bestämningar af
    kolsyrans och vattenångans förmåga att genomsläppa
    värme. Med hjälp af dessa har jag beräknat, att om
    all kolsyra, -- den uppgår endast till 0,03 volymprocent --
    försvunne ur luften, så skulle jordytans temperatur sjunka
    ned omkring 21 grader. På grund af denna temperatursänkning
    skulle vattenångans i luften mängd minskas,
    hvaraf en ytterligare nästan lika stor temperatursänkning
    skulle bli följden. Af detta exempel ser man redan, att
    jämförelsevis obetydliga ändringar i luftens sammansättning
    kunna utöfva ett mycket stort inflytande. En sänkning
    af luftens kolsyremängd till hälften af dess nuvarande
    värde skulle nedsätta temperaturen med omkring 4 grader,
    en sänkning till en fjärdedel med bortåt 8 grader. Å
    andra sidan skulle en fördubbling af luftens kolsyra höja
    jordytans temperatur med 4, en fyrdubbling skulle höja
    den med 8 grader. Därjämte skulle en sänkning af kolsyrehalten
    skärpa temperaturskillnaderna mellan jordens
    olika delar, en höjning skulle åter utjämna dem.
    "

    (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?

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:34PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:34PM (#194281) Homepage
    If CO2 increase will cause global temperature increase, then it will cause more evaporation, which means more clouds in damp areas.
    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

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:07PM (#194295)

    Check out figure 13 here:

    Comparison of temperature profiles from the four probes below an altitude of 65 km. This may be compared with the preliminary data in Figure 1 of Seiff et al. [1979b], which showed close agreement of the four profiles, but the more complete analysis has brought them even closer together.

    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

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @02:59AM (#194350)

    Actually, Figure 8 makes my point even better:

    Comparison of the temperatures as a function of pressure measured at the four widely separated probe sites, shown in Figure 8, indicates that at pressures above about 400 mbar, the thermal contrast is small over wide reaches of the planet from the deep night side to the morning terminator, and from the equator to 60 degrees latitude. If we examine the differences in detail, as in Figure 12, we see that they are typically 5 K or less at pressures between 1 and 25 bars. Contrasts are referenced to the sounder probe, which measured temperatures within 2.5 K of the day and night probe soundings at 0.4 to 5 bars, and within 5 K up to 25 bars. It is evident that the day and night probe profiles are similar over this range to within ~ 1 K.

    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.