‘ClimateGate’ and the EP: Wagon hitched to the wrong horse?

“We can no longer afford to be passive observers in this crucial debate,” Patriarch Bartholomew says, “If we are to save our planet sacrifices must be made by all.”

******

From “The climate e-mails and the politics of science” by Ivan Kenneally in The New Atlantis:

For years, the left has spun the debate over global warming in the starkest Manichean terms. Those who disagree with the scientific and policy orthodoxy have been maligned as greedy capitalists bent on raping the earth of its natural resources for cheap material gain; they have been cast as the benighted enemies of reason itself. Efforts to publicly challenge the science behind global warming have too often resulted in professional and political character assassination. To be skeptical about the fashionable scientific and policy platform aggressively advocated by the mainstream media and self-indulgently championed by the Hollywood elite is nothing less than an “assault on reason,” to borrow Al Gore’s hyperbolic rhetoric. In predictably technocratic fashion, the left has claimed its own peculiar position as the only scientifically legitimate one—everything else reduces to craven interest, manifest dishonesty, or antiquarian faith.

[ … ]

Hillary Clinton famously remarked that during the Bush years it was “open season on open inquiry,” rehashing the familiar charge that a faith-based obscurantism dogmatically dismissed not only the claims of legitimate science, but also the very claims of reason itself. President Obama has stayed true to the liberal posture that whatever policy he happens to advocate is the only one substantiated by empirical science. However, it has become increasingly clear that the president’s claim to rigorously adhere to a science of politics—a science that provides unprejudiced information upon which he can craft sound policy—has been overtaken by a politics of science—the crass and Procrustean transformation of whatever data is available into further confirmation of his own ideological commitments. Australian writer Andrew Bolt has suggested that the CRU e-mail leak is a “scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science.” But the greater scandal may be that the United States and the rest of the world are considering enacting energy-restrictive and economy-damaging climate policies based on ideological distortions of scientific fact.

Eine Decliner Nachtmusik

Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it? Remarks from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s Mississippi Symposium. (The Copenhagen conference opens Monday):

Welcome message from former US Vice-President Al Gore

Your all Holiness,

I would like to welcome you to the United States and, in particular to the South. My own home is in Nashville, not far from New Orleans.

From the days when I first addressed you as the Green Patriarch, our paths have crossed many times but we have both kept our course, struggling for a better future for our planet with the hope that our efforts will not fail.

Never has it been more imperative to act than now.

Never before have the dangers been so great, nor the opportunities so vast.

And still, we know, although much has been achieved, the bulk of the work still lies ahead of us.

Often we think how long will we have to fight? Why are the people in charge not responding with the urgency required?

It turns out that raising ourselves above the personal interest is much harder than we thought.

Your All Holiness, your perseverance in this struggle is demonstrated yet again by this waterborne Symposium.

As Martin Luther King said, “Let’s not become silent about things that matter.”

Al Gore

Closing Remarks — His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

We have come toward the end of our journey on the Great Mississippi. It was a journey that started in Memphis and concluded in New Orleans. A journey that learned from the Native American and from the African Americans. A journey that revealed the promise of the river and also uncovered the betrayal by humans. A journey that described the rich and diverse history of the region, as well as the hospitality and resilience of its people. A journey that started with “soul” and ended with “blues”. A journey with images of beauty and disaster, but also renewal and hope.

We will return to our homes with clearer insight into the damage we have brought to God’s creation – ecological and social. We will come away with a sober reminder about how the deliberate actions of our greed, or the delayed actions of our indifference, destroy natural habitats and human lives. We will carry with us a sense of urgent responsibility for the situation here, as well as globally.

We know now that we can never forget this city! We recognize that we must remember it in our prayers, as in our generosity, as in our pressure on politicians, as in our local or broader efforts for the preservation of this planet – from whatever position each of us holds: as a religious leader and as a scientist, as an elder and as a theologian, as a government official and as an NGO, as a local resident and as a global citizen.

We are profoundly indebted to the extraordinary representatives of renowned scientific organisations and academic institutions, as well as to the leaders of religious groups and secular agencies, for their generous presence and contribution to the success of this, the 8th of our international interfaith, interdisciplinary Ecological Symposia, organised by Religion, Science and the Environment under the exceptional direction and skilful management of Mrs. Maria Becket.

May God bless all of you as you return to your homes and positions. Let us not forget our responsibility toward this city as a microcosm of God’s creation, that is crying out for our gentle care and gracious renewal. Let us no longer be silent as we approach the meeting in Copenhagen. Let us persist and protest about what really matters – namely, the salvation of the soul of this planet.