Cardinal Pell has demonstrated he is as relevant as Harold Camping.

The Catholic Church should do itself a favour and remove him from his station.

OK so a cleric pontificates on a scientific topic on which he is demonstrably ignorant.

And this is news because….?

However my Jewish chauvinism is tested by this piece.

I’ll bet I can produce more scientifically illiterate Rabbis who pontificate on scientific matters than Tim Stephens can produce priests. Given that there are probably around 100 times as many priests as there Rabbis this would prove the following:

The per capita scientific ignorance of Rabbis exceeds that of Catholic priests by 100 to 1.

So there!

Or, as Woody Allen would put it, for Jews anything worth doing is worth over-doing and that applies even to scientific illiteracy among clergy.

And the reason for this outburst on my part?

It’s PAYBACK for all the sermons I had to sit through in which some Rabbi “proved” that Darwin was a fraud and that the Earth really was only around 5,800 years old.

Pell is a menace, like other loudmouth bigots, who get too much media attention. Religion is a matter for consenting adults, in private.

Pell is doing what every religion does, attacking other religions.

He realises something most readers of this article don't realise. Climate-change and Greenie-ism are RELIGIONS also. Just like Socialism and Feminism are religions.

These are new, Godless religions. The zealots who follow these religions believe each-other's lies and ignore the destruction and harm they are doing.

Christianity has been around for around 2,000 years now, and made some stupid mistakes along the way, but lerned from them and now, clearly does a lot more harm than bad.

THese new religions do vast amounts of damage and harm. But people haven't realied the full extent of the destruction they cause yet.

partTimeParent,
Religions by definition invoke a supernatural claim, so these are not religions

Are well he is no worse than the other climate change denilists.

They are just rejectionists - that is they reject science.

And include capitalism in your list partTimeParent, as they are bring the world to economic and environmental collapse.

I don't understand exactly why, if he is a climate change skeptic, he would be so forceful in expressiong his opinion. Does he feel it somehow threatens God's rule over everything? Maybe if he accepts the science on climate change then he feels he needs to accept the science on big bang and everything else that runs counter to traditional literal religious views?

Most other Christian demoniations I believe see climate change as a theat to God's gifts of life and beauty.

For Dr Tim Stephens and posters to this article to complain that Cardinal Pell is, in effect, a loudmouth who knows little about climate science is absurd. In fact, the whole debate has been full of loudmouths who know little of the science, of varying degrees of eminence, and the vast, overwhelming majority of them are on the greenhouse side.

Despite being a catholic prelate, Cardinal Pell is ahead of 95 per cent of the would-be greenhouse othodloxy defenders I have encountered, in that he is aware that there are contrary opinions on the matter, and what those opinions might be.

Stephens refers to Pell relying on Prof Ian Plimer's book, which is the stick which Dr Ayers tried to beat him with. However, Plimer is the only sceptical scientist Greenhousers ever mention, because he is one of the few they can handily attack. As I pointed out to Ayers at the time, there are a legion of others..

The more prominent critics of the IPCC line include Richard Lindzen, a Professor of Meteorology at Massachusetts in the US; William Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Colorado State University; and Roger Pielke Jr, a professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado. Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA recently wrote a book Climate Confusion (Encounter Books, 2008). There are many more I could cite. What supposed errors can Dr Ayers and Dr Stephens point to in the writings of those sceptics?

Obviously the greenhouse side can point to their own, longer lists of scientists supporting greenhouse theory, and even longer lists of distinquished people who have made their views known, even on behalf of their own institutions. To complain that a distinquished someone has bobbed up on the sceptic side is absurd

Maybe Cardinal Pell was around not to long ago when the 'scientific consensus'was that we were in for an ice age. That religion was debunked by a few warmer years and now the current alarmist religion should of proved an immense embarassment for the doomsayers. Instead they push on with their 'flat earth'theories ignoring the huge amounts of snow and rain dropping where computer models predicted would not happen. Most Australians have woken up to the fact that the idiotic belief that taxing Aussies will change the weather is absolute nonsense.

Pell is an idiot, but even idiots get it right sometimes. As for the claim that the 'University of East Anglia scientists were cleared' of wrongdoing, this is only true in the sense that the Nazis were 'cleared' of the Reichstag fire, and the LA police 'cleared' of bashing Rodney King -- that is, a carefully-selected group of cronies with vested interests in pushing the same barrow blinked once or twice at the evidence and dutifully agreed that everything was OK.

I notice, by the way, that unlike OO, the SMH no longer gives AGW sceptics the opportunity to comment on their climate propaganda articles -- I wonder why?

partTimeParent,

'Religion' doesn't mean what you think it means. I think you've mistaken 'ideas' and 'evidence-based conclusions' for 'religion'.

Whilst it is a common rant to deny climate evidence, I'm actually quite curious about the feminism one. How do you work that as a religion?

Also, have you any insight into the harm & bad these 'religions' will cause?

Quoting bj:

>> It will be interesting to hear how the Cardinal and Abbott spin the report released today by the Climate Commission.

The preparation of the report was overseen by Will Steffen ...

It's been interesting to listen to Sophie Mirabella, Barnaby Joyce, and other conservative politicians rattle on about it. Apparently any threat to the status quo of Australian business is untenable, even if it will actually save said business, and the society in which it operates... They're still deliberately and explicitly spreading associated memes such as the lies there is uncertainty in the cause of global warming, and that we can't do anything until the rest of the world does.

Of course, perhaps they really do believe this nonsense. If this is the case, then all I can say is that Australia truly is the land of opportunity, that fools and idiots can rise so high in politics (and Church).

Personally, I think that these people are so desperate to be in power that they'll say anything to get it (as Abbott has said). Abbott's persistent childish whining for an election typifies this - in the past we elected politicians knowing their philosophical inclinations, and trusting them to act during their terms as they saw fit. Under Abbott's new approach, if we went back to the polls whenever a contentious decision was to be made we'd be voting every other year ...

The national discussion about pricing carbon has been long known, as have the scientific claims that action needs to be taken ... The Australian public has already shown to be in majority support for such action, and it is only after corporate vested interest and politically conservative propaganda pulled the wool over the lay public's eyes that sentiment for action dropped away.

It's dispicable that the Plimers, Pells, Bolts and Abbotts of the country are willing to sell our planet's future in order to fulfill their own personal ideologies, profits, and ambitions. <<

Markudgeon, I see you are a poster boy here http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/05/oreskes_and_switzer_on_the_dru.php#more

Pity you took your bat & ball home.

Bonmot - yes indeed I got onto the site you linked to because someone tried to refute a point I had made elsewhere on what I must say is the slimmest of pretexts.

I also must say those guys are far more irrational and much nastier than the posters on this site. I know that Graham (the editor in chief here) will boot people off the site, suspend them, if they become overtly abusive. Doesn't happen at all on that site.

As for the report today, I exchanged emails with Will Stephen a couple of years back. I regret I have no great opinion of him. Virtually all of the supposed proof of climate change, as you know, relates to the fact that global climate temperatures are now high. The real problem has always been showing that the high temperatues are the result of emissions or a natural cycle.

They still haven't got over that hurdle, and today's report hasn't changed that. But then we can't say for sure that it is a natural cycle.

Bonmot writes

'It's dispicable that the Plimers, Pells, Bolts and Abbotts of the country are willing to sell our planet's future in order to fulfill their own personal ideologies, profits, and ambitions.'

And Flannery, Gore, Gillard are all pure at heart who are Saviours of our planet. How gullible can one be?

This article reminds me that, according to some, there is still only one side of this discussion and, while religious leaders with little scientific knowledge who are pro-climate change are praised, those with a similar amount of knowledge who are against are seen as foolish, right wing propagandists.

The author also makes the patently ludicrous statement, that CO2 is a pollutant. This statement is backed by a link to a single interview on an ABC Science Show which does not support the claim at all but 'postulates' that increased CO2 'may' affect chemical composition of plant life.

I call on him to retract this statement or admit that life on planet Earth is dependent upon pollution for its survival.

The idea that CO2 is a pollutant has been explained, repeatedly, so that Atman should by now understand. Once again: a pollutant may be defined as something which pollutes. Put a little water or sugar in your petrol tank, and they will pollute your fuel with undesirable effects. Is water a pollutant? Or sugar? Yes, if they are functioning as a pollutant. Is atmospheric CO2 a pollutant? Yes, if it is functioning as a pollutant; that is, if it is in the atmosphere at more than "natural" proportions, such that it has an undesirable effect.

I don't think you 'pollute' your petrol tank by overfilling it. Nor do I 'pollute' my coffee by putting too much sugar in it. How many of us have made 2 stroke and 'polluted' it by too much oil?
Whilst technically you may be able to use the term in a broad sense, the English language has much more accurate words.
If the argument was sound, it wouldn't require such a delicate dance around the terminology use. You're arguing on a wafer thin premise.

Mark, I don't buy it. You were caught out and could not defend your stance - simple as.

While it is easy to opine to the lay-people on OLO, it is much harder to opine to people who clearly know more about the science than you do. Sure, some get a bit snarky, for good reason - but they are not irrational as you assert, and that is all it is.

Anyway, I applaud you for trying to mount a case - most so called OLO 'sceptics' would not be able to.

I agree, Graham Young has set a high standard for ameniable discourse on OLO - he is to be congratulated. However, that does not mean people can distort, misrepresent and make stuff up as they see fit.

Mark, I understand much about what you have to say about alternative energy sources, and I would mostly agree. However, when it comes to the science of climate change, I would put you in the same camp as our beloved Cardinal - unlike his boss.

As runner so aptly demonstrated, it's not about the science anymore - it's about political and religious beliefs.

Nicco - No, the article did not explain the idea of a pollutant. It said "....criticised those who correctly describe carbon dioxide as a pollutant ". It would be nice to see a reply from you which is not so condescending, particularly as you are so obviously wrong. Pollution applies to introduced or foreign substances, not natural substances in their normal environments.

BAC explains the point well.

The truth is that the word "pollute" has been redefined by the pro-AGW lobby in order to imply that CO2, an entirely natural compound necessary for life, is a foreign and dangerous substance.

"Carbon pollution" due to CO2 also implies "oxygen pollution" according to this definition because its the whole CO2 molecule which stresses AGW people.

This redefinition means that all substances are or can be pollutants in their natural environment, a patently stupid idea. AGW people like this redefining of terms because of the emotional charge the word "pollutant" provides.

The truth is that the word "pollute" has been redefined by the pro-AGW Atman, Thursday, 26 May 2011 6:35:04 AM

Nobody is implying "that CO2 is a foreign substance.

They are implying that doubling or tripling atmospheric and general environmental levels is upsetting a balance, and reflecting the dramatically increased recent release of carbon from vegetation (especially forests) and from previously decayed forests - as oil reserves previously deep in the ground - is having an effect.

There is no implication of "oxygen pollution" according to this definition, or attempt at redefinition like yours
.

McReal you have misunderstood what was said.

As I previously stated, BAC was forced to explain the obvious - that the word pollute never previously applied to relative amounts of a substance in its normal environment. It applied to to the introduction of a foreign and usually toxic substance. The AGW lobby has arbitrarily redefined the word to mean excessive (in their opinion)amounts of a substance in its normal environment.

The reason for this is due to their hope that "pollute",a more emotive word, will scare the population. Perhaps they will seek to call it 'evil' next.

Following from the AGW 'pollution' logic, CO2 is not just carbon pollution but also oxygen pollution because oxygen, being part of the CO2 molecule, is also contributing to the problem.

It is now clear to see that redefining the term pollution is nonsensical and self-serving.

Its also disturbing to see how easily some people are convinced.

CO2 is not a pollutant.

Atman says;

>> Following from the AGW 'pollution' logic, CO2 is not just carbon pollution but also oxygen pollution because oxygen, being part of the CO2 molecule, is also contributing to the problem. <<

Absolute utter nonsense!

There are two double bonded oxygen atoms on either side of the carbon atom forming the linear heat-trapping CO2 molecule.

Carbon is carbon, oxygen is oxygen, carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide!

For Christ's sake Atman, if you want to open your mouth do some simple homework like any high school science student.

But wait ... if you did science at school you should know the basics of CO2.

Therefore, logic points to you deliberately distorting and misrepresenting the truth.

(apologies to runner but I am sure even Christ understands)

Bonmot - Again, your reply makes no sense. Your point exactly? Stating that 'oxygen is oxygen' and 'Carbon is carbon' is a little, well, odd and unrelated ot the point being made. Unfortunately, you have little or no understanding of science which is revealed by you Wikipedia definition of CO2.

Understanding that oxygen is a large part of your 'evil' CO2 would be a good beginning lesson in Chemistry for you and help you get a grip on logic involving science.

Then you might be able to coherently argue the point.

LOL,
Double degree, honours in science (chemistry) and chemical engineering; post-doctoral work in ocean/atmosphere coupled systems.

Following your logic ... don't drink water.

Bonmot,
When you’ve finished stomping on Atmans fingers …

"Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting.": Ernest Rutherford

Oh, and in case you want to upgrade …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um7SttlM8fI

Bonmot, your patience is admirable. The man is an idiot.

Nicco, there really is no excuse for ignorance in our society today. Whilst Atman's claim showed ignorance, his reply was indeed idiotic. Whether he is an idiot (or not) is really not at issue.

I think we know who is wanting to dumb down the average Ozzie joe/jill - it is so counter productive, so very negative, and so without vision.

Thing is, while idiocy or foolishness is also counter productive, both idiots and fools still have the right to vote ... even the right to run for parliament.

Bonmot, personal attacks are the sign of having no coherent arguments and quoting personal qualifications proves nothing. Such ploys are well known characteristics of people who run out of ideas. I have Science qualifications from an elite University. This means very little in terms of this discussion nor do your 'reported' qualifications.

You say "following your logic...don't drink water" . Wrong. Your reasoning is apparently that if O2 was a pollutant (like you say carbon is) then water would be a pollutant. You missed the point that I was parodying your logic with carbon, using oxygen, to prove a point. This a your logic, not mine. You are arguing against yourself. You have actually successfully defeated yourself in an argument. Sorry, if you didn't get it.