Vatican prelate predicts Pope will change Trump’s view on climate change
May 16, 2017
The president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has expressed confidence that Pope Francis will be able to persuade President Donald Trump of the urgency of climate change, when he meets with the American leader on May 24.
Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo said that Trump’s position on climate change is “against science.” But he observed that Trump has changed his stand on other matters, and “perhaps on this as well.”
Bishop Sorondo, who has been outspoken on the issue, made several questionable claims in his interview with the ANSA news agency. He claimed:
- that during his presidential Trump had blamed China for raising the issue of climate change;
- that “the Chinese are actually very collaborative” in efforts to protect the climate;
- that American oil companies had made strenuous efforts to tone down the papal encyclical Laudato Si’;
- that in the US, oil corporations, “in addition to being those that earn the most, receive the most advantages and are subsidized by the state.”
In the past Bishop Sanchez has made the claim that all scientists who question the reality of human-induced climate change are being supported by American oil corporations. In his exchange with ANSA he said that Trump’s position on the issue is dangerous because “truths begin to be denied” and because climate change is the cause of the world’s migration crisis.
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Posted by: claude-ccc2991 -
May. 17, 2017 2:37 PM ET USA
Previous post leaves unanswered why surface stations show 1979-97 warming? GROUND:1000s of weather stations were decomissioned such that % located @airports rose from 30% to 85%. Think of localized warming by all that concrete & fully throttled jet engines. OCEAN: methodology change from below surface collection of relatively cooler waters to surface collection where there is significant solar warming. Conclusion:PERCEPTION of warming created from large changes in data homogeneity&methodology.
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Posted by: claude-ccc2991 -
May. 17, 2017 2:26 PM ET USA
Here's science: alarmists claim 1979-97=time of greatest warming&the upper troposphere warmed more rapidly than the surface. Yet both satellite&weather balloons show NO increase in UT warming rate. Had surface waters warmed, there would've been greater production of warm moist air rising&condensing in the UT where T is cool enough, & xtra condensation releasing xtra heat that would increase the UT warming rate. But satellites&weather balloons DON'T show that. Ergo, there was no warming 1979-97.
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Posted by: Retired01 -
May. 17, 2017 12:55 PM ET USA
Indeed, the inmates are running the asylum.
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Posted by: David K -
May. 16, 2017 9:37 PM ET USA
The arts-major conspiracy theories that Sorondo nods to in this interview are common currency in the Vatican these days. For example, Cardinal Turkson is into them with a vengeance. The African moment in the Church is going to bring a lot of good, but it will bring some odd things as well.
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Posted by: filioque -
May. 16, 2017 6:43 PM ET USA
This is the same Bishop Sanchez Sorondo who claimed in December 2015 that the Pope's position on climate change is as binding on Catholics as the Church's teaching on abortion. If he wants to do science, he should give us the evidence that human activity is causing climate change. The issue is not whether the climate is changing. It always has. The issue is whether is is changing in some unusual way that can be explained only by human activity.
