The Heartland Institute sent a team of climate scientists to Rome this week to inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science: There is no global warming crisis. A slate of independent scientists and policy experts offer a “prebuttal” to the Vatican’s April 28 “Climate Summit.”
Climate scientists and policy experts laid out a detailed case explaining why climate science does not justify the Holy See putting its faith in the work of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The presentations are in response to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences meeting on April 28, which is hosting a workshop titled “Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity” to “raise awareness and build a consensus” among people of faith that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming. The Heartland Institute — the world’s leading think tank promoting scientific skepticism about man-caused global warming — brought real scientists to Rome to dissuade Pope Francis from lending his moral authority to the politicized and unscientific climate agenda of the United Nations.
Learn All About the Prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success About Our Times
The Vatican’s summit features two men — Ban Ki-Moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, and Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs — who refuse to acknowledge the abundant data showing human greenhouse gas emissions are not causing a climate crisis and there is no need for a radical reordering of global economies that will cause massive reductions in human freedom and prosperity.
Heartland’s experts will send this message to Pope Francis: Please do not put the enormous weight of your moral authority behind the discredited and scandal-prone United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Instead, speak out for the poor and disadvantaged of the world who need affordable and reliable energy to escape grinding poverty.
“The Holy Father is being misled by ‘experts’ at the United Nations who have proven unworthy of his trust,” said Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast. “Humans are not causing a climate crisis on God’s Green Earth — in fact, they are fulfilling their Biblical duty to protect and use it for the benefit of humanity. Though Pope Francis’s heart is surely in the right place, he would do his flock and the world a disservice by putting his moral authority behind the United Nations’ unscientific agenda on the climate.
“People of all faiths have a moral calling to continually seek the truth,” Bast said. “That is why Heartland is sending a contingent of real scientists to Rome next week. We are bringing the Vatican a message of truth for all with open ears: The science is not settled, and global warming is not a crisis. The world’s poor will suffer horribly if reliable energy — the engine of prosperity and a better life — is made more expensive and less reliable by the decree of global planners.”
In addition to the conference in Rome, an open letter is being circulated by the Cornwall Alliance — a group that describes itself as bringing together people of faith and scientists as a “voice promoting environmental stewardship and economic development based on Biblical principles.” It came the day before the opening of a Vatican conference on April 27 that brought together Catholic churchmen, business people and environmentalists to discuss strategies to address poverty and environmental degradation.
Approximately 90 scientists, religious leaders, and academics have signed the letter that urges Pope Francis to re-examine scientific and moral arguments concerning global climate change. The signatories suggest that he may not be sufficiently informed about the issue. In December 2014, the pontiff promised to release an encyclical letter in June of this year concerning a Christian response to environmental stewardship. “Rather than a careful reporting of the best evidence,” they write, “we get highly speculative and theory-laden conclusions presented as the assured results of science. In the process, science itself is diminished, and many well-meaning moral and religious leaders risk offering solutions based on misleading science.”