Pope Francis Gets Most of It Right, Some of It Wrong
There is no doubt that Pope Francis and His humanitarian messages rank at the very top of the forces of good in the world at this point. But is He right on everything? Sadly, no. Unfortunately, He’s constrained by 1600 years of church policy that calls upon Him to reject anything that could possibly control the Earth’s population, which is currently sprinting its way from 7.3 billion to an estimated 9.7 billion by 2050.
Your Holiness:
Since You are obviously quite sincere in your quest to end human suffering, here’s something to consider: we need to manufacture less of it. It’s hard to imagine that God is against women having fewer babies, especially when those babies are doomed to short lives of pain and hopelessness, followed by an agonizing death—but not before they have made, in turn, many more babies, thus perpetuating the cycle of misery while ruining the planet.
A huge, energy-hungry population works directly against everything You’re trying to accomplish. You’ve done so much good in the world in the last few years; here’s one more issue that needs Your modern perspective of love and compassion, as well as Your respect for science.
In my estimation, he’s also wrong about canonizing Juníper Serra i Ferrer a saint. That said, he’s obviously an intelligent and aware individual, and he has got a tremendous amount correct. He’s no radical, to be sure, but when compared to the prior ‘padre’ (Ratzinger) he’s a complete and welcome sea change.
The whole subject of sainthood strikes me a bit odd, personally.
You’re not alone, my friend. There are many practices in the Catholic church that I don’t even find supported in scripture – confession of sins to men, praying to Mary and the saints… Still, Francis seems like he may prove a potent reformer.
Having said that, yes, I should add that it is categorically wrong to canonize a man who enslaved, beat, imprisoned, and tortured people–regardless of the norms of the day.
sainthood isnt all that complicated. its merely a way of identifying role models for others to emulate. The step-bystep method and rules are nothing more than the traditional method of doing it.
Over population is a contentious issue. The best means of controlling over population would appear to be consumer prosperity and advanced education for women.
Neither of these are within the remit of the Roman Church.
Consumer prosperity is a by-product of mass industrialization and the production of sufficient surplus to sustain a society where items of esoteric or aesthetic value become more valuable than the basic necessities of existence.
Advanced education for women is another consequence of an advance consumer economy.
Political ideologies that focus on economic management based on a redistribution of wealth by government intervention, or social control mechanisms, invariably restrict the economy, and the ability of the economy to create credit. The result is the economy shrinks, consumerism is inhibited, and prosperity disappears.
Since the dawn of civilization, there have always been doomsayers, preaching apocalyptic prophesies of the end of the world due to human “greed”. The desire for self-flagellation, is not just restricted to a few religious zealots, but widespread among leftist ideologies.
As Frank pointed out so succinctly on another thread, the answer to all problems created by humans, is not to do away with humans or human ingenuity, but to direct human ingenuity to creating technology to improve and rectify problems.
A simple analogy of the difference between the two philosophies could be found in the proposition:
Cattle and sheep create huge amounts of climate change methane emissions.
In order to solve this problem, well meaning leftist’s like Cameron would propose that everyone become a vegetarian and castigate the giant meat producing corporations. (especially MacDonald’s)
Setting aside the economic devastation created by such a proposal, and the draconian restrictions of civil liberties required to enforce such a proposal, the environmental cost would be worse than the emissions created by current farming practices.
Now a less exciting conservative proposal, might be to forget finding “guilty” culprits and simply develop technology to bio-engineer the ability for ruminants to digest grass and grain, without producing methane.(or high levels of methane)
(Such a technology is at an advanced state of development).
I did not know that the Inquisition was alive and “well” in the New World. Naive me.
I like Pope Francis, and he does have to stay within the limits of the Catholic church. I think he is doing better than any pope I know of. I loved watching him face Congress, however I don’t think he affected those greedy bastards!
Not a good Catholic, but on population, my assumption is that organized religion is the ultimate egalitarian perspective – we should all live and die in complete unison. It is highly unlikely that technology will unfetter humankind’s greatest issues, and barring that, there will be mass starvation, population disruption and the attendant warfare that such drama always results in. Like most ecosystems, all these issues are self-rectifying. Most of us simply won’t like it. All near term, which I define as the remainder of this century. After that – who knows? If some people have their way, we’ll turn this planet into Venus, and that’s a one way street. Before that, we’ll dig in and alter our life styles such that we are not out in the open too often. Humans are awesomely adaptable.
Good comments All and yes while Pope Francis is a Fresh Spirit with many good positions and actions he is constrained by centuries of dogmatic policy. Hopefully he lives long enough as Pope to continue trying to reform this multi generational institution that has done some great good globally and also been part of the problem – perhaps the Human condition touches all !
My wish is for population control for the reasons stated by others and also more acceptance and tolerance for individuals. May he lay the groundwork for a good successor to continue on the Path way of shedding the symbolic dogmas and Opening Up the church and other Internal Housecleaning so it practices are in line with the realities of life.
I deeply respected his articulate teaching and efforts to enlighten our own very dysfunctional Congress. He hit several out of the Park in a very respectful manner. He is good dude and I think he left a More Positive impression on the masses everywhere he went.
Progress has long been called a comfortable disease – in respect to the church Progress is also quite Slow!
i dont think the problem is too many people. i think the problem is that a handful of rich people are destroying the planet, and the poor masses are getting blamed.
when the poor masses get access to education and a comfortable lifestyle, they will stop making children. Look at French Canada. When the british kept them exploited and poor, they had 10-20 children per family. Now that we are rich as other north americans, we have small families.
distribute the worlds wealth equitably, and most problems will solve themselves.
we have to stop blaming the poor. they are not the problem, we are, with our SUVs and hotubs and annual vacations in the carribean, all courtesy of fossil fuels.
The level and growth of the global human population is a huge issue, but one few like to discuss. There aren’t a lot of pretty solutions.
Even with the most efficient farming and low-meat high nutrient food stream, humanity’s present numbers are already far beyond Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity.
From 1970 to 2010, the global human population – the number of individual humans – nearly doubled.
In that same forty years, the global population of vertebrates – the number of individual mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and fish – fell by 52%.
That’s based on observations of over 10,000 populations of over 3,000 vertebrates species.
That’s the web of life that supports us all, and on which all of us will always depend.
Based on current trends, the present human population of 7.3 billion will swell to 9.6 billion by 2050, and animal populations will predictably dwindle with our expansion.
How many strands can we cut from the hammock before we fall on our collective ass?
Absent a broad and rapid move toward a naturally harmonious use of technologies, we’re about to find out how many.
The Pope should be following the Bible.
The first command that God gave to mankind is to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth.” (This was originally given in Genesis 1:28, and is repeated, to Noah and his sons, in Genesis 9:1.) Some translations say “replenish” instead of “fill”, but, if you know the original Hebrew, it says “וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ” Oo-mil’oo et ha-artetz, literally, “and you (plural) shall fill the land.”
Notice that God specified “and fill the earth”, that being the limit to being fruitful and multiplying. Well, my friends, we are getting very close to filling the earth. It is time to cut back on human fertility to replacement levels, or nature will intervene with catastrophes that will leave fewer people than otherwise.
(I hope the blogging software can handle the Hebrew letters I so carefully cut and pasted here.)
Yes, it looks like we got ’em. Thanks, Joshua.
Over population, etc was a hot topic in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s, with an announcement by 93% of the worlds leading scientists etc, (including the UN, sound familiar ? ) endorsing the prophesy by the Club of Rome that 1977 was the year the “Stork would pass the Plough”. 1977 would see permanent and incre4asing world food shortages, famine etc.
The Club of Rome was not dismayed 1977 proved to be a year of over production of food. They simply readjusted the modelling by discovering some new facts, and re- predicted 2011. Then , when 2011 proved elusive, extended the apocalypse to the mid 21st century. (Limits of Growth).
I can’t predict what excuse will be made in 2050 (it’s unlikely i will be around to read it), but all this sounds very familiar, with other doomsday methodologies. .
Even such respected institutions as NASA get in on the doomsday prediction business. . NASA predicted that 2013, was a mathematical certainty for the sun’s growing magnetic energy combined with the high levels of sunspot activity would cause a barrage of solar flares destroying computers, satellites etc. The Earth’s magnetic field would be disrupted and the world as we know it, would come to an end !
But, here we are in 2015, and it hasn’t occurred yet.
The planet is capable of feeding vastly more than 7 or even 9 billion people. There’s no need to resort to draconian measures to “control’ populations (what’s with all this desire to ‘control ” people ?).
Some natural habits and some animal species will disappear, but most will be preserved and even adapt to live with humans. Humans will cope with the pressure of overcrowding by adapting to modern technology. Third world populations will decline with increases in life expectancy, education and prosperity.
Huge new industries are already arising to make profits from human waste and new technologies. There are wonderful new opportunities to improve human existence and enhance the environment, as long as we keep expanding our economic surpluses to finance new technologies and developments.
We must place our faith optimistically in our own human ingenuity, and realize that moral hand-wringing, and self-flagellation will just render us powerless to help ourselves, or the environment.
Thanks for this. Here are my comments: http://2greenenergy.com/2015/09/29/will-the-invisible-hand-i-e-free-market-economics-address-the-planets-woes/.
Marcopolo,
You wrote, “Political ideologies that focus on economic management based on a redistribution of wealth by government intervention, or social control mechanisms, invariably restrict the economy, and the ability of the economy to create credit. The result is the economy shrinks, consumerism is inhibited, and prosperity disappears.”
I think that that requires a bit of expansion. Probably we would disagree with the Marxist doctrine that wealth should be evenly distributed. Among other things, such a system would most likely restrict development to an unacceptable degree. However, there is a limit to how much unequal distribution is acceptable. Here in the U.S., unequal distribution has become so extreme that even some of the most wealthy agree that it is too extreme.
Probably you would agree, but your post (not the most recent one) could be interpreted to indicate that you would support total laissez faire.
Regarding the maximum carrying capacity of the earth, I’m not sure that we know what it is. To a considerable extent it would depend on how we do things. As an extreme example, if we had abundant, cheap, and benign energy, farming could be done in multi-level structures, almost like multi-level parking garages, with artificial lighting and nitrogen fertilizers made using cheap energy, thereby greatly reducing land requirements for farming as well as reducing the need to transport food. Even so, it would probably be best if there were no more population growth and possibly some population reduction resulting from voluntarily limiting family sizes. If our population were only one billion we would not now be concerned with global warming so obviously, as you have written, excessive population considerably contributes to our problems.
Frank,
Human progress is a bit like evolution, it’s difficult to plan and lurches in all sorts of directions until it finds a common goal. The dynamics of human civilization requires competition, individualism, collective organization and all sorts of contradictory elements.
All human societies must contain an element of common organization to produce a cohesive civic administration. after the basic needs of the collective are met, the surplus is divided for civic and individual prosperity.
This is the real and least understood “wealth” of a society. This “wealth” is the creation of esoteric or aesthetic values. Civilizations may create public gardens, libraries greater civic infrastructure, etc while private individuals ( or collectives) may create banks, and trade ventures to grow wealth from the production of art, crafts, fashion and “luxury ” goods.
This is the “wealth”, least understood by socialists. This “wealth” isn’t tangible, it only exists in the imagination of humans. This “wealth” can’t be “re-distributed” or divided, doing so would only destroy it’s value.
An example of “invisible redistribution” takes place every day. A wealthy individual may purchase a fashion item for 1000 times the cost of it’s utilitarian alternative. The following season the item has lost it’s value, as it’s no longer fashionable. The “wealth” has been redistributed to the long chain of people working in the vast industry required to market such an item. The creation of such ever increasingly complex surplus, is what creates prosperous economies.
Restriction of surplus creates poverty.
Prosperity, advanced female education and longer life spans, automatically reduces population growth. Japanese population growth is 0.02% ! All of Europe, even South America, most of Asia, populations growth has slowed dramatically. The USA and India are the only nations outside Africa expanding their populations beyond replacement levels.
If you posit a being of superior knowledge and understanding it seems only logical and consistent to follow that those of inferior knowledge and understanding cannot fathom the superior perspective. Yet humans religious or otherwise consistently presume in error.
I may not share the church perspective on birth control but I recognize it is consistent with a view that creation of a life is beyond science.
But you might hold to the belief that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” … Emerson: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/353571-a-foolish-consistency-is-the-hobgoblin-of-little-minds-adored
Craig,
Here’s a little levity to describe the principles of Economics ::)
21 Economic Models … explained with cows
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.and the state gives one to your neighbor.
Now neither of you produce enough milk but the state gives you a milk subsidy.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and collectivizes you and your neighbour,
The State seizes both cows to meet the meat quota
The Secret Police arrest you for sabotaging milk production
BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the
milk away…
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.
SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.
VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters
of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a
debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all
four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to
a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who
sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The
annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one
more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States ,
leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the
release. The public then buys your bull.
A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you
want three cows.
A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow
cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.
A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and
milk themselves.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.
A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.
You finance the owners to buy and store cows, produce milk,
sell the milk to produce chocolate and charge a royalty on SWISS chocalate.
A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.
A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.
AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
Oh well,…..
Love it!
Btw, I was telling my wife over lunch: I’m kind of mystified by the guy MarcoPolo; I wonder who he is; I’ll bet I know him from my travels.
Yes Craig very Amazing and Stimulating discussion of Globally Epic Proportions. Marco Polo has some elevated Gravitas on complex issues but his allegiance to economic systems built around a controlling class , and the results over decades of these controlling class systems are failing all of us as I write this.
Extreme positions lead to Failure and many of the examples he cites are now failing many economies and long ago began failing the collective environment and many of societies conflicts are rooted in over concentration of the controlling class.
Failure to recognize that systems are out of Balance is not a winning Strategy all Clever examples put aside!
stjoseph09,
Nothing is perfect. But it’s pointless just proclaiming that everything existing is a failure, and doomsday is inevitable unless some totally unworkable ideology is followed.
Politically, this sort of thinking simply leads to populist politicians who will tell you want hear, not what you need to hear, or idealistic impractical politicians, who having gained power promptly ride off in all directions at once, initiating ill-conceived poorly thought through policies, that fail at great public expense.
Human societies always have leaders and some form of ‘Class’ structure. Like it or not, that’s basic to human society and hardwired into civilization. The concept of equal rites and opportunities is a noble and to some extent and achievable goal of social organization, but absolute equality is neither desirable, nor achievable.
Elon Musk and Tesla, are living proof the existing system has the ability to accommodate innovation. ” Climate Change” is often used as an excuse by advocates of all kinds of ideologies to justify demands which have very little to do with with the actual science. Enthusiastic advocates demand large scale social changes which will not occur, because it saves them from participating in the hundreds of smaller, less ideologically pure, but infinitely more practical environmental projects that can be accomplished.
Claiming ” that systems are out of Balance” , is not helpful unless you have some practical alternative.
Marco Polo , I could present voluminous accounts of Out of Balance systems but there is no need to try and reach across the cultural and value chasm which I surmise in reviewing your various comments.
I am into collaborating with others on a Heart felt level and there is no point in point / counter pointing with you over differences that are rooted in culture, spirit and economic predispositions towards the essence and purpose of life here on Earth.
You often present some quite intelligent observations and in particular the insights into the maze and mix of Australian politics and the stranded coal plant investment for water desalination. Informative and makes one contemplate things on many levels.
One take home was that it is apparent that the typical Australian voter has much in common with our American voters in that we are so fragmented and suffer from severe dosages of cognitive dissonance that we vote against our own best interests like blind sheep. Then we suffer the consequences of our self induced misery. then we blame the wrong source of our problems and go out and repeat our same mistakes! However when we do make the effort to reexamine our selves and our systems. And work collaboratively with others to correct and improve things so that we can make tangible differences in quality of things and leave something for those following us , etc. We do make Progress and reduce stress. internally and with our societal systems.
Marco you lose position when you go into your ongoing re run of the only solution to our energy / pollution challenges is to exhort the public to seek salvation in the shadows of nuclear power and perhaps coal pollution sources because it just does not matter , as we are just supposed to be beholden to bigger is Better and constrained by the energy usage limits that these two limiting technologies impose on society and the economy.
If your nuclear was so golden then the orders would be so long and firm that the industry would be Booming rather than contracting. That is the proof in the pudding as they say.
In Illinois and Indiana right now 40 yr old nuclear plants require a 3 to 3.5 cent per Kwhr price support subsidy ( after all the others they received in their development) so that these older nukes which should be running at a low marginal cost but cant due to fatigue in their systems that require added maintenance can compete with the gas and Wind ( yes Wind, that you disparage ! ) generation that is 3 to 3.5 cents less per Kwhr than the white elephant nukes! Like 6 of them. so that is just the Tip of the energy iceberg and we all know that the real answers to an iceberg situation is that they lie below the waterline out of sight to the Casual Observor!
Save your Darwinistic observations to your kind as you will need them as Things are Tipping in the Right Direction finally perhaps as the narrator of this blog said in the introduction of his most recent posting and story. So in the Spirit of Pope Francis visit to US and his Spirit of Acceptance and Peace
I bid you well across the chasm’s of Life
stjoseph09,
” I am into collaborating with others on a Heart felt level ” !
Um… to do what exactly ? Waiting for the ‘government’ or a mythical “peoples collective” is no substitution for personal action or responsibility. Sitting around being smugly superior, isn’t going to achieve anything.
The Nuclear technology you use as an example, is over 60 years old and uranium based. Not exactly an honest evaluation ! Nor are your observations on Wind power. As I previously explained, the majority of power generated by wind power, is simply dumped due to it’s intermittent nature. Wind also receives subsidies, and any realistic assessment makes wind power impractical and uneconomic, except in certain ,very localized circumstances.
Nobody is suggesting that ancient, obsolete technology using obsolete fuels be revived for modern use, but that is the sort of disingenuous arguments being advanced by the anti-nuclear lobby. Your comment shows you either have a total lack of knowledge of the advances in both nuclear technology, and fuels such as Thorium, or deliberately wish to obfuscate.
Sitting around singing kumbaya, and telling each other how wicked and evil all those people and corporations are who make your comfortable life possible, isn’t solving anything. Nor is exhorting politicians to keep making Pollyanna, feel good, announcements and spending vast sums of public money on useless grand projects only to create huge, corrupt industries, (like corn ethanol) of any value either.
The Holy Father’s message does not not remove personal responsibility.
Marco you continue on your path. Your need to spend more time making it possible to commercialize the thorium and related technology. You need to pick up the pace if you want to be even in the game. As I said in other postings in other places The Thorium option needs to be developed further. I just have no interest in being part of it.
I shared some facts with you and could share Voluminous more But there is no p[oint as I politely said/ You see the Tip of the Iceberg and its a limited view.
Go get the players and get the Thorium technology going and stop criticizing the tangible progress that the Investment Community, Governments, Energy Developers and Consumers
Aka the MARKET PLACE HAS MADE. Your going to get left behind and our wave has no exhaust plumes so you will lose sight of us . Globally this is the Trend and yes there are disruptions, imperfections and need for improvements in the technology of many renewable technologies and the Good News is the Investors keep funding these efforts So learn from our Critical Mass we are going beyond the Tipping Points so copy what we are doing and maybe your favorite technology can catch up.
Your Wind points are beyond the Pale , in Texas recently the wholesale price of electricity reached Negative $ 8.30 cents per Kwhr for a brief period. So this means the wholesale grid operator ERCOT was accepting the excess wind and it counted. to firm capacity So put that piece of reality into your Pipe and smoke it. This is not the first time either. The world is changing ….so accept and adapt!
As I said Kerep your Darwinism Attitudes to yourself or your kind. They are empty and dont resonate well with reasonable people.
I am off to a meeting with 2 Architects, 3 Engineers , two banking people and we are discsussing some renovation projects to reduce energy usage, incorporate soalr , and building technologies and a few batteries to clip peaks and water conservation and the best in LED lighting and windows and doors and deliver a product that w have a much reduced carbon footprint for the long lifecycle of the buildings.
Some would say we are doing the Lord’s Work, The Pope would like it, and the marketplace , repeat the market place Loves it as they are buying it.
If you dont like it Get over it, , because we have critical mass going for us. Later
Its going to be a Great Day over here.
stjoseph09
It always makes me nervous when people claim to be “doing the Lords work” !
As I said, all alternate energy technologies can prove useful for brief periods, or localized circumstances. That doesn’t make those technologies viable, or suitable to match the demands of an industrial society where power is required on demand, not when it’s available. Some technologies can never advance beyond small scale or experimental models, There are many reasons for this, not just a failure in the basic concept.
It’s good to see you are at least meeting with some qualified persons to pursue your dreams. Investing your own money in technology that matches your personal ideology/philosophical convictions is an excellent way of gaining some practical knowledge.
Your contempt for the scientific contribution of Charles Darwin, and “true believer’ attitude, seems indicate you may have a pretty closed mind when it comes to science.
Criticism is very important, it’s the basis of analysis, without objective analysis not only are mistakes made, but the capacity to rectify mistakes is hindered.
It will take another generation to change public opinion in the West away from Cold War attitudes toward nuclear technology, and embrace the opportunities offered by new nuclear technologies with an open mind.
In the meantime, the West will be impoverished by the rapidly expanding energy generation policies pursued by China, India and other nations which are adopting the clean, green and economically more compatible technologies offered by nuclear and fusion etc. These nations understand that large scale need requires large scale solutions.