Home / Front Page

Sep 28, 2011

Science takes a hit with EPA climate report

The latest eco-buzz comes from criticism by the Office of Inspector General for the US Environmental Protection Agency about the agency's oversight of climate-related research. According to the inspector general’s report, technical information used by the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation for a report on climate-change impacts was a “highly influential scientific assessment,” and thus required a significant level of peer-reviewed evaluation.

EPA counters that the technical information used did not meet the definition of a highly influential scientific assessment, and thus they did not break any internal policies with their reduced level of oversight.

The findings in question are about the extent to which certain air pollutants—known commonly as greenhouse gases—are affecting public health. To make this determination, EPA used documents from three research groups: the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC). EPA took reports from these groups and developed what is known in scientific-bureaucratic lingo as a “technical support document” or TSD. (Have you been keeping track of the acronyms? Welcome to the world...
Sep 24, 2011

More B16 in Germany: human ecology and acid rain

Benedict XVI has been on fire with his talks and homilies during his four-day visit to Germany. As noted in my previous post on his speech to Germany’s parliament, his words have once again included thoughts on ecology. Two days after he received a standing ovation in parliament, he gave a homily that compared Germany’s trials under Nazi and Communist dictatorships to acid rain. For Catholic ecologists—indeed, for all Catholics and all those who seek what is true—these words invite reflection.

His talk to German lawmakers was a probing reflection on law and its relation to justice, the common good and the roots thereof. Human law must participate in something prior to itself if it is to flourish—and that something we Catholics proclaim is a Someone. What surprised many listening to Benedict XVI (and what resulted in a round of applause) was the pontiff’s calling attention to the good intentions of (apparently) Germany’s Green Party. According to the Green Party’s website, “for nearly 30 years we have been working in the parliament for environmental protection and sustainable development, democracy and human rights, social justice, peace and multilateral international policies.”

Benedict XVI had...

Sep 22, 2011

B16 to German Parliament: Ecology has a human dimension

Photo: M.Mazur/www.thepapalvisit.org.uk

In his historic talk to the German Parliament today, the Holy Father made the following statement on ecology. It explains much about his interest in ecology as both a scientific and moral issue as well as a topic that teaches us something of what it means to be human. It's no wonder this section of his talk received a loud, spontaneous round of applause.

How can reason rediscover its true greatness, without being sidetracked into irrationality? How can nature reassert itself in its true depth, with all its demands, with all its directives? I would like to recall one of the developments in recent political history, hoping that I will neither be misunderstood, nor provoke too many one-sided polemics. I would say that the emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s, while it has not exactly flung open the windows, nevertheless was and continues to be...
Sep 19, 2011

Charity and an inconvenient spokesperson

A good many who do not believe in anthropomorphic climate change turn and run every time Al Gore puts on a show.

Since An Inconvenient Truth, the former vice president has made a point out about making a point about climate change. And dramatically, too. Most recently, Gore’s The Climate Reality Project continues a slick packaging of everything you need to know about man-made climate change. Well, maybe not everything.

From some of the coverage it received, The Climate Reality Project has its fair share of detractors. See here, for instance, and here, here and here.

Thus problem number one: the skeptics that Gore and his followers would like to convert don't seem to be paying attention to him. These people are mostly (but certainly not all) on the political right. They disdain the left’s insistence that humanity is boiling the planet with an excessive population and its nasty capitalism. The inevitable clash of ideologies creates its own show, but a sad one. Truth—the kind that real science should be able to uncover—is the victim...
Sep 17, 2011

Catholic Ecology for Catechetical Sunday


Here's a sampling of posts and columns to help use ecology to teach theology, and vice versa:

Ecology from the Holy Father’s perspective: here, and here, and here.

Climate change: here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here.

Life and abortion: here, and here and here.

Then there's insights from such topics as biodiversity, sailing, coal mines, Easter, and tornado chasing.

And, related to all this: human...
Sep 16, 2011

He who desires to die well, must live well

Robert Bellarmine's tomb,Church of Sant`Ignazio, Rome  
As the Church prepares for Catechetical Sunday—a celebration of parents and all instructors who hold and teach the Catholic faith—today we celebrate the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), a Jesuit priest, a patron of Catholic educators and a cardinal very much caught up in one of the most known faith-reason debates within the Church: The Galileo Affair.

I’ve written often about the healthy dialogue between faith and reason in Catholic thought and practice, especially as it relates to Galileo’s great discoveries. I stress this because so much of ecology today is a blend of hard science, ethics, and morality. And ethics and morality are ultimately informed by the soul and a sound faith in a God that is love.

Indeed, as our Holy Father stresses in his second letter to the Church: “It is not science that redeems man; man is redeemed by love.”...

Pages

Subscribe to

If you like Catholic Ecology,
you’ll love…

A Printer's Choice

The sci-fi novel with a Catholic twist.

A Printer's Choice

Learn more

About the Blog

Catholic Ecology posts my regular column in the Rhode Island Catholic, as well as scientific and theological commentary about the latest eco-news, both within and outside of the Catholic Church. What is contained herein is but one person's attempt to teach and defend the Church's teachings - ecological and otherwise. As such, I offer all contents of this blog for approval of the bishops of the Church. It is my hope that nothing herein will lead anyone astray from truth.