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Sep 12, 2011

Should we listen to climate-change skeptics?

A group called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and the Heartland Institute have produced and published a report called "Climate Change Reconsidered."

It will certainly cause an uproar in some circles. Here are some of the findings:
  • Climate models fail to correctly simulate future precipitation due to inadequate model resolution on both vertical and horizontal spatial scales, a limitation that forces climate modelers to parameterize the large-scale effects of processes that occur on smaller scales than their models are capable of simulating. This is particularly true of physical processes such as cloud formation and cloud-radiation interactions.
  • All else being equal, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 would increase global temperatures through its thermal radiative properties. But CO2 promotes plant growth both on land and throughout the surface waters of the world‘s oceans, and this vast assemblage of plant life has the ability to affect Earth‘s climate in several ways, almost all of them tending to counteract the heating or cooling effects of CO2‘s thermal radiative forcing.
  • Researchers have found extreme and
...
Sep 11, 2011

Remembering 9.11.01 from an orbital perspective

Courtesy of NASA, with thanks for providing this global, international perspective.


May God bless the victims, their families and the peoples of Earth.

As Benedict XVI wrote in his letter to the bishops of the United States of America:

"Once again, it must be unequivocally stated that no circumstances can ever justify acts of terrorism. Every human life is precious in God' s sight and no effort should be spared in the attempt to promote throughout the world a genuine respect for the inalienable rights and dignity of individuals and peoples everywhere."
Sep 9, 2011

The nature of self-governance

I came across this story from BuffaloNews.com. It’s about a New York town seeking to protect itself from an anticipated boom in requests by gas companies for horizontal hydrofracking gas drilling. The story says that this technique poses “potential health and environmental risks 100 times greater than existing vertical gas wells.”

For now, I don't wish to focus on the nuances of hydrofracking, but this New York Time story gives some good background related to the Empire State.

What does interest me is the philosophy of what the town is asserting, as well as why and what presuppositions are behind their goals. Towards the end of the story we read this:
Facing these overwhelming forces, and aware of the health and safety risks associated with hydrofracking, the tiny Town of Wales recently outlawed new gas wells using the horizontal, hydraulic fracturing drilling technique.
The law asserts that the people of Wales possess certain natural and inalienable rights, including: the right to form a local government to promote their welfare, not the economic...
Sep 8, 2011

An installation homily that speaks of human ecology

On the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Mother

May God bless Archbishop Chaput, and the Church of Philadelphia  . . . of brotherly love.

Sep 4, 2011

Tropical storms, trees, and grace

A week ago I was in darkness as tropical storm Irene swirled around my home, casting trees onto power lines, making the electrical grid groan as transmission breakers slammed open.

While the week since was busy at work dealing with how power outages were affecting wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure, I was one of the lucky ones. There was little damage at home and National Grid was able to restore my power some 18 hours after I lost it. Others in Rhode Island are just getting it back. And others around the Northeast won’t be restored soon—and some in Vermont, New York and New Jersey have had to deal with the tragedy of massive flooding. May God give rest to all the souls that were lost.

Irene—oddly, a name from the Greek word for “peace”—did her share of damage. Especially to trees.

This got me thinking about my neo-pagan friends who insist that nature offers complete harmony if only we’d leave it alone. Well, I don’t know about you, but after looking around at all the felled trees since last Sunday,...
Aug 23, 2011

The dangers of rigid ideologies

I came across “Has Progressivism Ruined Environmental Science?” in the online publication American Thinker, which—from the advertising that populates it and the comments posted—seems to veer “right.” But as I am not a regular reader, I do not know this to be the case.

Still, the commentary by Anthony J. Sadar is a critique of the industry known as environmental protection. His concern is that the field has become too “progressive” and, as such, is not challenged from within by alternate views. This, he says, is dangerous for seeking truth.

He’s correct. But he’s not entirely on the money.

First, as an environmental regulator myself, I do appreciate one point he is making:
In my thirty years of work in the science arena, as a government scientist, an industry consultant, and an academician, I have witnessed an increasingly adverse influence of progressivism on the practice of science. This influence has been especially visible in my specialty, environmental science (with a focus on air-pollution meteorology).
Amen, brother. From my own experiences, I know that the ecological vocation tends...

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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.