{"id":921,"date":"2015-06-20T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-06-20T10:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/?p=921"},"modified":"2015-11-03T20:35:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T19:35:27","slug":"how-climate-change-doubters-lost-a-papal-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/?p=921","title":{"rendered":"How climate-change doubters lost a papal fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anthony Faiola and Chris Mooney \/\u00a0Mooney reported from Washington. Michelle Boorstein in Washington, Virgile Demoustier in Paris and Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Wearing a yellow raincoat, Pope Francis waves to the faithful as he arrives in Tacloban, Philippines, in January. (Wally Santana\/AP)<\/em><\/div>\n

It marked the latest blow for those seeking to stop the reform-minded train that has become Francis\u2019s papacy. It is one that has reinvigorated liberal Catholics even as it has sowed the seeds of resentment and dissent inside and outside the Vatican\u2019s ancient walls.<\/em><\/p>\n

VATICAN CITY \u2014\u00a0Pope Francis was about to take a major step backing the science behind \u00adhuman-driven global warming, and Philippe de Larminat was determined to change his mind.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A French doubter who authored a book arguing that solar activity \u2014 not greenhouse gases \u2014 was driving global warming, de Larminat sought a spot at a climate summit in April sponsored by the Vatican\u2019s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Nobel laureates would be there. So would U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs and others calling for dramatic steps to curb carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

After securing a high-level meeting at the Vatican, he was told that, space permitting, he could join. He bought a plane ticket from Paris to Rome. But five days before the April\u00a028 summit, de Larminat said, he received an e-mail saying there was no space left. It came after other scientists \u2014 as well as the powerful Vatican bureaucrat in charge of the academy \u2014 insisted he had no business being there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did not want to hear an off note,\u201d de Larminat said.<\/p>\n

The incident highlights how climate-change doubters tried and failed to alter the\u00a0landmark papal document<\/a>unveiled last week \u2014 one that saw the leader of 1\u00a0billion Catholics fuse faith and reason and come to the conclusion that \u201cdenial\u201d is wrong.<\/p>\n

Yet the battle lost over climate change also suggests how hard it may be for critics to blunt the power of a man who has become something of a juggernaut in an institution where change tends to unfold over decades, even centuries. More than anything, to those who doubt the human impact of global warming, the position staked out by Francis in his papal document, known as an encyclical, means a major defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was their Waterloo,\u201d said Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center, who has been tracking \u00adclimate-change deniers for years. \u201cThey wanted the encyclical not to happen. And it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Papal advisers say Francis signaled his intent to draft a major document on the environment soon after assuming the throne of St. Peter in March 2013. His interest in the topic dates to his days as a bishop in Buenos Aires, where Francis, officials say, was struck by the effects of floods and unsanitary conditions on Argentine shantytowns known as \u201cmisery villages.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January, Francis officially announced his goal of drafting the encyclical \u2014 saying after an official visit to the Philippines that he wanted to make a \u201ccontribution\u201d to the debate ahead of a major U.N. summit on climate change in Paris in December.<\/p>\n

But several efforts by those skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change to influence the document appear to have come considerably later \u2014 in April \u2014 and, maybe, too late.<\/p>\n

In late April, the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a free-market group that serves as a hub of skepticism regarding the science of human-caused global warming, sent a delegation to the Vatican. As a Heartland news release put it, they hoped \u201cto inform Pope Francis of the truth about climate science: There is no global warming crisis!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was meant to coincide with the same April meeting that de\u00a0Larminat was trying to attend. Heartland\u2019s activists were not part of the invited contingent, either, Heartland communications director Jim Lakely said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a side event,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were outside the walls of the Vatican. We were at a hotel \u2014 literally, I could throw a football into St. Peter\u2019s Square.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven scientists and other experts gave speeches at the Heartland event, raising doubts about various aspects of the scientific consensus on climate change, even as several also urged the pope not to take sides in the debate. It\u2019s impossible to know how that influenced those in the Vatican working on the pope\u2019s document \u2014 which one Vatican official said was at \u201can advanced stage.\u201d But Lakely said his group did not see much of its argument reflected in the final document.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want the poor to live better lives, but we just don\u2019t think the solution to that is to restrict the use of fossil fuels, because we don\u2019t think CO2 is causing a climate crisis,\u201d Lakely said. \u201cSo if that\u2019s our message in a sentence, that message was not reflected in the encyclical, so there you go.\u201d<\/p>\n

One member of the Heartland delegation was E. Calvin Beisner, a theologian and founder of an evangelical group called the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. In April, the group launched an \u201copen letter\u201d to the pope, signed by more than 100 scholars and theologians, arguing that climate-change models \u201cprovide no rational basis to forecast dangerous human-induced global warming, and therefore no rational basis for efforts to reduce warming by restricting the use of fossil fuels or any other means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beisner said he thinks that \u201cbetween a quarter and a third\u201d of the signers were Catholic. He said he is not totally unhappy with the pope\u2019s encyclical \u2014 he appreciates the sections on the need to help the poor and \u201cthe sanctity of human life.\u201d But as for the climate section, he said, Francis is \u201cwriting in an area that is not his own background, and it looks to me as if he was poorly served by his adviser.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following his predecessors<\/p>\n

Based on the people he recently appointed to his council for science, Francis was also seen to have made up his mind on the question of global warming. Some prominent conservatives \u2014 particularly economic and environmental conservatives \u2014 were consulted by the Vatican during the process, but \u201cmany were sort of shocked that none of their contributions made it in there,\u201d Raymond Arroyo, news director at the Catholic mega-channel EWTN, said Friday.<\/p>\n

Instead, the pope sought to build on the progressive environmental platforms established by his immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II. For advice, he turned to a number of scientific advisers who support the consensus that human activity is warming the Earth. They included Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.<\/p>\n

A professed atheist, Schellnhuber nevertheless saw a chance for a massive coup in the climate debate if a sitting pope issued an ode to Earth and the ills of carbon emissions. But not everyone, he said, seemed to want the encyclical to take sides.<\/p>\n

He said he was stunned to hear that de Larminat, the French doubter, almost made it to the key Vatican climate summit in April. To him, it showed that \u201ceven within the Vatican, there were some people who would like to see something that presented both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Larminat had a cordial meeting in March with Cardinal Peter Turkson, a senior member of the clergy and a key supporter of the pope\u2019s encyclical. At the meeting, both men said, Turkson promised to try to secure a space for the Frenchman at the April summit.<\/p>\n

However, Bishop Marcelo S\u00e1nchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences \u2014 a body of luminaries, religious and not, dating back decades but with roots in the 17th century \u2014 effectively vetoed de Larminat’s presence. Asked why, S\u00e1nchez Sorondo responded in an e-mail, \u201cbecause he\u2019s not an academic authority in this field, neither a religious authority nor a U.N. authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkson, however, said that he was told only that the summit was \u201cwell overbooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Francis\u2019s 27 months as pope, something of a conservative resistance has formed to his more progressive tone. It particularly showed itself during fierce theological debates in October that saw conservatives successfully scrap language in a church document that would have recognized \u201cthe gifts and qualities\u201d of gay people.<\/p>\n

Some conservatives, including U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, have publicly denied a rift with the pope while also openly warning of a liberal strain coursing through the church. And a number of leaks in the Italian news media \u2014 including of the encyclical itself \u2014 have sparked a flurry of intrigue over possible conspiracies inside the Vatican.<\/p>\n

Luigi Vicinanza, editor of the magazine L\u2019Espresso, which published the leaked draft of the encyclical, said he had personally obtained it from a source. He would not identify the source but said he did not think the person was \u201cout to harm the pope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, some pope watchers blame several leaks on an anti-Francis cabal inside the Vatican walls. Others say that not enough evidence has emerged to pin the leaks on a specific agenda.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez Sorondo, however, denied that there had been significant internal opposition to the pope\u2019s encyclical. He insisted that rather than from inside Vatican City, the primary pressure against its message had come from climate-change deniers \u2014 particularly in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is clear that this pope is very courageous,\u201d said S\u00e1nchez Sorondo, who, like Francis, is an Argentine. \u201cHe is not a politician. He is not a diplomat. He is someone who is willing to say what others are afraid to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mooney reported from Washington. Michelle Boorstein in Washington, Virgile Demoustier in Paris and Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/b><\/p>\n

Release of encyclical reveals pope\u2019s deep dive into climate science<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to live like Pope Francis? 7 ways you can care for the environment.<\/a><\/p>\n

What you need to know about Pope Francis\u2019s environmental encyclical<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anthony Faiola and Chris Mooney \/\u00a0Mooney reported from Washington. Michelle Boorstein in Washington, Virgile Demoustier in Paris and Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report. Wearing a yellow raincoat, Pope Francis waves to the faithful as he arrives in Tacloban, Philippines, in January. (Wally Santana\/AP) It marked the latest blow for those seeking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,92,15,20,48],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-washpost","tag-ambiente","tag-papa-francesco","tag-religioni","tag-societa","tag-vaticano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":923,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions\/923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}