Good to see the Catholic Church hasn't changed through the centuries.

From Wikipedia:

By 1616 the attacks on Galileo had reached a head, and he went to Rome to try to persuade the Church authorities not to ban his ideas. In the end, Cardinal Bellarmine, acting on directives from the Inquisition, delivered him an order not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre.

I'm not one to defend the Pope, but I think that is a hatchet job by an anti-AGW paper. They are attempting to spin the pope as being a denier, although he has previously said acting on GW is a "moral obligation".

In fact, he may have been criticising deniers in his speech. This Pope is perhaps too circumspect and is easily misinterpreted, he had trouble before with "words taken out of context", and had to do a lot of smoothing over. He needs to get the hang of soundbites...

In all fairness to the pope, he's not saying anything that most of us haven't said ourselves: base findings on evidence, don't base evidence on 'a priori' conclusions.

"Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken."

Some people get their knickers in a knot whenever the pope says anything. Chill folks.

It is helpful at times to be reminded that within any discussion, agendas will be at work, hyperbole will be used to defend entrenced positions, charlatans and self-learned experts will add their two cents worth, and the picture that emerges may be distorted and incomplete. Intelligence means shifting beyond shrill rhetoric and ideological opinion to grasp, even if half-blindly, what makes sense.

In the discussion on climate change, five significant questions frame the debate:
1) how is the world's climate changing? (the question "if" is mute since climate is always changing)
2) should we be worried about these changes?
3) are human beings a factor in this present change?
4) how big is the human factor in the change? and,
5) can anything be done about it?

Where I hold out little hope is in the last question. I agree with an assessment made elsewhere, we humans rank right up there with yeast when it comes to making smart choices.

Sometimes problems don't have solutions. They simply have to be endured.

Just wait to see when Fuckabee gets elected and joins the club..

Actions speak louder than words...

Vatican agrees to a carbon offset scheme
By Elisabeth Rosenthal Published: September 3, 2007

TISZAKESZI, Hungary: This summer the cardinals at the Vatican accepted an unusual donation from a Hungarian start-up called Klimafa: The company said it would plant trees to restore an ancient forest on a denuded island by the Tizsa River to offset the Vatican's carbon emissions.

The young trees, on a 15-hectare, or 37-acre, tract of land that will be renamed the "Vatican Climate Forest" will in theory absorb as much carbon dioxide as the Vatican makes through its various activities in 2007: driving cars, heating offices, lighting St. Peters Basilica at night.

In so doing, the Vatican announced, it would become the world's first carbon-neutral state.

"As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, recently stated, the international community needs to respect and encourage a 'green culture,' " said Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, who took part in a ceremony marking the event at the Vatican. "The Book of Genesis tell us of a beginning in which God placed man as guardian over the earth to make it fruitful."
The Vatican, which has recently made an effort to go green on its own by installing solar panels, sought to set an example by offsetting its carbon emissions.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/03/business/carbon.php

That's what I mean. That's what we're starting into. Just sit tight and wait, it will take serious SSRIs to keep doped up enough to deny it in the first quarter of 2008.

In 20 years I suspect historians (if we have enough civilization left to have historians then) will place the start of the Greater Depression in the first quarter of 2001. If you properly account for inflation, the US economy has only had one quarter (1Q04) with positive GDP growth, and growth that quarter was anemic at less than 0.5%. To follow the numbers go to http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/data.

Now, it hasn't felt like a depression all that time, but I agree wtih Antidoomer we shouldn't just go on feelings. By Antidoomer's Wikipedia link, a recession is 2 negative quarters in a row. I think 27 negative quarters out of 28 counts technically as a depression.

Greenspan started lowering rates aggressively in 1Q01, because unlike the happy talk and fudged numbers of the US government & the financial industry, he knew what was happening and was trying to address it. Unfortunately for us & posterity, he chose to create a consumer debt-driven spending bubble that allowed us to spend like mad despite being in a depression. Wars don't get fought when the economy is bad, and Republicans do need to win elections.

Now the jig is up. The debt bubble has popped like a festering boil and consumer spending (70% of the economy) is going down the tubes. Creating more debt (the only solution the Fed has, really) cannot fix a debt crisis. It can only draw it out, while making the final reckoning even worse.

I think to be an antidoomer these days you really have to drink the happy-talk/fudged-numbers coolaid the government is passing out. In reality, it's worse than you think, and it's going to get worse even than that.