Hello, I’m God. Let’s talk climate

Pope Francis called his latest encyclical Laudate Deum, Praise God. However, a closer examination reveals that he praises not so much God as the wild-eyed fanatics of such groups as Just Stop Oil and the Extinction Rebellion.

They are, lamented His Holiness as if out of the burning bush, undeservedly castigated: “But in reality they are filling a space left empty by society as a whole, which ought to exercise a healthy ‘pressure’ since every family ought to realise that the future of their children is at stake.”

One gets the impression that, if Jesus Christ came again today, he’d join the gangs blocking traffic on the M25 and disrupting sporting events or theatrical performances. At least that’s what His Vicar on Earth wants us to believe and he should know.

The encyclical was released on the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, whose name the Pope took to signal his intention to emulate the saint, identifying Francis’s worship of nature as the aspect worthy of imitation. To my regret, he chose not to go the whole hog, by dropping his vestments on the floor, walking out of his palace naked and becoming a mendicant monk who begs for food.

Since those eco-zealots do God’s work, it follows ineluctably that anyone who as much as doubts the anthropogenic nature of climate change is an enemy of Christ. After all, according to His Holiness, “’It is no longer possible to doubt the human – ‘anthropic’ – origin of climate change.”

I agree it’s no longer possible for leftie demagogues to doubt their own mythology. The rest of us know CO₂ is a trace gas, contributing only one in 85,000 molecules to the atmosphere. And only three per cent of our CO₂ is anthropogenic, making it a small trace of an infinitesimally tiny one.

No evidence suggests that we are going through an unprecedented global warming. In fact, ‘our planet’ has been warmer than it is now for about 80 per cent of its lifespan. Serious scientists – as opposed to assorted shills of man-made apocalypse – identify numerous factors affecting climate, with CO₂ playing a walk-on role, if indeed any at all.

That is to say it’s possible not only to doubt the greenhouse gas theory of climate change but to reject it outright for the politicised nonsense it is. But the fanatical proponents of that swindle don’t really care about the minutiae of science.

Though they talk green, they think red, or rather maroon (red with a touch of brown). Yet they correctly sense that simply coming out and saying they yearn to demolish the West and everything it stands for would compromise their credibility. Hence they pluck some quasi-scientific facts out of the least attractive orifices in their bodies and cite them as God’s own truth.

That requires a certain dexterity of mind, and His Holiness could give any mental contortionist a good run for his money. Thus he cites the fact that CO₂ emissions have increased greatly since the Industrial Revolution, and so have global temperatures.

Crikey, who could have thought. The Industrial Revolution was fuelled by hydrocarbons, first coal, then oil, then gas. So of course mankind started to produce more CO₂.

However, in view of the facts I cited above, attributing global warming to that fact is a case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Moreover, there have been extended cooling periods since the Industrial Revolution. That’s why, for example, as recently as in the 1970s the same scaremongering scientists who now bleat about us frying to death were warning about the impending arrival of an Ice Age.

Perhaps sensing he is on shaky scientific ground, the pontiff inadvertently let the political cat out of the bag. In common with other lefties, he is driven not by love of ‘our planet’ but by hatred of the West.

“We can state,” he stated, “that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact.”

Said irresponsibility is turning Earth into “an immense pile of filth”, and the principal culprit is that devil incarnate, the United States. And if you doubt that, here is the clincher: per-capita emissions in the US are twice as high as in China.

Quite. However, if ‘our planet’ is indeed being fried by emissions, then it’s not the relative, per capita amounts that are doing the dirty deed but the absolute values. And in those absolute values China emits twice as much CO₂ as does the US.

Moreover, of the 10 greatest emitters in the world, only two, America and Germany are Western. All the others are Asian plus Russia that herself doesn’t know whether she’s East, West, halfway in between or sui generis.

This statement by His Holiness can only be properly understood if juxtaposed with his 2015 encyclical on the same subject. Then he explained in no uncertain terms that ‘our planet’ could only be saved by a cultural revolution overturning a “structurally perverse” economic system where the rich exploit the poor.

Mr Marx, say hello to Miss Thunberg. That psychopathic dropout also loves to sputter spittle about capitalists who destroy ‘our planet’ for the sake of profits. One should like to hope that the primus inter pares leader of world Christianity would have a higher intellectual capacity and sturdier moral fibre, but that hope is in for a let-down.

The Pope’s grasp of Christian doctrine is sometimes shaky, but his grip on the Left-wing catechism is vicelike. Instead of pontificating on political fads he’d be well-advised to study the works of his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Who knows, he might learn what really matters in life.