…..and gotta save those climate refugees!
In a book review on climate refugees, Todd Scribner, employed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, says the Bishops are working on changing the minds of skeptical Catholics on global warming (aka climate change, when the warming didn’t pan out). This climate refugee book just might help do the trick, he says!
The review of‘Climate Refugee’ at National Catholic Reporter begins:
This book argues that the legal definition of a refugee should be expanded to cover those severely affected by the environmental consequences of climate change.
Some estimates predict that as climate change continues, as many 200 million people will be displaced worldwide by the end of the century. Collectif Argos is a group of 10 France-based journalists, writers and photographers who have documented the effects of environmental change in photo and essay format.
The authors focus on nine sites around the world, including the United States, Bangladesh, Chad, Nepal and a small island in the Pacific Ocean, Tuvalu.
[….]
Given the reality of global warming, this book is timely, as is rethinking the definition of “refugee.” [Some in the refugee industry do not want the definition changed, here—-ed]
Catholics, like other Americans, are skeptical of the proposition that global warming (aka climate change) is induced by human activity especially after “Climategate.”
Recognizing “climate refugees” as a legal category faces obstacles. The recent “Climategate” controversy raised hackles in some circles regarding the validity of human-induced climate change. If these objections were restricted to a handful of talking heads, there would be little reason for concern. Unfortunately, there is evidence that skepticism over the science of human-induced climate change has broad appeal. The results of a March Gallup poll revealed that only half of Americans agree to the proposition that climate change is caused by human activity, down from 61 percent just seven years earlier.
American Catholics are not exempt from this tendency. Although slightly dated, the results from a Pew Forum poll published in April 2009 showed that Catholics in the United States are wary of the issue, with only 44 percent of those polled in agreement with the claim that we are experiencing human-induced global warming.
Skeptics beware: The Catholic Bishops are working hard with your tax dollars to convince you that you are wrong!
While many Catholics may be skeptical, my work at the U.S. bishops’ conference demonstrates that the bishops take this issue seriously. This is particularly apparent through their establishment of the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change. This coalition, comprised of approximately a dozen national Catholic organizations, recognizes the devastating effect of climate change, particularly on the world’s poor, and the likelihood of displacement that will come with it. Through this coalition the bishops seek to educate the Catholic public and convince them of the peril of human-induced climate change.
Climate Refugees [this book] could provide a useful resource to achieve this objective.
By the way, when you visit the ‘coalition’ note that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, is a branch of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. For new readers these are socialist political activists discussed recently in another book—this one on President Obama’s early years, here, in an interview at National Review Online:
Author Stanley Kurtz on ‘Radical-in-chief:’
…. the community organizing I discuss in the book is a self-consciously radical tradition that flows from the early achievements of Saul Alinsky, along with the work of Students for a Democratic Society and the National Welfare Rights Organization in the early-to-mid 1960s. The leadership of these groups was largely socialist, and remained so as they moved into community organizing in the 1970s and beyond. More to the point, the community organizers who trained and worked with Obama were largely socialist, although they made a point of not advertising that fact. Even the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a faith-based group that has done much to support community organizing (including Obama’s own early work), is an effectively socialist group, although it doesn’t say so directly. My book carefully unpacks a great deal of archival evidence to substantiate these claims.
Also for new readers, I showed you here last month how much of your tax dollars go to funding the political activities (supposedly to help refugees resettle) of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
So, it’s no surprise that the USCCB is busy trying to change the definition of refugee to include those forced to move due to environmental factors—refugees are their cash cow and the refugees themselves will be their reliable Left-leaning (socialist!) voters of tomorrow.
Endnote: It’s been 20 years since I first learned about the big foundations with atheist strategists, particularly Pew Charitable Trusts, coming up with the idea of infiltrating church groups with a project called —Greening the Churches. Now we see their fruits.