From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

On matters of Catholic dogma, the Popes claim to be infallible. But on the science around climate change and the political Net Zero lunacy they frequently talk out of their pontifical posteriors. Who can forget the late Pope Francis’s claim that humans are causing earthquakes, a suggestion that only the whackiest of climate alarmists can utter. Alas, the new Bishop of Rome is also capable of ruminating out of his rear end with Pope Leo XIV recently giving us his ‘world is burning’ sermon. At a recent ‘green’ mass at his summer estate in Castel Gandolfo, he added: “We must pray for the conversion of so many people inside and outside of the church, who still don’t recognise the urgency of caring for our common home.”

As a ‘lapsed’ Catholic, your correspondent has been the beneficiary of many such ‘conversion’ prayers. Fear works well if you are a schoolboy sitting at the feet of Sister Agnes, headmistress of St Anselm’s primary school in Dartford, with the fires of hell promised for missing mass on Sunday and the numerous Holy Days of Obligation. Papal fears of a world burning due to excessive holidays in Benidorm are a bit tame. After all, it has been done to the far limits of stupidity by the UN activist-in-chief Antonio Guterres. Come on Leo, I can’t help thinking, you can do better than that.

Needless to say the new Green Pope is all-in on the fake science of weather attribution. “We see so many natural disasters in the world, nearly every day and in so many countries, that are in part caused by the excesses of being human, with our lifestyle.” One can only pray that the new Pontiff gets around to reading the latest scientific assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where little or no human involvement is observed in almost all natural weather events, now and forward to 2100. He might care to consider that deaths from natural disasters have plunged by 95% over the last 100 years, while the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has led to a remarkable 15-20% ‘greening’ of the planet.

Wearing green vestments for his special mass in the new ecological education centre at the summer residence, Pope Leo urged the world to recognise what he called the urgency of the climate crisis, and “hear the cry of the  poor”. But the poor are not crying, at least not for the rich Western elite fantasy of Net Zero. Many in the developing world see hydrocarbon use as the key to lifting them out of grinding poverty. They are aware of the enormous increase in staple crops that has occurred over the last 60 years due to the use of hydrocarbon-enabled fertilisers. They can feel the extra food in their bellies – to deprive them of the natural stored energy of the Earth at this stage in their development would, in Sister Agnes’s often spoken words, be wicked.

Pope Leo’s Green Mass was reported by the Associated Press, which takes support for religious coverage from the Conversation, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. Its report, presumably officially sanctioned by the Vatican, notes that Leo is a long-time missionary and Bishop in Peru, where he is said to have experienced first-hand “the effects of climate change on vulnerable communities”. Peru has a varied climate, and bad weather can upset communities living on the margin. But if we look at climate, rather than relying on the pseudoscientific nonsense of short-term weather attribution, it can be seen from the World Bank Climate Portal that the seasonal mean temperature in the country has risen by just 0.36°C over the last 100 years. In this period there was a tad less rain, although a reduction of 9.9mm to 1610.34mm was unnoticeable. If you want to proselytise climate breakdown, Peru is perhaps not the best place to start, whatever your own personal truth, belief or lived experience.

Pope Leo might also be cautioned to lay off the ‘burning world’ stuff when he next visits his native America. Wildfires are all the rage in alarmist circles, although recent enthusiasm has been dampened by findings published in Nature Communications that show conflagrations are running at just 23% of the level expected from an examination of records going back to the 17th century. One peer reviewer saw a clear danger of the paper “being used by deniers of climate change impacts”. In other words, less facts, more emotion. Again we can but offer prayers that the myth of cleansing holy smoke sweeping all before it can be resurrected with salvation only possible with the blessings conferred by Net Zero.

Popes are generally settled science kinda guys – it took the Vatican about 100 years to accept the Earth went around the Sun. Both Francis and now Leo have attempted to link extreme environmentalism with concern for the poor and something they call climate justice. They are not generally scientists and like most modern Net Zero hard Left politicians they have little understanding of science and the scientific process. They appear clueless on the role of natural climate variation and misunderstand how hydrocarbons have lifted billions out of poverty in the last 100 years. Their elite ex cathedra views lead to incumbents like Francis waffling in familiar biblical terms that the world is “collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point”. Francis thought CO₂ was “highly polluting” even though he breathed out about two pounds of it every day of his life. The new chap is already ranting about the world on fire – expect more hellfire and damnation to follow.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.