Science Or The Pope?

Sometimes I get the impression that no one listens when scientists speak, and that everyone listens when the pope speaks. Why is the pope so important?

Scientists and Pope Francis agree that climate change is real and that it is a threat.

Democrats hopeful pope's visit will end climate change denial in Congress:

Pope Francis’s arrival in Washington on Tuesday has reinforced hopes that one of the last great bastions of climate change denial – the US Congress – may be on the verge of crumbling.

As the pope touched down in the US from Cuba, Democratic leaders in Congress and environmental campaigners were optimistic that Francis would keep the focus on his core themes of the global economic order, poverty and environmental degradation over the next six days, and so widen the emerging fractures in the Republican wall of denial.

Republicans, meanwhile, remained wary, and expressed hope that the pope would steer clear of controversial issues on his first visit to the US.

Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, said he believed the call to action from a popular pope made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to continue to dismiss the science on climate change. “I think this whole edifice of climate denial is crumbling,” Whitehouse told the Guardian.

Pope Francis Makes Biblical Case For Addressing Climate Change: ‘If We Destroy Creation, Creation Will Destroy Us’:

“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude,” Francis said.

Francis also said that humanity’s destruction of the planet is a sinful act, likening it to self-idolatry.

“But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’ – Here, this is sin! Do you see?”

Scientific opinion on climate change:

The scientific consensus is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and that it is extremely likely (at least 95% probability) that humans are causing most of it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels.

97% of the scientists surveyed agreed that global temperatures had increased during the past 100 years; 84% said they personally believed human-induced warming was occurring, and 74% agreed that "currently available scientific evidence" substantiated its occurrence.

Do people pay more attention to what the pope says about this issue than the scientists? Does the media pay more attention to the pope on this issue? Do the politicians?

It's good that the pope is talking about this and that he is causing some people to think about the issue of climate change. I don't understand why people pay attention to him in general. I don't understand what makes him so special. I don't think that climate change is important because of what God thinks. I don't think that climate change makes us sinners.

I wish more people trusted the science. I wish more people paid less attention to the pope.