Pope Francis, yesterday, June 18, released Laudato Si the first encyclical addressing the environment in Catholic Church history. 
Most of it is hard to argue with. Greed is bad. Waste is bad. Pollution is bad.
Oh yeah, and abortion and euthanasia are bad.
However, Francis also felt obliged to chime in that global warming is primarily man-made and is an oppressive burden on the poor.
Taking that to its logical conclusion means those living in poor nations should no longer aspire to have global-warming producing things like refrigerators and air conditioners and computer networks, much less cars.
Saying people with brown skin should end their dreams of having these blessings strikes us as kind of mean.
Anyway, we remain global warming skeptics for the same reasons we stated in January:
1. The leading supporters hid data that contradicted their public conclusions and treated dissenters politically with attempts to punish and silence them rather than in accordance with the canons of science which would be giving them full and fair hearing then refuting them openly.
2. Falsities have been found in the arguments of those claiming anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
3. Hypocrisy has been found in the lifestyles of those claiming AGW. Really, if you believe that a particular behavior is going to destroy the lives of your children you don’t charter jets to catch New Year’s shows on different continents. Nor do you live in energy-wasting villas. Either the activists don’t believe in what they say or they don’t care. We find this strange if one is talking about the end of the world.
4. The commonsense and practical actions that would drastically alleviate the claimed causes of AGW have been ignored, and even opposed by the supporters of AGW. When was the last time you heard an AGW claimer exhorting for more telecommuting? How about nuclear power? If the effort was made circa Y2K to replace every coal plant in this nation with a nuke, alleged AGW gases would be half diminished by now. Even more bizarrely why do AGW claimers support the removal of hydro-electric dams to be replaced by AGW producing plants?
We can go on noting opposition to streamlining the removal of traffic bottlenecks by ending Davis-Bacon requirements, and toll roads.
Frankly, any of these by themselves is damning to the argument. As there are four of them color us extremely skeptical.
Also, while arguments from authority are anything but definitive, we will note that highly accredited and accomplished persons in the field of climate study doubt it is occurring. These include Joe Bastardi, longtime of Accuweather, and John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel; and Dr. Roy Spencer, who pioneered temperature-based satellite monitoring.
For those who accept Francis’ declaration, we can find common ground regarding point 4. Are you green activists ready to fight to save hydro-electric dams and replace our coal plants with nukes? How about ending Davis-Bacon and other prevailing wage laws so we can free up some cash to remove traffic bottlenecks?
Another point: If you are willing to accept his declaration on global warming are you willing to accept his declarations on abortion and gay marriage?
Nice article with great points!