The Pope and climate change: Francis is slapping his conservative critics in the face

Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment comes down firmly on the side of the global warming consensus/lobby (delete according to taste) and is a slap in the face to climate sceptics of every hue. Thwack! It’s very much this Pope’s style.

Laudato si’ says several important things about climate change. Here’s the Catholic Herald’s summary, based on the infamous leak:

According to a translation by the Wall Street Journal, the Pope says there is a ‘very consistent scientific consensus’ that we are in the presence of ‘an alarming warming of the climatic system’.

He writes that there is an ‘urgent and compelling’ need for policies that reduce carbon emissions, such as ‘replacing fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy’.

He adds that ‘numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) emitted above all due to human activity’ and calls on people to change their lifestyles.