Yes, and 25% of the US population is Catholic, half of which group votes Republican (i.e., against reforms designed to prevent or slow climate change).

If more people come to believe that they have a moral obligation to do what they can to prevent climate change—including by supporting government interventions and investments, and gracefully accepting higher energy costs and energy taxes—then maybe we can hope for a break in the political logjam that is preventing energy reforms from being implemented in the United States.

Papal infallibility today doesn't seem to be what it was in the past in the minds of many American Catholics, however. There has been a surprising amount of direct criticism of the pope among conservative American Catholics in recent years, many of whom seem to place their political loyalties ahead of their loyalty to the church (which I have found surprising).

> Papal infallibility today doesn't seem to be what it was in the past in the minds of many American Catholics, however. There has been a surprising amount of direct criticism of the pope among conservative American Catholics in recent years

That’s not how Papal infallibility works. It has to be explicitly invoked and only for matters of faith and morals. Furthermore doctrine cannot be changed. The Pope can’t speak infallibly about science. So Catholics are free to accept or not what he says on the subject. That’s not the case for abortion. We don’t get to say we disagree with the commandment against killing human beings and remain in good standing.

Also do not confuse loyalty to the Church with loyalty to the clergy. There is quite a lot a Catholic can legitimately be critical of there.

> half of which group votes Republican (i.e., against reforms designed to prevent or slow climate change).

That’s a very cynical statement. Goes to show why both sides will never meet in the middle of the road with thinking that way.

Voting republicans doesn’t mean I am against climate change reforms. The issue at hand is how practically we deal with it and reduce demands on fossil fuel and transition to clean energy. Policies touted by a lot of left leaning politicians aren’t practical and many of them know it but they say it anyway. Look at California and its recent outages to any demand spike of utilities as an example.

> Policies touted by a lot of left leaning politicians aren’t practical and many of them know it but they say it anyway.

Your point stands, Democrat solutions addressing climate change are definitely pretty bad. That being said, at least they have some climate change policies they're pushing for right now instead of kicking the can down the road. Can you honestly say the same about Republicans?

Considering that the US share of greenhouse gases is fairly small (15% of world total), has decreased quite a lot over time, and becomes harder on the margin, I'd say it's mostly just slinging words for political power at this point.

My own take is that you can avoid ecological devastation only through population reduction and in the short term by not up-leveling the Third World via mass immigration and industrialization.

Very hard sell for the "Third World" when rich westerners tell them to stop trying to reach for their heights.

Almost like pulling the ladder from under us after we're at the top. Doubt it would mean anything unless it's backed by sanctions, military action or intelligence operations to topple governments that attempt to pull their countries out of poverty. That would make us decisively "the bad guys", regardless of motive.

That may be, but is it better to be 'fair' or to save the world's ecology? The coral reefs don't much care if some places are poorer than others.

Perhaps one answer would be to allow people to swap citizenships. If you are feeling guilty enough, you could move to Lagos and someone there could move to Palo Alto.

The US GHG per capita remains one of the highest in the world, so things can be improved.

That's an argument that stems more from a concept of 'fairness' than one that might save the world.

Not a world saving solution, just adding necessary context around the “fairly small” comment.

> only through population reduction…

Since this would necessitate birth control, it would be in direct conflict with the beliefs of the Catholic Church and couldn’t be supported by the Pope.

To be fair, US Catholics appear to have roughly the same birthrate as US Evangelical Protestants, although that might change as Catholic demographics shift to Latino.

What we (the world) will be awash in is Moslems and sub Saharan Africans unless those curves get bent via behavior changes, resource depletion, or war. I can't say that the Pope is much involved in that situation.

> I can't say that the Pope is much involved in that situation

Like the 15% of (mostly-sub Saharan) Africa that identifies as Catholic? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Africa

That's a good point, but do Catholics account for more than their share of births in Nigeria (5.5 children per woman, or, as we say in the brave new world, 'people who menstruate')?

hah. Partly answered.

https://paa2015.princeton.edu/papers/151197

You are not following The Science close enough. It's bodies. "Bodies with vaginas".

https://twitter.com/TheLancet/status/1441372277786951681

> That’s a very cynical statement. Goes to show why both sides will never meet in the middle of the road with thinking that way.

I really meant only to reflect the reality that by voting for a Republican you are voting for someone who will use their power to prevent climate change reform. Is this actually controversial at all? I'd like to see the counterexample.

Sure, some voters may have other things in mind when they vote Republican (for instance, taxes, or abortion) but the end effect of that vote is that if the person they vote for is elected, reforms to prevent or slow climate change will be less likely to be implemented. Do you disagree with this as a factual matter?

> Voting republicans doesn’t mean I am against climate change reforms. The issue at hand is how practically we deal with it and reduce demands on fossil fuel and transition to clean energy.

I am incredulous that you actually believe that today there is any kind of Republican plan to "reduce demands on fossil fuel and transition to clean energy" that has any chance of doing anything in any way to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.

Even if there were such a plan proposed by a small clique of Republican politicians, it would never be implemented by any Republican-controlled legislature or executive because, as a whole, the party still sees fossil fuel energy as a moral good (see: rolling coal), rejects pollution regulation (dismantling it at every opportunity), and dismisses climate change science as a fiction promulgated by their political enemies in order to further a diabolical agenda.

Even if you can assuage your own guilt by telling yourself that the individual politician you are voting for supports some kind of "Republican climate change plan", your vote for that politician will make any reform less likely to be implemented than if you had voted for their opponent. As a factual matter, no Republican-controlled legislature will ever enact climate change reforms into law, and no Republican executive will ever implement any climate change plan—not even a Republican-authored plan—within the next 10 years, unless we see a sea change in sentiment broadly within the party.

> Goes to show why both sides will never meet in the middle of the road with thinking that way.

If there was a reasonable prospect of a "middle of the road" plan to slow climate change that the Republican party would actually support—meaning, would actually help push through Congress—then the Biden administration and the current Congress would pass it in a minute and immediately begin implementing it.

The reason that this is not happening is because there is no plan whatsoever that the Republican party will put any support behind. I wish there was such a plan.

It’s actually not that surprising. We went from questioning whether or not the president would follow the constitution or the Pope in JFK, to Biden who is refused communion due to his stance on abortion.