Cardinal George Pell has questioned the morality and cost benefits of imposing heavy financial burdens in the cause of curbing climate change, in an annual lecture to London's controversial Global Warming Policy Foundation, the Australian reports.
"Whatever our political masters might decide at this high tide of Western indebtedness," Cardinal Pell said, "they are increasingly unlikely, because of popular pressure, to impose new financial burdens on their populations in the hope of curbing the rise of global temperatures, except perhaps in Australia, which has 2 per cent of the world's industrial capacity and only 1.2 per cent of its CO2 emissions, while continuing to sell coal worth billions of dollars to Asia.
"In 1135, the water flow in the Danube was so low that people could cross it on foot. Somewhat earlier, the Rhine had suffered the same fate. Around the middle of the Little Ice Age, the year 1540 was the warmest and driest for the millennium in central Europe. Once again, the Rhine dried up."
"We can only imagine the excitement such events would provoke today."
Cardinal Pell said extreme weather events are to be expected, "but are unexpected in every period", and said he supports the view that money should be used to raise living standards and reduce vulnerability to catastrophes and climate change, in whatever form.
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