Many Catholics dismiss the whole Global Warming brouhaha as a kind of intellectual and moral scam—and for serious reasons.

First, Global Warming enthusiasts tend to be sexual revolution enthusiasts as well. When I went online to look for images of “tree-hugging” for a previous article, “Why Jesus Wants You To Hug Trees,” I found, much to my unsurprise, photos of de-clothed women hugging trees. That captures, in a flash, the problem with the Left. It can’t seem to detach its obsession with the environment, from its obsession with sexual libertinism. That obviously makes Catholics morally queasy, and so it should.

Second, Global Warming enthusiasts tend to scream (often vulgarly), rather than allow for there to be any serious debate about Global Warming. It’s not just that no one is permitted to disagree. You can’t even bring up any ambiguity or complexity without being branded as a human heretic ripe for recycling (not burning, as it would be environmentally destructive).

Third, Global Warming enthusiasts seem, all too often, to be hypocritical, jetting about to conferences all over the globe, using up a whole lot of petroleum-based energy in doing so.

I understand all of that. But I’d like to make the case for Catholics learning more about the Global Warming debate, rather than dismissing it; in fact, becoming more knowledgeable about the possibility of Global Warming than the enthusiasts themselves.

NOTE: I did not say that Catholics need to become Global Warming enthusiasts, but that they need to become much more knowledgeable about the possibility of Global Warming. Why?

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In my latest book, In Defense of Nature, I make the case for the importance of discovering the denizens of one's own backyard ecosystem. We are far too abstracted from nature, and that includes, abstraction from human nature. Here is Spud, the fledgling starling, demonstrating the importance of this argument.

On the whole, I wish Spud were a little more abstracted from our nature. My youngest son found him, seemingly abandoned, in a parking lot, and brought him home. He looked something like a slightly rotten potato, hence the name "spud."

In the above picture, Spud is discoursing loudly on the importance of early morning worms, while I am presenting the contrary, the importance of early morning coffee on the porch with my wife (while not being interrupted by an obnoxious bird squawking in one's ear). We are training him to make a go of it himself (or herself).
             

​​A less provocative title might have been, “Why Catholics Need to Be at the Forefront of the Environmental Movement,” but that probably wouldn’t have caught your eye. So, now that I’ve got your attention, let’s make the case for a Catholic Ecology.    

One of the questions I’ve been getting from Catholics in interviews has been something like this: “Well, the environmentalists are all for hugging trees, but they also push abortion. Shouldn’t saving babies be our first priority?”

My answer is this: “If you want to save babies, you’d better start hugging trees.” Here’s why . . . 

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