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In late December 2014, the Vatican announced the Pope would be issuing an encyclical in 2015 concerning the need to battle climate change. In late April 2015, Francis hosted a one-day conference, “Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity: The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Development.” Despite being described as a workshop to come to an understanding and agreement about a common path forward on climate change, the Vatican’s official closing statement was written in advance by British economist Sir Partha Dasgupta, Ph.D., then chairman of Cambridge University’s Center for the Study of Existential Risk and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Dasgupta’s predetermined conclusion was that human greed was causing planet-destroying climate change and that a radical fundamental global economic transformation was necessary to reverse it. The statement, titled “Climate Change and the Common Good: A Statement of the Problem and the Demand for Transformative Solutions,” was less a discussion of the state of climate science or an open-minded consideration of how best to serve people and the planet, and more a lecture to the world on the evils of capitalism and the “fact” fossil fuel use causes increasing poverty and inequality and is destroying the planet.

The Pope followed this up on June 18, with the official release of his much anticipated encyclical, Laudato Si (Praise be to you), which was nothing more nor less than an extended harangue against Western consumerism, purported irresponsible development, which it claimed led to environmental degradation and global warming. The Pope ended his statement with a call for the world’s people to take “swift and unified global action.”

In statements in the U.S., and at various international fora since then, Pope Francis has continued to get the science wrong and, as a result, has continued to push policies and actions that would be worse for the people and the planet he is supposedly concerned about saving from destruction, than a changing climate itself.

Most recently, on October 4, Francis issued a new statement concerning climate change, Laudate Deum (‘Praise God’). Francis has consistently been wrong about climate change since 2014, and he is still in error. Because I have responded to the Pope’s misguided claims about climate science and the dangers of fossil fuels repeatedly in the past (as seen at the links above), I decided it would be a good time to have a fresh voice respond to the Pontiff, this time. Below is a guest essay from Robinson Center Research Fellow, Linnea Lueken, responding to Francis’ latest missive on climate change and the evils of capitalism.

Pope Francis Makes Serious Errors in His Recent Climate Encyclical

A recent teaching document issued by Pope Francis, Laudate Deum (‘Praise God’) has been aggressively promoted by the mainstream media for its focus on climate change, especially Francis’ criticism of the Western world’s heavier energy use and alleged contributions to warming. Pope Francis says extreme weather is worsening, that current rates of warming are accelerated beyond what has occurred in the past, and that fluctuations between weather extremes are a symptom of man-caused climate change. These assertions are mistaken.

Additionally, the solutions Francis proposes to solve the “climate crisis,” namely a rapid energy transition, global de-prioritization of economic growth, and the implied need to sacrifice the Western standard of living, will not only fail to stop climate change, but will lead to further human and ecological suffering.

Laudate Deum is the second environment-focused encyclical issued by Pope Francis, and compared to the first, Laudato Si, has its primary focus on the issue of climate change. It also was written in much stronger language, highlighting what Francis views as a lack of “progress” on advancing the goals of the numerous U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conferences.

Many mainstream media outlets, like CNN and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), and trade or specialty journals, like Inside Climate News, among numerous others, promoted the encyclical, particularly the parts that point the finger at Western countries for high fossil fuel use and government policies that prioritize economic growth over environmental issues.

“Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident,” Francis writes in Laudate Deum. “No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought, and other cries of protest on the part of the earth that are only a few palpable expressions of a silent disease that affects everyone.”

He lists a bevy of other alleged problems caused by climate change, which posts at Climate Realism have debunked previously, such as assertions that polar ice and glaciers are melting due to human greenhouse gas emissions, that oceans are acidifying, and that climate change is shifting ocean currents, to cite but a few.

Focusing on the overall claim that extreme weather is getting worse over time, there is simply no data to support this claim. Trends of various extreme weather events do not show that they are occurring either more frequently or that such events are more severe when they do occur than they have been historically. The appearance of more frequent weather disasters around the globe is actually likely an artifact of new technology allowing 24-hours-a-day global online and broadcast media coverage, with the media hyping every bad weather event and tying it to climate change.

The IPCC itself agrees with a study that came to the conclusion that “on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet,” as discussed in the Climate Realism post “Wrong, Mainstream Media, ‘Extreme Weather’ is Fairly Common, Not Rare.” The IPCC says there is low scientific confidence in the existence of any visible “global warming” effects in the form of most of the weather extremes that alarmists frequently cite as evidence.

Even better news is that human casualties due to climate-related disasters, like wildfires, floods, and extreme temperatures, have been declining worldwide over time, even as the world modestly warms.

This piece originally appeared at HeartlandDailyNews.com and has been republished here with permission.