The Green religion

Tetzel won his advanced degrees by arguing for the doctrine of indulgences against the views of Luther. When Luther replied, the Dominican Order felt itself attacked and responded. The Pope wanted to try Luther in Rome but Frederic the Wise of Saxony insisted that Luther be tried in Germany. The Pope ordered him to appear before his legate Cardinal, Thomas Cajetan, who was a member of the Dominican Order. There was no thought of a conflict of interest there.

For Lomborg, the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist may be seen as the equivalent of Luther’s 95 Theses. Lomborg was accused of scientific dishonesty. Environmental scientists made complaints against him to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty, a body under Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The charges were that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. On investigation the committee supported the complaints finding the following problems with Lomborg’s work:

• fabrication of data;
• selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
• deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
• distorted interpretation of conclusions;
• plagiarism; and
• deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.

But on appeal to the Ministry the findings were invalidated. Finally after some acrobatics no further action was taken. (As an interesting reversal, some of these criticisms of Lomborg have been levelled at the IPCC. The Hockey Stick temperature chart being the best known complaint.)

The parallel with the interrogation of Martin Luther is fascinating. Luther’s enemies in Germany, the Papal courts and indeed Rome misjudged Luther. They would not yield anything to him so finally the break came.

Like Rome, the IPCC has behaved with arrogance and refused to respond to many of its critics, in particular the economists. On examination its processes are not unlike the defensive position of the Church with Luther. Then and now there is a veritable maze of conflicted interests.

So there was a benefit from Papal Indulgences, the rebuilding of the Basilica of St Peter’s. When will we have our Green Reformation and what will our generation have to show for its carbon indulgences?