Asymmetric Catholic

From here:

Follow up:

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement...

...The 80-year-old Pope said the world needed to care for the environment but not to the point where the welfare of animals and plants was given a greater priority than that of mankind.

For many people, the Church opposes science. There's been exactly one instance when a Pope mediated a scientific controversy, the more-complicated-than-you-think Galileo affair. You can read the details in New Advent:

In regard to their history, there are two main points to be considered. It is in the first place constantly assumed, especially at the present day, that the opposition which Copernicanism encountered at the hands of ecclesiastical authority was prompted by hatred of science and a desire to keep the minds of men in the darkness of ignorance. To suppose that any body of men could deliberately adopt such a course is ridiculous, especially a body which, with whatever defects of method, had for so long been the only one which concerned itself with science at all.

Or, you can go to the Wiki.

That people only have that one example, however, should make Galileo the exception that proves the rule: The Church has not been a force against science and, in fact, the opposite is true.

Onto the Pope's statement: I always take the Church' venturing into politics or economics with a grain of salt- good general guidance (avoid war, care for the poor), but not useful when it comes to specific issues or policies. Even though I sympathize with the Pope's global warming stance, then, to be consistent, I can't give it too much importance.

When the pope speaks for the ordering of Creation, however, Catholics have to take note- this is his bag, baby. The Pope repeated the traditional view of the universe- that people have priority over the rest of nature (even the cute ones) because Man uniquely has a soul and is created in God's image. That he has to repeat such things must be frustrating for him, but many moderns seem to believe that there's no worth difference between animals and people (see here).

Why? Because some of my brothers and sisters' equality fetishism, guided only by emotions, gets dumb.