VATICAN CITY – Papal heavies shut down an awkward question at a Vatican
press conference today when a journalist asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
his views on climate sceptics.
Marc Morano,
covering the Vatican climate conference for Climate Depot, asked Ban Ki-Moon
whether he had a message for the Heartland Institute delegation of scientists
who have flown to Rome to urge the Pope to reconsider his ill-advised position
climate change.
But before he could
finish the conference hosts interrupted to ask which organisation he worked
for, then directed the microphone to a more tame questioner, while a security
guard came over to mutter in Morano’s ear “You have to control yourself or you
will be escorted out of here.”
Morano, together
with Christopher Monckton (one of the Heartland delegation) and your
correspondent, only narrowly made it into the carefully stage-managed
conference where – as known climate sceptics – they were apparently not
welcome.
“Ah. So you made it
in here?” said a somewhat surprised looking member of the Vatican press team to
Morano, when he realised that he had bypassed the Vatican’s security and
infiltrated the press pack who had come to cover the conference.
As luck would have
it, a heaven-sent shower of torrential rain had created such chaos that
security wasn’t as tight as it might have been.
However, the three
sceptics (Morano, Monckton, Delingpole) were watched very carefully throughout
the proceedings lest they attempt to ruffle the feathers of key speakers Ban
Ki-Moon, left-wing economist Jeffrey Sachs and Cardinal Turkson, the Ghanaian
priest who has been co-ordinating the Vatican’s position on “climate change.”
In the end,
Secretary-General Ban did answer a similar question, albeit one expressed more
delicately by a journalist from the Catholic media, when he was asked what his
views were on those members of the Catholic community who had reservations
about the Pope’s position on climate change.
Perhaps this was a
response to Ban’s rather bold and very moot declaration that “Religion and
science are united on the need for action on climate.”
“I don’t think
faith leaders should be scientists,” said Ban, in reply to the question. “I’m
not a scientist. What I want is their moral authority. Business leaders and all
civil society is on board [with the mission to combat climate change]. Now we
want faith leaders. Then we can make it happen.”
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