Who’s up for a one-world government run by radical ecologists? Herr Professor Doktor Hans Joachim, a.k.a. John, Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Commander of the British Empire, prophet of doom, avowed atheist, and the most prominent advisor to Pope Francis and the Vatican on global warming, is hot for it. And he has a “master plan” to bring it about.

Schellnhuber is a quantum physicist who apparently believes the earth is a self-aware, self-regulating, cognizant organism. He sees mankind as an infection which causes Mother Earth to develop planetary syndromes like global warming, which, Schellnhuber says, might soon kill billions. And he has the ear of the Vatican. Or, rather, as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he plugs the ear of the Vatican. Schellnhuber has openly boasted of denying access to Vatican events to scientists who disagree with him about global warming. Schellnhuber is a courtier who will allow no good news to reach the sovereign.

Anyway, global government can’t come soon enough, Schellnhuber says, because the current benighted political system will “tear this cultivated world and its breathing inhabitants apart.” Schellnhuber would be the world’s tutor — and the cure for its ills.

In his own wistful words, here is his “daydream” about what the “Great Transformation” to “world government” would look like:

• the Earth Constitution would transcend the UN Charter and identify those first principles guiding humanity in its quest for freedom, dignity, security and sustainability;
• the Global Council would be an assembly of individuals elected directly by all people on Earth, where eligibility should be not constrained by geographical, religious, or cultural quotas; and
• the Planetary Court would be a transnational legal body open to appeals from everybody, especially with respect to violations of the Earth Constitution.

You have to admire Schellnhuber’s suggestion that our world leaders be elected directly. If you thought national campaigns were bad now, when we have the moderating effects of a common culture and separation of powers, just wait until we have planetary direct democracy.

Also ingenious is his recommendation that eligibility not be constrained by geography and other cultural ties. This makes it possible to achieve his goal of filling all top posts with experts. Who can be against experts? Yet the true innovation is that Global Council leaders not only get to impose solutions to our problems, but would also get to define those problems in the first place.

The Planetary Council, presumably chosen from the Global Council — has Schellnhuber daydreamed about leading this body? — has the added pleasure of assigning punishments for failing to implement whatever “solutions” are imposed, but also, we might suspect, of issuing penalties for failing to acknowledge Council-defined problems. Would disagreeing with World Government be a “hate crime” against Mother Earth?

Supporters will say such a political system would be efficient. Things will happen and quickly. In this, they are right. French citizens who lived through la Terreur were amazed at the rapidity with which efficient, unchecked government lopped off heads.

The Pope’s New Encyclical

Schellnhuber was one of the advisors to Pope Francis as he wrote his “environmental” encyclical Laudato Si. So it is no surprise to hear in that document not only Schellnhuber’s scientific opinions but the echoes of his cry for one-world government. For instance, the Pope writes:

[I]t is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions. (paragraph 175)

Society, through non-governmental organizations and intermediate groups, must put pressure on governments to develop more rigorous regulations, procedures and controls. Unless citizens control political power — national, regional and municipal — it will not be possible to control damage to the environment. (179)

In these calls, Francis sought (as in 175) to enlist support from Pope Benedict XVI, quoting from his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, that “there is urgent need of a true world political authority.” But Francis left out what came before, which was Benedict’s concern “of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making.” Francis also cut short Benedict’s ending, which was this warning: “Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity.”

In Laudato, Pope Francis does not say much about subsidiarity, which encourages local solutions rather than centralized ones. The Catholic Catechism lays heavy emphasis on its importance (although the following italics are mine):

1883 … Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.”

1895 The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention. It aims at harmonizing the relationships between individuals and societies. It tends toward the establishment of true international order.

A “true international order,” which respects the place of families, the Church and local communities, is not the equivalent of a secular unaccountable world government, but more like its opposite. Yet with radical globalists like Schellnhuber whispering in the halls, we are right to fear that such subtleties will be lost. Schellnhuber should be spouting his theories to weary patrons at a local bar in Potsdam, not gaining the ear of British monarchs and popes.