*GM-SUPPORTING CARDINAL ENCOURAGES CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICISM

GM-supporting Cardinal Renato Martino has organised a Vatican meeting on climate change in the style of his Vatican conferences on GM. The big difference, though, was that at the GM events, critics of GM and the biotech industry found it hard to get their voices heard, whereas at the climate change event, climate sceptics were out in force and Martino gave them preferential treatment.

Martino used the concluding speech of the conference to launch an attack on "current forms of idolatry of nature", arguing that man's immortal soul meant he "cannot be equal to other living beings, nor considered a disturbing element to the naturalistic ecological balance."

Martino also tried to spin global warming as positive. "Not all the scientific world is crying disaster," Martino told Vatican Radio at the start of the two-day conference.

Martino made his name as a commentator on climate change by claiming on British TV that it didn't matter how many air miles he clocked up as they weren't the Vatican's planes!!