The Vatican Forest, The True Story

The Vatican Forest, The True Story

One day a number of years ago I was working on my twin projects of Planktos and KlimaFa,

Restoring seas and trees as I like to say.

A fellow I knew just a little called me with an idea.

I had met that fellow while sitting next to each other on an airline flight, he was a late twenty-something bon vivant and a Rabbinical school graduate. I had bent his ear on the flight telling him enthusiastically about how restoring sea plants (Plankton blooms), just like planting trees, resulted in those new plants taking CO2 out of the ocean and air where it was causing problems and turning it into life itself as part of living plants.

Vatican Smoke

Vatican Smoke

He came back to me with an idea a friend of his might help. This friend was close to people in the Vatican in Rome. He thought his friend might agree to introduce me and my eco-restoration ideas to Vatican officials. I could tell them about the idea that everyone on the planet has a carbon footprint that is the CO2 they emit, even the Vatican.  Being a Jewish scholar he had been thinking about how my work to restore the seas and trees was part of God’s most desired goals for humankind. He had a well-referenced religious view of this.

His friend in Rome agreed and thus they thought I might just tell my story to the most right person in the world of faith, the Pope. I said cool, I would love to tell the story of how easy it is to restore seas and trees for the benefit of all and make it fit into the topic of climate change. If people of religious faith were willing to listen I was willing to travel to them to tell the story, actually more like a series of parables.

Soon came many emails and some SKYPE calls between my office and Rome. Before I knew it I was on a flight to Rome to meet some very important people in the Vatican interested in hearing what I had to say.

In Rome, I met with the guy in the middle and I apologize for not remembering his name. He was an unforgettable flamboyant person, a composer and impresario and had his own unique tale of how he was friends with people in the Vatican. He and I met at his suggestion near the statue of Poseidon in Plaza Navona, as he said I was all about the sea so it would be a good place to meet. We got along well and the next day we went to the Vatican to meet the man he called ‘Father’ who would be the key person in the Vatican who might help.

I told my story and the good Father who was indeed a very kind and intelligent and a person with true charisma and a good listener. It would be clear to anyone why he was resident in this holy place, it was simply his natural habitat. As fine a person as I have ever met.

I was escorted by the ‘Father’ to tell my story many times to Catholic scholars in residence all over Rome. Over the course of several days with these scholars I told my dream to a number of Vatican people in different parts of Rome. Eventually, we got into the fine detail when they asked me what the Vatican might do to help.  I told them that in my view the Vatican being a tiny city-state was just a few square blocks with lots of open space and a bunch of buildings where people keeping the engine that is the Catholic church worked. They ran on electricity, gas, and oil and it would be easy to calculate from their energy books what was their carbon footprint. I told them I thought it was a very real idea, the Vatican might become the first nation on Earth to be completely carbon neutral by offsetting its CO2 emissions by restoring seas and trees. They seemed to appreciate the idea and the rabbi and the father were happy to talk about the foundation of this using references from the old testament, Bible, Tanakh, and other religious texts.

Hungarian Forest

Hungarian Forest

Not One Penny Of Cost To The Vatican

When the Vatican engineering department and I calculated tonnes of CO2 emitted by the Vatican, the number was not so large. I offered that if when we got our tree restoration work in our Hungarian company KlimaFa going the actual cost to us for planting sufficient trees to make the Vatican totally carbon neutral would be just a few thousand Euros. There was lots of talk about how to pay for this and finally I said the payment was essentially unimportant, what was important was the idea and the message of the making of the Vatican the first carbon-neutral country in the world be such an important country as the Vatican. We would absorb the cost if and when the Vatican would agree to do it.

In fact, the Vatican never spent one single penny on the Vatican forest concept. Planktos and KlimaFa spent many tens of thousands of dollars working to develop ‘Gods work’ planning to plant the trees, the Holy See only lent its moral support and goodwill to the effort.

The Devil in the Details

So here’s a twist to the story. The Italian composer who’d made this possible was involved in the global concert series for climate change called Live Earth. His idea was that the proposed Vatican blessing of making itself carbon neutral would be a fantastic part of Live Earth. He is a devout Catholic and he had a great passion for helping his faith lead the world in this way. All agreed this was an acceptable part of the idea and action plan.

liveearth_dvd_200So then came the request from the Live Earth producers who were organizing the worldwide simulcast Live Earth concerts. They loved the idea of the Vatican becoming engaged in leading to solve the crisis of Climate Change. What they needed would be some very good HD television material of a ceremony of the Vatican accepting the commitment of the trees to be planted in the KlimaFa forests to make the Vatican carbon neutral.

I told my investors in Planktos of this and asked for money to pay for the HD video material to be produced. It was a tidy sum not quite $100,000 but it was approved. There were only a few days before the July 7, 2007 Live Earth global simulcast and a professional crew had to be hired, a script planned, and everything assembled. Somehow we managed and footage was shot in the Vatican and overnight the video was edited reviewed the next day by Vatican officials minor changes made and it was then taken by a personal courier straight to London and put into the hands of the producers of Live Earth for broadcast the next day. This was way cool perhaps some of the many millions of people seeing the video on the Live Earth broadcast would join in and do the same, actually make their life carbon neutral by restoring nature and the climate.

The 9th Commandment

The producers of Live Earth in London upon receiving and approving the video material call and tell the Rabbi and the composer that they love the video but they want a  few changes. They want to cut in some additional footage giving credit for the whole idea to ‘their superstar,’ Al Gore,  of Live Earth instead of the true people who put this all together and in good faith have done it all. I would be cut out of the video and replace with Gore with brackets saying how all this was Gore’s efforts.

We are not pleased and we say we must inform the people in the Vatican about this broadcast change demand. We all believe it will be telling a lie, ‘bearing false witness’, but we will talk it over with the people of the Vatican and the Pope. The people in the Vatican upon hearing this also showed a flare of emotion and said it was utterly dishonest and stated that no we must not agree to do this. We are thankful the Vatican people again prove they live their faith.

We tell the producers of the Live Earth program that they are not permitted to make these changes to give Al Gore the credit for this breakthrough work with the Vatican. They erupt in a fit of piety and just blow off the whole thing. No Live Earth Vatican video will show. Alas, we are all disappointed by that, but not disappointed that we declined to compromise the good faith in which this had all been done. Later we hear that the producers of Live earth were livid about not being able to scoop this precious thing as they intended to do. There will be fabrications of what happened spread and so on and so on, all the records were kept and perhaps one day the names and deeds will come out.

The Vatican forest plan with the Vatican persevered, though as history shows the whole Planktos KlimaFa project was attacked ruthlessly by radicals in the Green movement who had always been opposed to the idea of carbon offsets, and by those who greedily wanted to control the messages of good work on behalf of climate change. They persistently insisted that for people and industry to be allowed to pay someone to plant a tree that would convert the CO2 that person or corporation emitted into the air was avoiding what was truly needed.

Those particular minions demanded that people and corporations must just stop burning fossil fuels, no matter the cost to society. The production and sale of carbon offsets from growing trees they proclaimed was like a Papal Indulgence of old, payment to the Pope for permission to commit a sin.

The radical and mean spirited greens were outraged and went raving mad at the idea that the Vatican was trying to use “Papal Indulgences” to permit its continuing sins of emission of CO2. They spared no effort to destroy Planktos and KlimaFa and the lies in the campaign they launched, spending millions to give false witness on the our and the Vatican’s work. It is a testimony to their evil ways. They were an overwhelming force and they did indeed drive Planktos and KlimaFa into bankruptcy, to this day they brag about their success. Just Google “drive planktos bankrupt” and you’ll see those vile miscreants bragging about their actions.

I personally remain committed to planting those trees on behalf of the Vatican and doing the work to verify and certify the carbon offsets they produce as they grow. It has taken some years since the promise was made in the Vatican but I hope with good reason that it will be this year.

It sometimes seems strange to me that I, an avowed atheist, has had this wonderful experience with the fathers and cardinals of the Vatican. I always say to people I tell this story to that meeting those dedicated men in service to their beliefs were truly moving and important moments in my life, I do believe in the absolute goodwill the men I met there hold in their hearts and souls for everything and everyone. Being with them was truly magical. The experience with them helps sustain me to this day.

Here’s a follow-up… Feb 2015  https://russgeorge.net/2015/02/17/on-being-hunted-by-journalists/