Vatican City

Vatican City consists of 110 acres and has a population of just over 800. In its current incarnation it was founded in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty signed by Benito Mussolini. Vatican City is a kind of remnant of larger Papal States that ran from the 700s and in much of central Italy. By 1870 most Papal States were part of a larger Italy. Vatican City is run by the Pope out of his Apostolic Palace. It is one of the world's smallest states and is also the world's first carbon neutral state. The Church intends to create this carbon neutrality by offsetting carbon dioxide emissions with a new forest to be planted in Hungary.

It is very possible that the Vatican is built on one of what were referred to as the "Seven Hills" of Rome. In the Latin, Vatican comes from Latin Mons Vaticanus (Vatican Mount). The physical geography of the Vatican includes St. Peter's Square and parts of the Tiber River to St. Peter's. Benito Mussolini himself designed parts of the modern Vatican. Not all of the Holy See that runs the Vatican is on Vatican property. Some official residences are on Italian territory and have the status of foreign embassies. At over 50 acres, the Vatican Gardens are a famous part of Vatican City and were created mostly during the Renaissance and includes famous fountains and sculptures. St. Peter himself is said to be buried in the Vatican.

The intention to create the first-ever carbon neutral state is telling. There is no such thing as manmade global warming; even if the earth is warming it would simply mean greater fertility and more food for many parts of the world. But chances are the world is cooling more than warming and in any case manmade carbon production has nothing to do with it.

What the Holy See's ambition shows us is that the Vatican, as always, stands squarely within larger ambit of power elite manipulations of global citizenry. The Vatican – the formal Church, really – has always been part of the elite power structure of the Western world and lent its endorsement to the sociopolitical environment of the day.

The structure may be seen as separate from the spiritual elements of the Bible and the religion itself. Billions are comforted from the Church's spiritual message but the Church hierocracy has different objectives that, throughout history, may be seen as malevolent or at least controlling rather than spiritual. The Church is a temporal organization; elements within the Church may well support the current drive toward a Western one world order, and support of the chimera of manmade global warming is evidence of that.