Climate change is a moral imperative, says Vatican representative at UN
October 17, 2014
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Climate change “is not only an environmental question; it is also a question of justice and a moral imperative.”
Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vatican’s representative at UN headquarters in New York, made that statement in an October 16 address to a UN session on sustainable development.
Archbishop Auza called particular attention to the concerns of small island nations that have said rising ocean levels could endanger their future. “This is paradoxical and unjust,” the archbishop said, “given that the primary factors of climate change, like high consumption and high-quantity greenhouse gas emissions, characterize highly industrialized societies.”
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Posted by: shrink -
Oct. 20, 2014 3:24 PM ET USA
Well, we all now know that Auza reads and believes the New York Times.
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Posted by: claude-ccc2991 -
Oct. 18, 2014 6:03 PM ET USA
Yes, sea level is rising...at a rate of about 7 inches per century (though that can differ from location to location). But South Pacific coral islands are rising, too. In fact, the rate of coral growth is faster than the rate of sea level rise. In the rare cases where salt water encroachment is occurring, it is because of inappropriate digging by the islanders themselves. Let's just say that the island leaders can smell the cash by playing the victim game.
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Posted by: JJF -
Oct. 18, 2014 2:45 PM ET USA
The Abp. even thinks he knows what causes warming. I guess he has eliminated the sun as a possible cause and ignores that we are in an interglacial period.
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Posted by: bernie4871 -
Oct. 18, 2014 12:16 PM ET USA
"concerns of small island nations . . . rising ocean levels could endanger their future. This is paradoxical and unjust". Strange sophistry. How does one fit the island Nation of Nauru into the picture? They themselves destroyed their tiny country by selling off the millions of years of bird dung that made up most of the island's corpus. Islands come and go. Perhaps similar to today's "Greens", in 1960 Nauruans had the highest per cap. income in the entire world. Enter the real world.
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Posted by: jrorr19609092 -
Oct. 17, 2014 8:41 PM ET USA
My concern for the "prelates" taking positions on issues like so-called "climate change" is it is so contradictory to their teaching that God created the universe and later mankind. Mankind can destroy God's creation? Really?! Then He isn't as powerful as we were led to believe.
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Posted by: jrorr19609092 -
Oct. 17, 2014 8:38 PM ET USA
jg23753479, I have enjoyed clicking on Catholic.Culture.org for sometime and reading their getting-to-the-point brief articles, and comments of which many I agree with, but yours is the one that has driven me to make a monthly contribution, although modest, so I can comment on your comment. Absolutely agree with you 100%!
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Posted by: jg23753479 -
Oct. 17, 2014 5:30 PM ET USA
Once again a Catholic prelate illicitly uses the cover of his office and of religious language ("a moral imperative") to sell a peculiar and debatable political objective. Archbishop Auza should concern himself with things he may actually know something about, theology or ritual for example.
