Reverse climate change, Pope demands
May 16, 2024
» Continue to this story on Vatican News
CWN Editor's Note: Pope Francis demanded action to “invert the global warming curve” in a May 16 address to participants in a Vatican-sponsored conference on climate change.
In a highly detailed talk, the Pope said that the problem of climate change is becoming steadily more acute, and told an international group of political leaders that “we are working for a culture of life or for a culture of death.”
The Pope said that climate change is attributable not only to human activity— a theory that remains controversial— but to human greed. He said: “The wealthier nations, around 1 billion people, produce more than half the heat trapping pollutants,” said the Pope. “On the contrary, the 3 billion poorer people contribute less than 10%, yet they suffer 75% of the resulting damage.”
The damage to the world’s climate caused by human activity is “an offense against God,” the Pope insisted. “We find ourselves faced with systemic challenges that are distinct yet interconnected: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, environmental decay, global disparities, lack of food security and threats to the dignity of the peoples affected by them.”
Pope Francis said that pollution causes millions of deaths every year, and demanded efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Vatican News reported: “He mentioned especially the Amazon Basin and the Congo, peat bogs, mangroves, oceans, coral reefs, farmlands, and glacial icecaps.”
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Posted by: miketimmer499385 -
May. 16, 2024 12:34 PM ET USA
There is NO issue which demonstrates the Pope's intellectual shortcomings than this issue. In fact, that he finds it necessary to make any judgements about the protection of the physical planet is so far beyond his remit that we should question his ability to discern what his appropriate roll as Supreme Pontiff entails. As a man he is an embarrassment to the Catholic Church. As I recall, he is responsible for the care and protection of souls in their eternal salvation.
