Pope Speaks Out on Climate Change

Today Pope Francis released his encyclical on human-generated climate change and the need for the people and governments of the world to band together to reverse the damage being done to creation and to our ecological home. As he put it, "Once we start to think about the kind of world we are leaving to future generations, we look at things differently; we realize that the world is a gift which we have freely received and must share with others," he said.  The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is teaming up with the Sierra Club to ask people to sign a petition calling on world leaders to act to fight this threat.

Conservative figures such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and candidates Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum have already weighed in against the pontiff for "politicizing" the climate issue. What they don't seem to realize is that the scientist pope (master's degree in Chemistry) is merely reporting the science and combining that with his moral focus as a religious leader to call for mitigation of the effects of this preventable tragedy on the "least among us." As Francis pointed out, it is the poor and powerless who pay the highest price for drought and sea level rise. See the entire text of the encyclical (184 pages) here. See the informative article on the encyclical, Laudate Si, (Praise be to you) in the New York Times here.

It is well past time for the narrative to change. Scientists who report the findings of science and moral leaders who report the human dimension of issues are not the ones "politicizing" this issue. People who know better but play to the fear and ignorance of their political base by denying fact and reason are the ones doing so. It is well past time for them to be called on this dissimulation, and it is good to see the Pope doing so.