VATICAN CITY – With a poet’s lyricism, a former chemist’s precision and a pontiff’s moral thunder, Pope Francis recast humanity’s relationship with nature in stark ethical terms, hoping to spur a warming, filthy world to clean up its act “before it’s too late.”
In issuing Laudato Si, his much-anticipated encyclical about climate change, the pope this week took an extraordinary approach to an environmental issue often framed in the dry language of science. Francis’ teaching document is a melodic yet radical indictment, depicting a materialistic and wasteful society that is hurting the planet and its poorest people.
He challenges the world to stop pollution, to recycle and carpool and to do without air conditioning – and makes it a moral imperative.
“The exploitation of the planet has already exceeded acceptable limits, and we still have not solved the problem of poverty,” he writes.
The pope’s “marching orders for advocacy,” as the head of the U.S. conference of bishops calls it, comes as the world nears make-or-break time for international climate change negotiations that start late this year in Paris.
“This is a seminal moment in world history because the pope now is the leading global voice on climate change,” said prominent Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley, who has written both on the church and environmentalism. “The pope brings extraordinary clout connecting Christianity and humanism to the protection of natural resources.”
Targeting a big audience
Francis said he hoped his paper would lead ordinary people in their daily lives and decision-makers at the Paris U.N. climate meetings to a wholesale change of mind and heart, urging all to listen to “both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has made the issue of climate change his top priority since taking the reins of the world body 8½ years ago, thanked the pope “for taking such a strong stand on the need for urgent global action.”
In some ways, the pope’s encyclical and its prayers serve as an invocation to the climate talks.
“As we prepare for global climate negotiations in Paris this December, it is my hope that all world leaders – and all God’s children – will reflect on Pope Francis’s call to come together to care for our common home,” President Barack Obama said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
Scientific data released Thursday backed up Francis’ concerns. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released figures showing that last month was the hottest May around the globe in 136 years of global records. NOAA calculated that the first five months of 2015 made up, by far, the hottest year on record, with very real effects: about 2,200 people have died in India’s heat wave.
Critics, supporters speak up
While the encyclical drew praise from church, science and government leaders, some politically conservative Catholics criticized its economic analysis, and some U.S. Republican politicians said religion had no place in climate policy. Some in the fossil-fuel industry took the unusual tack of citing Francis’ focus on the poor, arguing that his thinking would hurt and not help the disenfranchised.
“No, I’m sorry, it’s a political issue,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. “Most people have their minds made up on this issue, so any more rhetoric about the issue doesn’t really add a heck of a lot more to it.”
Scientists who for more than 50 years have been talking about the dangers of global warming say this could break the inertia that has characterized climate talks. With their data and computer models, scientists appealed to logic; the pope sought to engage the soul.
“This is exactly what we need,” said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who as an evangelical Christian has talked about faith and warming. “We need leaders who speak to values, connecting the dots between values and climate change.”
‘Integral ecology’
At the heart of Francis’ theological argument is the concept of “integral ecology,” which gives a more central role for the environment in longstanding Catholic social teaching by linking destruction of nature with injustices such as poverty, hunger, inequality and violations of human dignity.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, said the encyclical wasn’t a directive from Francis to people in politics or business that “you must do this.”
The encyclical covers all sorts of environmental issues, including waste, extinctions, genetically modified organisms and the lack of clean water.
Addressing “every living person on this planet,” Francis calls for a bold cultural revolution to correct what he said was a “structurally perverse” economic system in which the rich exploited the poor.
Closing his document with “a prayer for our Earth,” the pope beseeches God: “Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction. Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain at the expense of the poor and the Earth.”
His words brought Deke Arndt, a top U.S. federal climate scientist and Catholic, to tears.
“There are certain things that science will never be able to say so beautifully,” he said. “I think it speaks across the spectrum of human experiences ... It speaks to the soul and the inner part of us.”
No encyclical has ever drawn this much popular and sustained attention. The hashtag #LaudatoSi was trending Thursday on Twitter.
Citing the deforestation of the Amazon, the melting of Arctic glaciers and the deaths of coral reefs, Francis rebuked “obstructionist” climate doubters who “seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms.” And he blamed politicians for listening more to oil-industry interests than Scripture, common sense or the cries of the poor.
“The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” he wrote.
He praised a “less is more” lifestyle, one that shuns air conditioners and gated communities in favor of car pools, recycling and being in close touch with the marginalized. He called for courageous, radical and farsighted policies to transition the world’s energy supply from fossil fuels to renewable sources, saying mitigation schemes like the buying and selling of carbon credits won’t solve the problem.
The leading skeptic in the U.S. Congress, Republican Sen. James Inhofe, said he feared the encyclical will be used by “alarmists” to push policies that will lead to big tax increases. He said the poor will actually “carry the heaviest burden” of policies to phase out fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.
The pope will address Congress in September and is expected to talk about the environment, but House leadership isn’t promising action addressing the pontiff’s concerns.
Francis argues that there really is no distinction between human beings, their faith and the environment: They are all part of a single integral ecology.
“Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth,” he writes.
