But such a clear moral position is rarely heard today climate leaders and champions – many of whom congratulated Francis this week as a patron saint of their cause.
The Pope’s words came to a highest point for climate morality. The Paris Agreement, which occurred six months after the encyclical, emerged from countries by putting in part national interests in deference to a common good. Several years later, the indignation of Greta Thunberg that future generations would pay for the costs of reduced fossil fuels – for a while.
Now, the administration of Donald Trump puts a total assault on climate work and a more Hobbesian mentality, to everyone, settles around the world. Those who still agitate the climate flag have largely limited to a rational and interested argument: fighting climate change means economic growth.
Francis, who took his name from Pope of the Holy Francis who loves the nature of Assisi, could barely contain his contempt for what he considered the smallness of this approach.
He said that a narrow cult of technocracy and progress had come to dominate the landscape of human thought. Negative side effects – including the rupture of natural systems that support human society – have been ignored because people had become blind to their links with the planet and other forms of life.
Climate change is an “ethical and spiritual” crisis, he said, forcing everyone to “seek solutions not only in technology, but in a change of humanity; Otherwise we would simply face symptoms. ”
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