Your Attention, Please
 |
| Google Image |
And
protection is needed more than ever, according to news reports. The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which for 25 years has been gathering
data on climate trends from more than 400 scientists around the world, says on
average, 2014 was the hottest year ever — in the ocean, as well as on land.
National
Public Radio quotes Deke Arndt, a climate scientist with the agency and an
author of the 2014 report, as saying it's the lower atmosphere that's warming,
not the upper atmosphere….
No Coincidence
“That's
not a coincidence,” he says. “The changes that we see in the lower part of the
atmosphere are driven by a change in the composition of the atmosphere,"
Arndt says. "If an external forcing — such as the sun or some orbital
phenomenon — would be driving the warming, we would see a warming across the
board in most of the atmosphere. And we don't."
The
conclusion: The cause is human activity.
Still, Americans
place less importance on environmental issues than they did in 1971, a year
after Earth Day was established, according to a poll by the Huffington Post. A recent Gallup Poll found
similar results. The poll “… puts climate change,
along with the quality of the environment, near the bottom of a list of 15
issues Americans rated in Gallup's March 6-9 survey.”
So, apart from an initial blast of publicity, I’m
not optimistic that Pope Francis’ recent message “On Care for Our Common Home” is
going to get much attention from most people. Maybe it’s at least partially
because many people believe that, like nuclear disarmament and big money in
politics, it’s just too big and intransigent a problem.
The
pope recognizes that it’s an uphill battle, but he’s seeking a dialogue nonetheless, urging his readers to abandon the
notion that the issues are unclear or that we’re powerless to change.
Manic Individualism
“At
the heart of the document is an idea very dear to him,” writes Austen Ivereigh,
a Pope Francis biographer, in the National Catholic Reporter. “It’s his own
analysis of what has gone wrong with modernity….” That includes overreliance on
technology, which suggests “we can manipulate reality; we can exploit the
world. It’s a manic individualism which comes from having lost our connection
with God, with each other and with the Earth.”
This
may give the impression that the document is a “downer,” that it’s pessimistic
and critical. That’s not the pope’s style. The document’s official title is
Laudato Si, the first line in Italian of a canticle
by St. Francis that joyfully praises God and all his creation.
 |
| Google Image |
And the encyclical isn’t just
addressed to Catholics, or even believers. In June, anticipating the
encyclical’s release, the pope said it is addressed to all because all have “the responsibility toward the common home that God has
entrusted to all.”
As should be expected, however, the Pope expressed it in
religious terms.
“The
ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion,” he writes.
Some “…committed and prayerful Christians, with the excuse of realism and
pragmatism, tend to ridicule expressions of concern for the environment. Others
are passive; they choose not to change their habits and thus become
inconsistent.”
If
we actually had this sort of conversion, what would be the practical results
for Americans? Here are five possible results.
1. We would hold politicians’ feet to the fire on the subject
of the environment, insisting that they take the subject seriously. We would vote
for and promote for office people who want to protect “our common home,” and
make it known to family and friends that we favor protecting it.
2. We would preserve and protect water, using tap water instead of bottled water
whenever possible. We would not waste water on lawns, especially in times of
water shortages. We wouldn’t pollute streams and watersheds with debris, pesticides
or herbicides.
3. We wouldn’t waste, especially food. We wouldn’t buy
more than we need and we would learn to eat leftovers. And we would give our
used “stuff” away, not throw it away.
4. We would widen our temperature comfort zone to save on
energy consumption. We would not turn on, or turn up, air conditioners and
furnaces out of habit, but only out of need.
5. We would cut down on the use of plastic, including cups
and bags. We would make sure they didn’t fill our parks, streams and oceans, or
our landfills.
“We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in
different religious traditions and also in the Bible,” writes Pope Francis. “It
is the conviction that ‘less is more.’ A constant flood of new consumer goods
can baffle the heart and prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment.
To be serenely present to each reality, however small it may be, opens us to
much greater horizons of understanding and personal fulfilment.”
Comments
Post a Comment