Today is the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and it is an opportunity to review some recent articles to update citizens about bringing climate change to the forefront of our concerns.
Sea level rise
Phil Kingston writes that an ongoing plea of Pope Francis is that we listen to both "the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor". These two cries are incorporated in Catholic Social Teaching as care of the Earth and the common good. He notes Pope Francis' critique of the Global Market Economy.
I draw particularly upon 'Evangelii Gaudium' (EG) and 'Laudate Si' (LS). Francis describes the global economy in this way: ''The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose''. (EG para 55). He is particularly concerned about the effects of the economy upon poor, exploited and marginalised people: ''We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor.'' (EG para 48).1
In Canada, Alan Andrews suggests that Canada's COVID-19 response may be a blueprint for climate action. He notes that we are all familiar with the Covid -19 infection curve and the part we each must play to flatten it. He hopes our leaders learn from this experience and apply the same principles of speed and science when it comes to countering the climate crisis. To date, Canadian politicians have simply not done enough to protect Canadians from climate change.
Canada has missed every greenhouse gas reduction target it has set. We are warming twice as fast as the global rate. Last year, 11,000 scientists from around the world published a letter making a stark assessment – climate change is threatening the very fate of humanity. Meanwhile, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made a stark warning: We have just a decade to keep global warming under two degrees or else we face a climate catastrophe.2
Reuters reports that investors are wary of energy shares, as the S&P 500 Energy sector .SPNY is down 40% this year even as the U.S. stock market touched new highs this month.
Oil companies such as BP Plc (BP.L), Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY.N) and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) made highly publicized purchases that have lost substantial value. BP, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and others have cut the assumed value of those assets, conceding big wagers on shale will not pay off.3
An opinion article in the National Post urges us not to use religion as an excuse not to take the Covid-19 pandemic seriously. Unfortunately, religion has also been used to encourage people to not give climate change the attention it needs.
Ordinary Americans have also invoked God, claiming masks interfere with His divinely designed human breathing apparatus. A study released in late June suggested that white American evangelicals’ attitudes toward the coronavirus pandemic are considerably more relaxed than those of other religious groups.4
Pope Francis is very pleased that the theme chosen by the ecumenical family for the celebration of the 2020 Season of Creation is Jubilee for the Earth, precisely in this year that marks the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day. In the Holy Scriptures, a Jubilee is a sacred time to remember, return, rest, restore, and rejoice.
The Jubilee season calls us to think once again of our fellow human beings, especially the poor and the most vulnerable. We are asked to re-appropriate God’s original and loving plan of creation as a common heritage, a banquet which all of our brothers and sisters share in a spirit of conviviality, not in competitive scramble but in joyful fellowship, supporting and protecting one another. A Jubilee is a time for setting free the oppressed and all those shackled in the fetters of various forms of modern slavery, including trafficking in persons and child labour. We also need once more to listen to the land itself, which Scripture calls adamah, the soil from which man, Adam, was made. Today we hear the voice of creation admonishing us to return to our rightful place in the natural created order – to remember that we are part of this interconnected web of life, not its masters. The disintegration of biodiversity, spiralling climate disasters, and unjust impact of the current pandemic on the poor and vulnerable: all these are a wakeup call in the face of our rampant greed and consumption.5
We are invited, today, to consider urging government action on biodiversity, climate disasters, and the unjust impact of climate change and the current pandemic on the poor and vulnerable.
References
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