The Pope has come under fire recently after a document was leaked about his address regarding climate change to come out tomorrow June 17th. In this leaked encyclical the Pope mentions the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem” and that if we don’t change our ways there will be “grave consequences for all of us”. However Conservatives in the United States, the climate change skeptics and Republican Presidential Candidates have all had their say so far, most notably by Rick Santorum where he caused a bit of a kerfuffle saying:
“Leave science to the scientists”
Santorum, a devout Catholic but a big critic of Pope Francis does not believe that climate change is man made, yet still makes the assertion that he is more qualified than the Pope is to speak on climate change. It should be mentioned that the Pope has a Masters Degree in Chemistry that he got before joining the seminary. Many critics have proclaimed that the Pope should stay out of this discussion because they do not believe it to be a moral issue. However the Catholic Church has long held the belief that climate change is a moral issue due to its disproportional effect on the poor and developing nations; rising sea levels, more extreme weather patterns and the lack of natural resources to name but a few of the issues set to impact them.
Another Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush has also weighed in, echoing the sentiments of Rick Santorum while energy companies chastised the Pope for not promoting fossil fuels as a solution to poverty. The Pope is set to make his address on Thursday however it has been stressed that the leaked encyclical is a draft and it is said to be Pope Francis’ own views on how we should look after the earth God has given us.
A Vatican official believes that the leaking of this document was meant as an undermining blow to the Pope; who isn’t a stranger to criticism even from within the Vatican. The leaked encyclical stresses how human activity has driven climate change and at one point seems to address climate change deniers where he discusses the obstacles that we face.
“The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions.”
Whether or not you are religious it should be a no-brainer, something needs to be done about climate change. The earth will be fine and will still be here long after we are gone, in the name of self preservation surely it makes sense to put measures in place to take care of the people on the planet. The earthquakes resulting from fracking, islands disappearing under the rising sea levels and the increasingly extreme weather patterns should be enough to tell us that something is wrong; aside from the thousand of peer reviewed studies. But now, a video by the Guardian where they ask climate change deniers about Pope Francis: