Still in the Dark?

As floodwaters recede across the Midwest and wildfires burn through a hot and dry California, it is becoming ever clearer that climate change is a rapidly evolving and urgent issue within the U.S. Beyond our borders, the crisis has become even more apparent, as extended drought grips the Sahel,species are disappearing at increasing rates, and the vital water banks contained in the Andean and Himalayan glaciers are rapidly dwindling.

However, as Pope John Paul II has stated, the crisis is not simply ecological, but has profound moral and spiritual dimensions. Worldwide, people living in poverty are disproportionately impacted by climate change, although they have contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving it. Their livelihoods, homes and even lives are threatened by more frequent and intense storms, extended droughts, rising sea levels and other climate impacts, yet they have few resources at their disposal to protect themselves and their families.

Underpinned by an anthropocentric worldview that holds humankind to be separate and independent of the natural world, the current economic system attempts to divorce the ‘invisible hand’ of the market from its ecological and social roots. Yet the result is not the predicted progress and prosperity, but an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor; growing hunger, poverty and conflict; a rapidly warming climate; and the earth’s resources exploited almost to the brink of collapse.

See the light . . .

As Albert Einstein has been often quoted as saying, no problem can be solved through the same level of consciousness that created it. Reframed within the light of Catholic Social Teaching, Pope John Paul II affirmed that a moral crisis, such as climate change, must be met with conversion, a transformation of attitude, perspective and conduct. Individual lifestyle changes, such as switching to more efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL’s), using public transportation, and eating local and/or organic foods are all important and needed, yet the voices, prayers and votes of concerned people are equally necessary to help transform the context in which we search for an answer.

The atmosphere is a shared good that transcends national borders, and climate change a shared threat, binding the earth community to a common destiny. The challenge is urgent and cross-cutting, yet it provides a crucial window of opportunity to reconsider our social, political and economic structures, and reorient them around the global common good. Only be redefining prosperity in terms of long-term sustainability and authentic human development, can we avert climate chaos and secure our shared future.

Climate Change Resources from Center of Concern

• Reconciling Climate Justice and Food Security: Complex Problems in Need of Global Solutions (July 2008)

Biofuels, or fuels derived from plants, have been making headlines recently for their role in the world food crisis. Touted as a new clean fuel that will help solve the climate crisis, activists have long warned about the poverty and justice implications. Nonetheless, while the conversion of basic food crops into fuel for vehicles in wealthy countries seems a particularly cruel incarnation of the growing divide between the haves and have-nots of the world, it is also only a symptom of a broken economic order that prioritizes profits over human subsistence.

• Global Warming Hits Home (June 2008)
  

  Gallup released numbers from its annual Environmental poll in April, showing that Americans feel more informed about global warming than in previous years, and that a majority believe the effects of global warming to have already begun. Yet, despite this knowledge, Americans are no more concerned now about global warming than when the survey was first launched nearly two decades ago, and, in fact, rank it tenth in a list of twelve environmental problems.

• Defining Food: Sustenance, Fuel, or Profit? (June 2008)
  

This week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization is hosting a World Food Security Conference in Rome. Originally conceived as an opportunity for the international community to explore the potential implications of climate change on world food security in the coming decades, the current global food crisis has highlighted not just the relevancy, but the desperate urgency of the issue.

• A Catholic Social Teaching Perspective on Climate Change (July 2007)

This resource provides a brief overview of the vision of the social tradition in light of the warning signs and impacts of global climate change. 

Additional Resources on Climate Change

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: http://unfccc.int/2860.php
• U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Statement on Climate Change: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/globalclimate.shtml
• Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops' Statement on Climate Change: http://www.cccb.ca/site/images/stories/pdf/enviro_eng.pdf.
• Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation. Address by Pope John Paul II: http://www.vatican.va