Seems everyone these days is "hating" on the U.S.
VATICAN CITY — Warning that “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” Pope Francis issued a renewed call for climate action Wednesday, singling out the United States for “irresponsible” Western excess and decrying the “weakness” of world leaders for failing to take bold steps.
Eight years after his landmark environmental encyclical, Laudato Si’, in which he scolded climate change deniers and called for an “ecological conversion” among the faithful, Francis released a follow-up, known as an apostolic exhortation. Considered a lower-level document, it was far more concise — 12 pages, compared with his 180-page encyclical. Its impact, too, may be more limited.
Release of encyclical reveals pope’s deep dive into climate science
Francis summarized accepted science and again took aim at skeptics who deny man-made climate change. He strayed beyond climate, couching artificial intelligence as representative of a worrying inclination to “increase human power beyond anything imaginable.” In what reads much like a policy paper — apart from a smaller section of religious references toward the end — the “green pope” denounced the scale of emissions from high-consumption cultures and argued that the world’s poor were paying the price.
“If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” the pope wrote.
VATICAN CITY — Warning that “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” Pope Francis issued a renewed call for climate action Wednesday, singling out the United States for “irresponsible” Western excess and decrying the “weakness” of world leaders for failing to take bold steps.
Eight years after his landmark environmental encyclical, Laudato Si’, in which he scolded climate change deniers and called for an “ecological conversion” among the faithful, Francis released a follow-up, known as an apostolic exhortation. Considered a lower-level document, it was far more concise — 12 pages, compared with his 180-page encyclical. Its impact, too, may be more limited.
Release of encyclical reveals pope’s deep dive into climate science
Francis summarized accepted science and again took aim at skeptics who deny man-made climate change. He strayed beyond climate, couching artificial intelligence as representative of a worrying inclination to “increase human power beyond anything imaginable.” In what reads much like a policy paper — apart from a smaller section of religious references toward the end — the “green pope” denounced the scale of emissions from high-consumption cultures and argued that the world’s poor were paying the price.
“If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” the pope wrote.
