Maine Voices: Protecting God's Creation means doing our part on climate change
The Catholic Church supports strong legislation that shows care for the Earth and its poor.
PORTLAND - Partisan politics and the often polarizing effects of the media have caused many of us to forget that there is a common good: a global community for which we all must care.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Most Rev. Richard J. Malone is Roman Catholic bishop of the Portland Diocese, which includes all of Maine.
The truth is we are all part of the same web of life. And climate change, perhaps more than any other crisis facing mankind today, demands that we recognize the interdependence of all life because its impacts are not isolated in any one corner of the Earth but affect every part of the living world.
Climate change highlights the links between concern for the person and for the Earth, between natural ecology and human ecology. Climate change is not just about economic theory or political platforms, and it should not be used for partisan advantage or influenced by interest group pressures.
It is about the future of God's Creation and the one human family. It is about protecting both "the human environment" and the natural environment.
Protecting the natural environment requires prudence -- careful management and efficient use of otherwise scarce natural resources.
Until more reliable energy alternatives are developed, oil and coal must be used sparingly as they are both finite and damaging to our environment. While they produce power necessary for modern life, fossil fuels also release harmful pollutants and heat-trapping greenhouse gases that are warming our planet.
Curtailing their use through conservation and making serious investments in renewable energy sources could help slow climate change and avoid much of the predicted damage to our natural world.
Protecting the human environment requires both compassion toward those most impacted by climate change and a much greater degree of personal and collective accountability for our lifestyle choices, particularly in a wealthy country like ours.
Our disproportionate consumption of non-renewable energy resources affects our brothers and sisters around the world.
The poor of the Earth offer a special test of our solidarity. Especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are many of the world's most impoverished communities. They live in regions already feeling the effects of climate change and, tragically, are the least equipped to cope with the problem.
Staff of Catholic Relief Services -- operating in 100 of the poorest countries around the world -- report that severe flooding and prolonged droughts threaten to unravel years of relief and development efforts and contribute to conflicts over scarce resources, food, and water.
Solidarity demands, as Pope Benedict said in this year's World Day of Peace Message, "a broad global vision of the world; a responsible common effort to move beyond approaches based on selfish nationalistic interests towards a vision constantly open to the needs of all peoples."
Our call to strive for peace and to love our neighbors must be more and more linked with the need for environmental stewardship.
In my tradition, we are promoting the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor. This pledge is a commitment by Catholics to do five things with regards to climate change: to pray, learn, assess, act and advocate.
In this way, we might help protect God's Creation and advocate on behalf of people most impacted by global climate change.
As for public policies addressing climate change, the U.S. bishops have consistently called for policies that demonstrate both care for Creation and care for the poor.
The United States should lead the way by passing strong climate change legislation that reflects these priorities.
To win the support of the U.S. bishops, climate legislation must not add to the burdens of poor people in our own country and must provide substantial resources to help the poorest countries in the world adapt to a problem largely created by those of us in wealthier nations.
Our mistreatment of the natural world diminishes human dignity, threatens life -- all life -- and disregards the sacredness of Creation.
People of faith, including Catholics, must recapture ancient teachings about the reverence for Creation and about solidarity with all people.
As we work to protect and defend the life and dignity of the human person, we must increasingly recognize that this task cannot be separated from the care and defense of all of Creation.
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20 COMMENTS
JustAGnome said...
Population Growth Fuels Climate Change: In the past 100 years the world population has doubled. The most conservative estimates forecast a minimum of 50% growth over the next 100 years. The industrialized countries of the world have had zero indigenous population growth and have reduced air emissions for the past two decades. China is the world’s biggest polluter and they don’t even make the top 100 list in per capita GDP. The world has a serious population growth problem in poor countries and no amount of conservation is going to mitigate pollution until the population is contained. The poor countries of the world already rely heavily on the industrialized world for the basic necessities of life. Maybe the Catholic Church should revisit the causes of the world’s increased energy demand and not the sources of supply. If population growth continues unabated it won’t be long before the entire planet is consumed in poverty.
July 24, 2010 at 6:59 AM Report abuse
zombie9 said...
That's true Gnome. Population control was one of the biggest issues in the environmental movement of the late 60's early 70's. It has somehow fallen off the radar. You want to reduce energy consumption by 10%, reduce the population by 10%. My feeling is the biggest problems with the world come from people and too many of them. The Church is right about their preserve the planet attitude though. There's just one glaring omission from their mission.
July 24, 2010 at 8:18 AM Report abuse
Musikian said...
Even though I am Catholic I am very concerned how our church seems to be taking direction from the leftist marxists who currently run this country. Church services are now more concerned with "social justice" (politics of the left) than the Gospel. Catholic churches have begun speaking for Nancy Pelosi on the subject of illegal immigration. Abortion is hardly mentioned, nor is homosexuality. Rather than talk about "sin" (our problem) our chicken priests only talk about "love." Father Malone, please don't let our church become an arm of the left.
July 24, 2010 at 9:10 AM Report abuse
useless said...
Belief in global Warming is like belief in religion. Both require blind faith - belief in the unprovable.
July 24, 2010 at 9:10 AM Report abuse
AFVET said...
Two good comments before the lunatics arrived. The Catholic Church CANNOT address population growth because its basic tenets do not incorporate birth control. So it is caught in a profound hypocrisy. Nothing new, of course. The Pope inveighs against ordination of women while sort of disapproving of the pedophilia of many of his priesthood, a scandal that he and other prelates hoped would just go away if the Church kept reassigning offending priests from parish to parish. The Bishop does state some truths, but the beam in the Church's eye blinds him to others. Our children and their children are doomed to live in a fetid, overcrowded third world environment that will flow noxiously over the walls of the most determined of gated communities. Bottled air will be a final growth industry.
July 24, 2010 at 10:16 AM Report abuse
windblock said...
That sounds good. Taking care of the environment means not blasting mtn.tops and building extra roads and spraying to prevent regrowth. With that looking for energy sources that do not make our elec. bills soar. Wind power is a losing proposition, and a shameful waste when HydroQuebec is right next door. I still haven't heard the output of Mars Hill and Stetson. Maybe the windsprawlers should go to church and learn about honesty and truthfulness before making wild promises to unsuspecting victims for their own profiteering.
July 24, 2010 at 10:16 AM Report abuse
GURRY70 said...
Sorry Rev. Malone many of us are on to the "social justice" being preached at some churches (and Washington). No way will I sign on to the Obama redistribution of wealth. If you want to do something about climate change do something to promote less human population in poor countries. Salvation is individual....not the collective salvation that is being preached by Rev. Wright and Obama
July 24, 2010 at 10:19 AM Report abuse
Chew said...
Climate changes have occurred long before humans. Population control is the least costly and most effective manner in which to reduce human impact on natural resources. Sure we can address fuel sources that are easily renewable and invent and implement new technologies to reduce our burden, but the end game is clear. Without reducing the need for resources exponentially, our efforts at conservation will fail. Decreasing dependency simply reduces the rate of resource consumption. The problem is an increasing population offsets conservation efforts for a net negative instead of positive. If you truly want to help people and the planet (which ultimately will be fine regardless of our actions), endorse responsible birth control as a starting point.
July 24, 2010 at 10:32 AM Report abuse
middleone said...
Social justice is very much a Biblical directive. Beginning in the OT with directions for communities to leave extra grain in the fields for the widows to harvest,to the Prophets, to Jesus and his sermon on the mount, caring for the less fortunate, is a collective responsibility. Remember, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle, than a rich man to enter heaven. To argue the Bible doesn't advocate social justice is ludicrous.
July 24, 2010 at 10:48 AM Report abuse
AXeL said...
The good Bishop commits the Sin of Pride as he embraces the Anthropogenic Global Warming faith requiring the belief that Man is as mighty and as powerful as God Himself. Watch as our mighty exhalations accumulate in the heavens and raise the fires of Hades upon the plains! Even the planet, Mars, is not immune from the God-like power of human beings. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, for I am as a god unto myself...Get thyself to a confessional, Padre.
July 24, 2010 at 10:54 AM Report abuse
atticus said...
It's possible a senior church staff member wrote this op-ed for Bishop Malone, but whether the bishop is the real auth
July 24, 2010 at 11:21 AM Report abuse
atticus said...
It's possible a senior church staff member wrote this op-ed for Bishop Malone, but whether the bishop is the real auth
July 24, 2010 at 11:21 AM Report abuse
Jack_Pine said...
I'd like to know the connection between Interfaith Power and Light and the wind insutry given that IPL links the wind industry's trade association on its website. The reality is that all of the envisioned major impact 360 miles of ridgetop 400' tall foreign-made turbines and Spanish/Abu Dhubai Iberdrola's hundreds of miles of new wind-required transmission will avoid the emissions equal to what is sequestered by a tiny 1% of the Maine Woods. So Father, you advocate that sort of massive environmental degradation and assault on nearby residents' lives for virtually nothing? With all due respect - and I mean that - please do some more research, pleazse reconsider and then spread the word to your congregants. Here is a link that will document the 1% figure I just provided. The best part is it uses NRCM's own CO2 statistics. ---------------- http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/maines-wind-goals-co2-and-the ------------------ Thank You in advance.
July 24, 2010 at 11:25 AM Report abuse
atticus said...
Not the bishop's words? It's possible, of course, that a church staff member wrote this piece for Bishop Malone, but he's the one who signed his name to it. It's fair to say that if the bishop doesn't attribute the words to someone else, then we are led to believe that these are the bishop's own thoughts, ideas and words. At least two of the paragraphs in the op-ed that Bishop Malone claims as his own were lifted right off a letter written by the United Conference of Catholic Bishops and published on its web site. "Climate change is not just about economic theory or political platforms, and it should not be used for partisan advantage or influenced by interest group pressures. "It is about the future of God's Creation and the one human family. It is about protecting both 'the human environment' and the natural environment." Too bad the bishop didn't write about something he really cares about. Something that arouses his passion and concern - in his very own words.
July 24, 2010 at 11:44 AM Report abuse
useless said...
"Too bad the bishop didn't write about something he really cares about. Something that arouses his passion and concern" What would that be - little boys?
July 24, 2010 at 12:26 PM Report abuse
Musikian said...
Gurry has an excellent point. We ARE on to what is happening in this country. There is NO collective salvation. I hope the Bishop realizes that "climate change" is about the redistribution of wealth. It has very little to do with being good stewards of the Earth. It is about worshiping the creation, rather than the Creator. I agree with most of the posts here, but I want to point out the Catholic church is not the only culprit in human population growth. Most Muslim countries also forbid contaception. Look at the birth rate in a country like Saudi Arabia (an average of 5 children per household).
July 24, 2010 at 3:59 PM Report abuse
DTOM said...
Climate change legislation 'fraud'... nothing more than REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, just like the health care bill. ++++ The Progressives are framing the issue as a 'moral' one... a 'social justice' issue. ++++ What could be a greater guide to a man's true nature, than those from whom he seeks spiritual counsel? ++++ President Barack Obama spent 20 years under the ministry of Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Chicago's South Side. Wright is a Marxist and admirer of the founder of "Black Liberation Theology", James Cone - who wrote in 1969 "All white men are responsible for white oppression. . . . Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man 'the devil.'" ++++ http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-file-100-obamas-faith-adviser-jim.html
July 24, 2010 at 8:39 PM Report abuse
Musikian said...
Thank you for expanding DTOM! Well said....
July 25, 2010 at 9:21 AM Report abuse
Truthseeker said...
Well said, or the clip and paste works well......
July 26, 2010 at 1:53 PM Report abuse
Truthseeker said...
If a bunch nutjobs in hoods were hanging and beating your family members and neighbors you might refer to them as the devil as well. I am not sure what all of this is trying to prove. If you don't like what someone has to say you don't have to listen or you can constructively rebutt. Our philosophies are developed by everything from the school, the tube, church, media, etc. To realize that point may be the first step towards understanding that we are more than just consumers, numbers and tools.
July 26, 2010 at 2:23 PM Report abuse