Pope Francis has many firsts to his credit, and now he has become the first Pope to devote an entire encyclical to the environment. Other Popes have referred to the environment, but none have devoted an entire encyclical to it. It couldn’t have come at a better moment. Later this year the world community will meet in France for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where the aim is to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate. That agreement is already long overdue and perhaps the Pope’s latest encyclical will spur the world community to act on climate change faster and with a seriousness that has been lacking for long. The Pope in fact does make a mention that world summits on environment and climate change have not been able to reach the expected agreements, which is perhaps due to lack of political will. Can that now change?
Pope Francis in the encyclical calls global warming a major threat to life and argues that global warming has been mainly caused by human activity. While calling for an urgent need for policies that will bring down the levels of carbon emission, he actually suggests the substitution of fossil fuels and the development of sources of renewable energy.
He does state quite plainly that it is the developed countries that are to blame for the change in climate patterns. “The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world, especially Africa, where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has proved devastating for farming,” the encyclical states. The encyclical does take up for the poor in the world, a chosen people of this Pope.
Putting the issue of environment into perspective, the Pope asks, “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” That is one of many questions that the Pope asks in the encyclical ‘Laudato Si’. There are simple questions, but the answers are nowhere near simple. He asks also, “Why are we here?” prompting everybody to reflect on the purpose of their existence.
There is something very urgent in the manner in which the encyclical is worded. Environmental changes will not affect the future, but the present. It is evident in the encyclical as a couple of lines after the question reproduced above, the Pope says, “It is no longer enough, then, simply to state that we should be concerned for future generations. We need to see that what is at stake is our own dignity.”
The encyclical, 183 pages long, falls back on Christian theology of creation and takes on economic globalization and the culture of consumerism. Pope Francis is especially concerned about this. “Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy,” the encyclical states.
The encyclical calls for conversion, for an ecological conversion, where people will be concerned about the environment and hopefully there will come about such a conversion. It may take time but the start has hopefully been made.
Closer home, the encyclical is relevant to Goa that today is in the midst of various battles in defence of the environment, where the people are fighting the government. The encyclical highlights the depletion of clean water and the loss of biodiversity, two issues that Goa is facing. Just recently a report on the water quality of the Goan rivers stated that all are polluted. And the loss of biodiversity is an issue that environmentalists in Goa bring up constantly, whether at the Mopa plateau that is the site for the new proposed airport or at Tiracol village that is the site of a golf course. Goa’s fight for its environment continues and the encyclical from Pope Francis could even spur the fight.
