Here’s a sneak peak of Pope Francis’s historic “Climate Change Encyclical,” soon to be released, complete with talking points for his upcoming address to the joint session of Congress. We’ll analyze them:
The encyclical’s likely headline: “Safeguard Creation ... We are the custodians of Creation ... If we destroy Creation ... Creation will destroy us,” a public warning often repeated by the pontiff this past year, a message certain to intensify the anger of GOP climate-science deniers, Big Oil, Koch Bros, Exxon Mobil and most fossil-fuel firms, as well as their banks, investors owning their stocks and capitalists everywhere. Here’s why:
Pope Francis’s much-anticipated encyclical will be broadcast worldwide to billions, including 5,000 bishops, 400,000 priests and 1.2 billion members of the Roman Catholic Church. He will be encouraging his army of the faithful to take strong action, fight climate change and global warming threats to the environment.
The encyclical will also be translated into hundreds of languages and broadcast worldwide. At the same time, Pope Francis will be lobbying heads of state and religious leaders, and inspiring billions of people worldwide, encouraging them to join this revolution.
This historic encyclical will also set the stage for everything else Pope Francis has planned in 2015. He’s a man with a mission to save the world from the accelerating threats to the planet’s natural resources. More immediate, the encyclical will serve as major talking points for his address to the joint session of Congress in September, his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and his December message to the historic UN Climate Conference in Paris. Many of his points on the environment are already well known.
When Pope Francis addresses the U.S. Congress he will confront a hostile caucus of 169 hard-line GOP climate-science deniers who dismiss the idea that global warming is human-caused, in part because collectively they have received more than $52 million in career contributions from Big Oil, coal and fossil-fuel interests, three times what the other members of the Congress, who agree climate change is a threat the survival of our civilization, received.
GOP climate-science deniers in Congress include Catholics like House Speaker John Boehner, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, as well as former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Committee, all of whom will be listening to Pope Francis. Sitting with them will be Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, author of “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.”
Also listening to Pope Francis will be the GOP’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who recently tried to “undermine international negotiations aimed at combating climate change” by publicly “telling other countries not to trust President Obama’s promise to significantly reduce the United States carbon emissions.”
And in yet another desperate act, McConnell also sent a letter to the governors of all 50 states encouraging them to ignore federal laws enforcing the Environmental Protection Agency’s “clean air regulations designed to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.” His state is a big coal-mining state.
Key talking points in pope’s historic encyclical on climate change
The ever-smiling, upbeat Pope Francis, a former boxer, loves a good fight. But he’s laser-locked on his real target — encouraging action — inviting hundreds of millions of the Catholic faithful, in fact inviting all seven billion people worldwide, to join a global economic revolution.
Here are eight of the pope’s public warnings edited in the Catholic Climate Covenant, from his “Apostolic Exhortation,” from the Guardian and other news sources, warnings on the rapidly accelerating climate change and global warming risks to the environment, along with our individual responsibility to “safeguard Creation, for we are the custodians of Creation. If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us.” Listen to the pope’s warnings:
Our lost moral compass: “We are experiencing a moment of crisis; we see it in the environment, but mostly we see it in man. The human being is at stake: here is the urgency of human ecology! And the danger is serious because the cause of the problem is not superficial, but profound: it’s not just a matter of economics, but of ethics.”
Rapid environmental collapse: A “threat to peace arises from the greedy exploitation of environmental resources. Monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.”
Exploiting natural resources: “Genesis tells us that God created man and woman entrusting them with the task of filling the earth and subduing it, which does not mean exploiting it, but nurturing and protecting it, caring for it through their work.”
Failure to respect nature: “This task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of Creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not care for Creation, we do not respect it.”
Rich and poor are responsible: “Nurturing and cherishing Creation is a command God gives not only at the beginning of history, but to each of us. It is part of his plan; it means causing the world to grow responsibly, transforming it so that it may be a garden, a habitable place for everyone.” Everyone.
Money trumps morality: Without a moral code, “it is no longer man who commands, but money. Cash commands. Greed is the motivation ... An economic system centered on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.” Instead, the pope calls for a “radical new financial and economic system to avoid human inequality and ecological devastation.”
We worship money. “We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money” ... Pope Francis warns that “trickle-down economics is a failed theory” ... the “invisible hand” of capitalism cannot be trusted ... “excessive consumerism is killing our culture, values and ethics” ... and “the conservative ideal of individualism is undermining the common good.”
Capitalism killing Planet Earth: Pope Francis warns that capitalism is the “root cause” of all the world’s problems: “As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems,” as environmental damage does trickle down most on the world’s poor.
Revolution coming: Pope is committed to changing the world, fast
Imagine Pope Francis addressing a hostile GOP Congress. The Guardian downplayed the animosity of his enemies in the GOP, Big Oil, climate deniers and conservative governors in its headline: “Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and U.S. churches.”
Anger? Much more. The pope is encouraging an open rebellion against these enemies. But being a realist, he knows full well there’s no chance of changing the minds of hard-right politicians like McConnell, Boehner, Inhofe, Ryan and the other GOP climate-science deniers heavily dependent on fossil-fuel political donations. So it’ll be interesting to watch them squirm, feign applaud or just sit stoically, as they did earlier when President Obama spoke to a joint session. But he’s clearly laying the groundwork for a global economic revolution, and his enemies know it.
Even more interesting ... watching the ripple effect “Climate Change Encyclical” ignites after Pope Francis speaks to the UN General Assembly ... after the UN-IPCC’s Paris Conference announcement of a new international treaty approved by China and hundreds of nations across the planet ... after the pope’s message has been translated into more than a thousand languages ... and broadcast to seven billion worldwide, billions who are already directly experiencing climate change “evils that tear man from the land of his birth.”
Given the far reach of his encyclical, Pope Francis’s revolution will accelerate. So the GOP’s 169 climate deniers, Big Oil, the Koch Empire and all hard-right conservatives better be prepared for a powerful backlash in the near future. Pope Francis’s 2015 battle cry is for a global revolution, a call for billions to take back their planet from a fossil-fuel industry that has no moral compass and is self-destructive.
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