The Narcissism Of Our Environmental Politics

While we await the June 18, 2015 release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, Laudato si (or “Be Praised”), some American politicians just can’t seem to help themselves.

First, GOP Presidential contender (and Catholic) Rick Santorum had this to say on June 3 (quoted in thehill.com):

The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focus on what we’re really good at, which is theology and morality,” Santorum said Monday.

“And I think when we get involved with political and controversial scientific theories, then I think the church is probably not as forceful and credible.

Now Senator James Inhofe, influential Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has weighed-in:

Everyone is going to ride the pope now. Isn’t that wonderful? The pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours.

Where to begin?

Perhaps here, at the beginning:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters . . .

Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it” . . .

And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.”

So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind.

And God saw that it was good . . .

And then, of course, God created man.

Which, tellingly, he called very good.

But observe, please, the order of creation, for man was given a unique role:

God entrusted the whole of creation to the man and woman, and only then . . . could he rest “from all his work”

Man as environmental steward.

Man as protector and watcher over the earth.

Man placed here, in God’s stead, in a role uniquely assigned to him.

Now, I remain entirely skeptical of the hyperbolic – and I dare say scientifically unproven and unprovable – claims constantly being made about “global warming” or “climate change” or whatever the latest incarnation of that label is.

For one thing, I am of a certain age that I well remember the extremely alarming, so-called “scientific,” claims made throughout the 1970s about the coming onset of the next ice age directly caused by man’s careless environmental policies.

And, more to the point, no one has ever satisfactorily explained to me what role mankind played in the last five global warming periods which brought the earth out of its prior ice ages, stretching back millions of years.

Clearly, something more than man’s involvement is taking place here.

And, just as clearly, whatever is happening may well be entirely resistant to massive public expenditures and ever more restrictive public policies.

So yes, count me among the not yet convinced.

For I am not.

That is not to say, however, that we are free to ignore our role as environmental stewards.

For we are not.

Our responsibility is abundantly clear, our diligence absolutely commanded.

So I say to our public policy makers: please stop the hyperventilating and let’s see what this new encyclical contains before passing any further judgments.

And, whatever “radical” things one suspects Pope Francis will now pronounce, I think it’s fair to say that nothing will be more “radical” than this:

The gradual depletion of the ozone layer and the related “greenhouse effect” has now reached crisis proportions as a consequence of industrial growth, massive urban concentrations and vastly increased energy needs.

Industrial waste, the burning of fossil fuels, unrestricted deforestation, the use of certain types of herbicides, coolants and propellants: all of these are known to harm the atmosphere and environment.

The resulting meteorological and atmospheric changes range from damage to health to the possible future submersion of low-lying lands.

While in some cases the damage already done may well be irreversible, in many other cases it can still be halted.

That is taken from a document released in celebration of The World Day For Peace on January 1, 1990.

Oh, and yes, that document was written by Pope St. John Paul II, not much of a radical he.

So, Senator Inhofe tell me: whose job is whose, exactly?

For more information about the up-coming encyclical, check back with the USCCB here with its in depth and on-going coverage.

And check back here as well.

Peace

UPDATE: More here with an – unfortunate – early release of a draft of the report, via Kathy Schiffer: Hot Times at the Vatican, As Pope’s Climate Change Encyclical Is Leaked to the Media Four Days Early

Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons