Groups praise Pope’s climate cause

They note that while the millennium goals were developed by then secretary-general Kofi Annan and his staff, the new goals are the result of years of negotiations by all 193 member states, which means they should all have a stake in their achievement. “We’re not the radicals on the fringe, we’re actually increasingly becoming more of a mainstream”.

In the lead up to Laudato si, said Bishop Cantú, U.S. Catholic leaders “held workshops, webinars, and meetings, including outreach to ecumenical, interfaith, and environmental groups”. “I oppose the President’s policies as it relates to climate change because it will destroy the ability to re-industrialize the country, to allow for people to get higher wage jobs, for people to rise up”.

“The key issue for Francis at the United Nations will be climate change, he wants to pressure world leaders to take action”, Christopher Lamb, a Vatican watcher for Catholic weekly The Tablet, said in an interview. According to the Moral Action on Climate website, the pope urges readers to “integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor”.

Pope Francis also called on Thursday on the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to join the fight against climate change. Several other speakers presented as well. Climate change simply can not be solved unless our hearts are engaged. “Many live in poverty and are vulnerable, many of us are being forced to migrate to survive”. His visit has the power to shape the global political dynamic on climate action.

“He is looked to by a large and growing part of humanity for moral and spiritual guidance on how to address many social ills, and his encyclical is being read and studied extensively around the world”, said Sachs, who works with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which advises Francis on economics and the environment.

Even if we take major steps now, concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases will continue to increase for more than a century. He called for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide. For Pope Francis, protecting our skies and seas from the ravages of carbon pollution stands on par with the church’s aims to care for the needy. At least one other is close – cutting in half the proportion of people without access to clean water – and there are still three months until the goals expire.

Victoria Pompei, another Fossil Free organizer, said she believes that the pontiff’s words will make an impact on American politics.

“We can rest content with the bureaucratic exercise of drawing up long lists of good proposals – goals, objectives and statistical indicators – or we can think that a single theoretical and aprioristic solution will provide an answer to all the challenges”, Francis said.

Supporters say there is no choice but to go big in a world of expanding population, growing inequality, dwindling resources and the existential threat from global warming.

The entire framework of Francis’ remarks were about how Congress must play an important role in ensuring the welfare of its citizens, a far cry from the repeated Republican calls for a smaller, less wasteful government.