Pope Francis Scolds Americans as 'Irresponsible,' Demands Change to the 'Western Model'
Pope Francis had harsh words for Americans in a new document calling for action to address what he called a “climate crisis” in which “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”
The pope released “Laudate Deum,” which is Latin for “Praise God,” on Wednesday on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, whose name he assumed when he became the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
The document says that efforts to combat climate change have moved too slowly, and that some parts of the world are more guilty than others.
“If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” Francis wrote.
“Every little bit helps, and avoiding an increase of a tenth of a degree in the global temperature would already suffice to alleviate some suffering for many people.”
Saying that “it is no longer possible to doubt the human … origin of climate change,” the pope said skeptics have “dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions.”
Francis wrote that “the necessary transition towards clean energy sources such as wind and solar energy, and the abandonment of fossil fuels, is not progressing at the necessary speed.”
“We must move beyond the mentality of appearing to be concerned but not having the courage needed to produce substantial changes,” he said.
The pope downplayed the economic cost of this “transition” and insisted that it will be “all the more burdensome the longer we wait.”
“What is happening is that millions of people are losing their jobs due to different effects of climate change: rising sea levels, droughts and other phenomena affecting the planet have left many people adrift,” he wrote.
“Conversely, the transition to renewable forms of energy, properly managed, as well as efforts to adapt to the damage caused by climate change, are capable of generating countless jobs in different sectors.
“This demands that politicians and business leaders should even now be concerning themselves with it.”
Along the way, Francis voiced a concern about artificial intelligence.
“Artificial intelligence and the latest technological innovations start with the notion of a human being with no limits, whose abilities and possibilities can be infinitely expanded thanks to technology.
“In this way, the technocratic paradigm monstrously feeds upon itself,” he wrote.
The pope also issued a call for solutions from a globalist perspective.
“Our world has become so multipolar and at the same time so complex that a different framework for effective cooperation is required,” he wrote.
“It is not enough to think only of balances of power but also of the need to provide a response to new problems and to react with global mechanisms to the environmental, public health, cultural and social challenges,” he said, calling for the establishment of “global and effective rules.”
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
