Pope Express Worry About Climate Change - AP

[hatrack]

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday he wants to wake up consciences on climate change during his pilgrimage in Australia.

Benedict also told reporters while flying to Sydney to start a 10-day visit that he would work for "healing and reconciliation with the victims" of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy there "just as I did in the United States" earlier this year.

Less than an hour after the pope's flight took off from Rome, Benedict walked back to the section where journalists sat and met with them for about 15 minutes. He called on five journalists to ask questions that had been submitted to the Vatican earlier in the week. One asked about climate change following discussions on the environment during this month's G-8 summit in Japan.

There is a need to "wake up consciences," Benedict responded. "We have to give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life." Benedict said that politicians and experts must be "capable of responding to the great ecological challenge and to be up to the task of this challenge." "We have our responsibilities toward Creation," Benedict said, stressing, however, that he had no intention of weighing in on technical or political questions swirling around climate change.

EDIT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080712/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_pope_5;_ylt=AqJojJ0SEKRqnFPWhY096_BrAlMA

Well, Yer Holiness, maybe you could . . .

Oh, never mind. What's the point?

[cedric]

1. About time he woke up to reality

Especially considering only last year there were headlines that the Pope condemned the climate change prophets of doom.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-501316/The-Pope-condemns-climate-change-prophets-doom.html

Turning round now and saying he wants to wake up consciences. Nice to see his conscience is finally awoken.

[unpossibles]

2. is it wrong of me to wonder why he does not address population/birth control

in regards to environmental issues?

Pope says world's resources being squandered
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080717/ap_on_re_au_an/australia_pope;_ylt=AhmGItmn04xR_NHuxpdXTBGs0NUE

SYDNEY, Australia - The world's natural resources are being squandered in the pursuit of "insatiable consumption," Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday in a speech urging followers to care more for the environment and reconnect with the principle of peace.

Benedict, speaking to more than 200,000 pilgrims gathered for the Roman Catholic church's youth festival, expanded on a theme that has led him to be dubbed "the green pope." The crowd, massed on a disused wharf in Australia's largest city, regularly erupted in cheers that gave the event the feel of a sporting event.

"Some of you come from island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising water levels; others from nations suffering the effects of devastating drought," the pope said, referring to global warming.
(more)



"and don't forget to make LOTS of babies!"

[Nederland]

3. Yes, it is wrong

The data regarding population growth has changed and longer supports the dramatic conclusions drawn by Paul Erlich and others. In fact, I would go as far as to say that one of the biggest problems we will face in the future is underpopulation, not overpopulation, especially in the first world.

[unpossibles]

4. "underpopulation in the first world"

what, pray tell, does that even mean? Are you saying that we do not have finite resources, such as arable land and water, and that there is no causation between resource usage and population? I was not referencing Ehrlich so much as making an observation that our current level of "first world" consumerism cannot be supported by the world's population without some serious problems. Like yeast, if we continue to grow and consume at our present rate, we will experience a massive die off as a species - I don't really care about so-called "first world" or otherwise.

I am not a pessimist either, I just think we need to be more responsible with reproduction and consumption while we can.

[Nederland]

5. Underpopulation in the First World

Means that at current birthrates many countries in the first world are going to suffer massive shortages due to the way their social support structures are set up. Most first world countries count on a continuous stream of taxable income from the younger generation to pay for services needed by the old. As the demographics in the first world shift, many societies are finding that they simply do no have enough people or money to take care of their elderly. The is of particular concern in places like Italy, Poland and Japan which are likely to see there populations cut in half over the next 50 years.

The key error of people like Ehrlich was to view the human population the same way that you did in your post, as some simple organism like yeast. Human beings are not yeast in that there is a massive difference between people in the first world and people in the third world. Unlike yeast in a test tube, human beings across the globe are not subject to identical fates. The brutal truth is that people in the first world can enjoy the highest standard of living in history while people in the third world are starving to death. As a result, the population problem is self correcting: the people that are reproducing at the highest rates are also dying off at the highest rates. It's a sad and unjust arrangement, but true.

Likewise, the consumption of resources in the first world is self correcting. The minute we start consuming something at an unsustainable rate, the price skyrockets and people start consuming less of it. This is precisely what we have seen with oil over the last 5 years. History has shown that problems only occur when governments hide the true market prices of goods (usually in the name of "fairness") and prevent this self correcting mechanism to kick in. If, for example, people had to pay up front for the cost of a good's entire life cycle (creation, use, destruction) we would see a much lower rate of the consumption that concerns you. Instead, far too often the cost of disposal of a good is wrapped up in tax costs that are disconnected from the good itself.