Sunday, July 05, 2015

I am not going to editorialize the Pope.

I attempt to bring insight and impact to his words. He is a scholar. That is easy to understand. His depth of the subject he addresses leave no stone unturned. He is amazing. 

His message is universal. It is amazingly easy to apply his writing to modern definition. I still marvel at the ease with which I can find facts to validate his writings. There is a truth with him. It is a universal truth. It is chilling to realize the depth of his knowledge.

A couple of things. He spoke to the disparity in quality of life and population growth. I thought that was very bold of him. Normally, in the past the Roman Catholic Church was hands off when it comes to population growth, so much so, they have the largest contingency of faithful in the world. A full one fifth of the world's population is Roman Catholic. 

50. Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of “reproductive health”. Yet “while it is true that an unequal distribution of the population and of available resources creates obstacles to development and a sustainable use of the environment, it must nonetheless be recognized that demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development”.[28] To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.

Pope Francis clearly makes the declination of population growth as a reason for the climate crisis. He points instead to consumerism and the direct impact it has on Earth's climate. It is time for the First World to realize it is not farts of methane that cause the 400 Plus ppm of CO2 that is emitted in large measure by burning fossil fuels.

To get more biblical and the basis of the political right wing hubris in the USA, they feel entitled to use Earth as they see fit.

From the American Standard Version:

Genesis 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

The Republicans take that literally and see their power as a righteous place among all that is holy. That hubris has nothing to do with god or Earth, it has to do with Wall Street profits. Republicans are not stewards, they are the grim reaper of Earth.

Then there is the idea it is okay to lose all kinds of species because generations will pass and it will all be forgotten. That is arrogance talking. The trend of most generations is to measure their own reality with the past. The political right wing does it chronically, both in social situations and a return to the original US Constitution with only ten amendments. One has to ask, why amendments at all which takes away their most cherished First and Second Amendments. My, my what would they do then?

But, generations to come will keep score and history will not paint a great and benevolent country or society, but, one of indulgence, wealth and exploitation.

Think about it. 

I could go on for quite a while about water. Let me just say this. Any move to make water resources a focus of the oceans has to be temporary. There has to be an aggressive return to Earth's balance. I'm not joking. Don't ever see desalination plants as the answer, so much as a bridge to return the gaseous layer of Earth back to it's original condition.

Oceans are where fish live. If salt water was for drinking it wouldn't be salty.