Pope Francis gives reality check on climate change

(Reuters/Tony Gentile)A photo of Pope Francis.

Pope Francis condemned the denial of global warming and warned that "the ecological crisis is real" in an open letter that was read aloud at a conference of grassroots political movements on inequality in Northern California on Friday. He called on the faithful "to defend our Sister Mother Earth."

"A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system," he said, adding that humanity is well aware what happens when it denies science and disregard the voice of nature.

"I make my own everything that concerns us as Catholics. Let us not fall into denial. Time is running out. Let us act. I ask you again — all of you, people of all backgrounds including native people, pastors, political leaders — to defend Creation," he added.

Pope Francis has proven to be the biggest environmental advocate among all the pontiffs and even declared that global warming is a serious sin against creation that Christians should resist. He particularly pointed to the contamination of the earth's waters, land, air and life as the cause for the ecosystem's destruction.

On June 2015, the Bishop of Rome issued groundbreaking encyclical letter on climate change which played a key role in the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference on November that year.

One of the most important points of the said document is the fact that climate change is real and that it is getting worse. Furrthermore, man is the cause for climate change; rich countries are destroying poor ones; climate change unevenly impacts the poor; and technocratic domination exploits the poor and destroys nature. It also higlights the lack of action from the international community.

The pope stressed in his letter that Christians confuse having dominion over the earth with world domination. Population control is not the answer to the problem of poverty, he wrote, adding that politicians have the duty to take the lead in making things better, and that there is still hope.

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