Pope about Climate Change 2021-04-08

Watch the Pope’s video on Saving the Planet here:

 https://youtu.be/5aeEJotxI-U

His Holiness Pope Francis

Our moral imperative to act on climate change

Take action on climate change at http://countdown.ted.com​.

The global climate crisis will require us to transform the way we act, says His Holiness Pope Francis. Delivering a visionary TED Talk from Vatican City, the spiritual leader proposes three courses of action to address the world's growing environmental problems and economic inequalities, illustrating how all of us can work together, across faiths and societies, to protect the Earth and promote the dignity of everyone. "The future is built today," he says. "And it is not built in isolation, but rather in community and in harmony." (English voiceover by Bruno Giussani. Watch this talk in Italian at go.ted.com/papafrancesco and Spanish at go.ted.com/papafrancisco)

This talk was part of the Countdown Global Launch on 10.10.2020. (Watch the full event: https://youtu.be/5dVcn8NjbwY​.) Countdown is TED's global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. The goal: to build a better future by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, in the race to a zero-carbon world. Get involved at https://countdown.ted.com/sign-up

Speech by the Pope.

00:09    Opening Applause for the Pope

00:16    Hello (bongiorrno) We are living in an historic moment marked by difficult challenges as  we all know,

00:28    One is shaken by the crises of the daily pandemic which highlights yet a bigger challenge- the environmental crisis. This fires us, all of us, to face a choice. The choice between what matters and what doesn’t.

00:58    The choice between continuing to ignore the suffering of the poorest and to abuse our common home – the planet – or changing at every level the way we act.

Science tells us every day with more precision that urgent action is needed.  And I am not dramatising here – this is what science says. If we are to keep the hope of avoiding radical and catastrophic climate change. And for this – we must act now.

01:41    This is a scientific fact.  Our conscious tells us that we cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of those in need through the growing inequalities and social injustices.

01:58    And the economy itself cannot be limited to production and distribution -  it must also consider it’s impacts on both the environment and of the dignity of people.  we could say that the economy should be creative in itself and in it’s methods in the way it acts – creativity (creatively?).

02:43    I would like to invite you to go on a journey together – a journey of transformation and action. Made not so much of words but concrete and pressing actions. I am calling it a journey because it requires a shift, a change.

From this crisis, none of us must come out the same.

03:04    We cannot come out the same of a crisis – we never come out the same.

It will take time and hard work to recover from it. We will have to take it one step at a time and persuade those in doubt and imagine new solutions and commit to carry them out.

03:27    And what is clear to build (we think we have decades) we can meet the needs of the present generations, including everyone,   without compromising the possibilities of future generations.

03:51    I would like to invite all people of faith (Christian or not) and all people of good will to embark on this journey from your own faith – or if you do not have a faith – from your own intention – from your own good will..

04:14    Each one of us as individuals or members of a group, families, communities of faith, businesses, associations, institutions can make a substantial contribution.

04:31    Five years ago, I wrote the encyclical letter Laudato Si' dedicated to the care of our common home.

04:45    It proposes the concept of integral ecology to respond together to the cry of the earth as well as to the cry of the poor.

04:58    Integral ecology is an invitation to an integral vision on life starting from the conviction that everything in the world is connected and that as the pandemic is making sure to remind us, we are interdependent on each other as well as on our mother earth.

05:11    From such a vision stands the need to find new ways of defining progress and measuring it without limiting ourselves to the economic technological financial and gross product aspects but rather giving relevance ethical social and educational dimensions.

05:47    I would like to propose today three courses of action. … In the change and right orientation for our journey into integral ecology require first we all take on educational step

06:14    So my first suggestion is to promote a care level, an education geared towards the care of our common home developing the understanding that environment problems are linked to human needs. We must understand this from the beginning – environmental problems are tied to human needs.

06:38    An education based on scientific data and on an ethical approach.

06:51    It is important – both of them. We are encouraged that many young people already show a new ecological and social awareness

07:06    And many of them fight generously for the environment and for justice.

07:09    And the second proposal we must focus on water and nutrition. Access to safe and drinkable water is an essential and universal human right.

07:32    It is essential because it dermines survival of the all (?) and is a condition of other rights and responsibilities. Providing adequate nutrition for all through non-destructive farming methods should become the entire focus of food production and distribution.

08:06    The third suggestion is about energy transition. A gradual replacements but without delay of fossil fuels with clean energy sources

(08:26   In only a few years, scientists estimate approximately less than 30 – just a few years - less than 30 to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

08:44    Not only must this transition be quick and capable of meeting present and future energy needs.

It must also be attentive to the impact on the poor and local operations as well as those working the energy production sectors.

09:04    One way to encourage this change is to lead businesses towards the urgent need to commit to themselves to the integral care of our common home, excluding from investments those companies that do not meet the parameters of integral ecology while rewarding those that work concretely during this transitional phase to put sustainability and social justice and the promotion of the common good at the centre of their activities.

09:47    Many organisations, Catholic and other faiths, have already taken on the responsibility to act in a new direction.

09:55    In fact, the Earth must be worked and nursed, cultivated and protected.

We cannot continue to squeeze it like an orange. We can say that this, taking care of the Earth, is a human right.

10:23    These three proposals must be considered as part of a larger group of actions that we must carry out in an intergrated way to find a lasting solution too these problems.

10:38    The current economic system is unsustainable. We are faced with the moral imperative and the practical urgency to rethink many things. The way we produce, the way we consume, our culture of waste, our short term vision, the exploitation of the poor, and our indifference towards them, the growing inequalities and our dependence on harmful energy sources.

11:14    We need to think about all discharges. An integral ecologiy suggests a new conception of the relationship between us humans and nature.

11:24    This leads to a new economy where the production of wealth is directed to the integral well being of the human being and to the improvement – not the destruction of our common home.

12:03    It also implies a renewed politics conceived as one of the highest forms of charity.

Yes.  Love is interpersonal. But love is also political.

It involves all peoples and it involves nature.

12:18    I invite therefore all of you to embark on this journey that is proposed in Laudato Si' and also my new encyclical Fratelli Tutti.

As the term Countdown suggests, we must act with urgency.

Each one of us can play a precious role.

We should all begin our journey today. Not tomorrow.  TODAY. Because the future is today. And it is not built in isolation but rather in community and in harmony.

Thank you.