Pope Francis has been clear and consistent in his pronouncements
From an Article by Vincent Barone, New York Post, April 8, 2020
Pope Francis likened the coronavirus pandemic to recent fires and floods as one of “nature’s responses” to the world’s ambivalence to climate change.
“There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives,‘” the pope said in an interview published Wednesday in The Tablet, a United Kingdom-based Catholic weekly.
The pope, 83, was responding to whether he believed coronavirus could spur ecological conversion, the idea for people to lead more environmentally conscious lives through the understanding that the natural world is a creation of God.
Pope Francis said the world had yet to respond to recent “partial catastrophes” related to the climate.
“Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted?” he asked.
“Who speaks now of the floods? I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses.”
The pope went on to say he believed the COVID-19 outbreak that has ravaged the globe could inspire change. “This is the time to take the decisive step, to move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it,” he said.
With more than 1.5 million coronavirus cases reported across the world, the pope said the virus has shined a “spotlight on hypocrisy” as large outbreaks continue in the United States and parts of Europe.
“This crisis is affecting us all, rich and poor alike, and putting a spotlight on hypocrisy,” he said.
“I am worried by the hypocrisy of certain political personalities who speak of facing up to the crisis, of the problem of hunger in the world, but who in the meantime manufacture weapons.”
The Vatican shuttered Saint Peter’s Square and Basilica to the public as the virus proliferated through Italy in early March.
The pope said members of the Vatican administration were still working while practicing social distancing. “The Curia is trying to carry on its work and to live normally, organizing in shifts so that not everyone is present at the same time,” he said. “It’s been well thought out. We are sticking to the measures ordered by the health authorities.”
The pope said he wanted a response from world leaders that focuses more on humans and the environment than the economy. “I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world,” he said. “We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion.”
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See also: Abrupt Ecosystem Collapse. A new study in Nature (April 2020) casts a disturbing light on the prospects of abrupt ecosystem collapse. The report analyzes the probabilities of collapsing ecosystems en masse, and not simply the loss of individual species. (Source: Trisos, C.H. et al, The Projected Timing of Abrupt Ecological Disruption From Climate Change, Nature, April 8, 2020) The paper states that a high percentage of species will be exposed to harmful climate conditions at about the same time, potentially leading to sudden and catastrophic die-offs of biodiversity.
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Climate Change Multiplies the Threats of Infectious Diseases
From Daniel Ross, Truthout, April 19, 2020
As the novel coronavirus continues to rage like a wildfire across the planet, its devastating toll has left many asking whether climate change — another multifaceted phenomenon with global reach — has played a part in spreading, even triggering, the pandemic. Some, like Katharine Hayhoe, a climate change scientist and professor of public policy at Texas Tech University, have been able to provide answers.
“Climate change didn’t cause the pandemic, and climate change directly causes very few of them,” Hayhoe told Truthout. “But what climate change does is it interacts with, and in many cases has the potential to exacerbate the impacts.”
For those well-versed in the mechanics of climate change, this comes as no surprise — scientists, policy makers and other experts have long acknowledged the links between global warming and the spread of infectious diseases, promulgating the sorts of findings described in the wide-ranging 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, detailing what efforts are needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-multiplies-the-threats-of-infectious-diseases/
Pope Says Humans Have ‘Sinned’ Against Planet in Earth Day Message
From Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch.com, April 23, 2020
“We have sinned against the earth,” Pope Francis said in a forceful Earth Day message Wednesday that reinforced the religious leader’s commitment to environmental action.
Francis delivered the remarks during his general audience, which he broadcast from his library because of lockdown measures put in place to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, as Reuters reported. The speech in honor of Earth Day’s 50th anniversary comes around two weeks after the pope suggested in an interview that the pandemic might be part of nature’s response to the climate crisis.
In his remarks Wednesday, Francis warned that harming the earth put human life at risk.
“There is a Spanish saying that is very clear about this,” he said. “It goes: ‘God always forgives; we humans sometimes forgive, and sometimes not; the earth never forgives.’ The earth does not forgive: if we have despoiled the earth, its response will be very ugly.”
First, he praised local and international environmental movements and highlighted youth-led climate strikes. But the pope’s message was not only a warning. He also proposed solutions.”[S]till it will be necessary for our children to take to the streets to teach us the obvious: we have no future if we destroy the very environment that sustains us,” he said.
He also held up the knowledge of indigenous communities as an example of an alternative way of interacting with the planet.
“They teach us that we cannot heal the earth unless we love and respect it,” he said. “They have the wisdom of ‘living well,’ not in the sense of having a good time, no, but of living in harmony with the earth. They call this harmony ‘living well.’”
He concluded with a call to action both for world leaders and ordinary citizens. He urged leaders to prepare for two major upcoming international conferences: COP15 on Biodiversity in Kunming, China and COP26 on Climate Change in Glasgow, United Kingdom, which has been delayed because of the coronavirus.
For everyone else, he encouraged joining the environmental movement.
“It will help if people at all levels of society come together to create a popular movement ‘from below,’” he said. “The Earth Day we are celebrating today was itself born in precisely this way. We can each contribute in our own small way.”
Francis’ Earth Day remarks build on his efforts to use his office to promote a theology that honors the earth. They come five years after he published a landmark encyclical on climate change called “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” which gave the official Catholic Church seal of approval to the pope’s environmental concerns.
Since then, he has urged oil executives to lead the clean energy transition and spoken out for indigenous people threatened by the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. He also has suggested he would add a definition of “ecological sins” to the Roman Catholic Catechism, Reuters reported.
In his Earth Day message, the pope revisited key themes from his encyclical of caring for the earth and the most vulnerable.
“Today we celebrate the fiftieth Earth Day,” he began. “This is an occasion for renewing our commitment to love and care for our common home and for the weaker members of our human family. As the tragic coronavirus pandemic has taught us, we can overcome global challenges only by showing solidarity with one another and embracing the most vulnerable in our midst.”
Francis wasn’t the only climate leader to offer an Earth Day call to action in the time of coronavirus.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said the response to the virus that causes COVID-19 showed what could happen when world leaders listened to scientists.
“Whether we like it or not, the world has changed,” she said in a digital conversation Wednesday with Potsdam Institute Director Johan Rockström, as The Guardian reported. “It looks completely different now from how it did a few months ago. It may never look the same again. We have to choose a new way forward.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, meanwhile, used the occasion to endorse a green recovery from the economic toll exacted by the pandemic.
“On this Earth Day, please join me in demanding a healthy and resilient future for people and planet alike,” he said.
https://www.ecowatch.com/pope-francis-earth-day-speech-2645811438.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
Dalai Lama: We Need Compassion to Fight Coronavirus | TIME, April 15, 2020
His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks about the coronavirus:
Sometimes friends ask me to help with some problem in the world, using some “magical powers.” I always tell them that the Dalai Lama has no magical powers. If I did, I would not feel pain in my legs or a sore throat. We are all the same as human beings, and we experience the same fears, the same hopes, the same uncertainties.
From the Buddhist perspective, every sentient being is acquainted with suffering and the truths of sickness, old age and death. But as human beings, we have the capacity to use our minds to conquer anger and panic and greed. In recent years I have been stressing “emotional disarmament”: to try to see things realistically and clearly, without the confusion of fear or rage. If a problem has a solution, we must work to find it; if it does not, we need not waste time thinking about it.
We Buddhists believe that the entire world is interdependent. That is why I often speak about universal responsibility. The outbreak of this terrible coronavirus has shown that what happens to one person can soon affect every other being. But it also reminds us that a compassionate or constructive act—whether working in hospitals or just observing social distancing—has the potential to help many.
Ever since news emerged about the coronavirus in Wuhan, I have been praying for my brothers and sisters in China and everywhere else. Now we can see that nobody is immune to this virus. We are all worried about loved ones and the future, of both the global economy and our own individual homes. But prayer is not enough.
This crisis shows that we must all take responsibility where we can. We must combine the courage doctors and nurses are showing with empirical science to begin to turn this situation around and protect our future from more such threats.
In this time of great fear, it is important that we think of the long-term challenges—and possibilities—of the entire globe. Photographs of our world from space clearly show that there are no real boundaries on our blue planet. Therefore, all of us must take care of it and work to prevent climate change and other destructive forces. This pandemic serves as a warning that only by coming together with a coordinated, global response will we meet the unprecedented magnitude of the challenges we face.
We must also remember that nobody is free of suffering, and extend our hands to others who lack homes, resources or family to protect them. This crisis shows us that we are not separate from one another—even when we are living apart. Therefore, we all have a responsibility to exercise compassion and help.
As a Buddhist, I believe in the principle of impermanence. Eventually, this virus will pass, as I have seen wars and other terrible threats pass in my lifetime, and we will have the opportunity to rebuild our global community as we have done many times before. I sincerely hope that everyone can stay safe and stay calm. At this time of uncertainty, it is important that we do not lose hope and confidence in the constructive efforts so many are making.
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama