There’s a Cardinal in Myanmar called Cardinal Bo who talks about “ecological terrorism”. By that he means the wilful destruction of the environment by big business. He talks about “economic terrorists” and “ecological terrorists.” Quoting Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, Cardinal Bo says the Pope presents the world’s current crisis as an integral ecological one.
“We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental,” wrote the pope in the section quoted by Bo. “Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, at the same time protecting nature.”
Bo’s remarks came as he was delivering the keynote speech to a conference of religious women of Asia and Oceania taking place in his diocese, Yangon. They were centered on the theme of the gathering, “Call for a Global Ecological Conversion.”
“Can this gathering be set on fire with a ferocious longing for justice?” Bo told the participants in a speech delivered on February 27. “Can we hear the cry of the earth at this very moment groaning with carbon suffocation, can we hear the cry of the 1,800 poor children buried every hour because they have no food? Let our ears be open, let our eyes be open.”
During his address, Bo also called for a “Green Theology of Liberation” and spared no words against Americans, saying that despite accounting for only six percent of the world’s population, they produce 40 percent of Green-house gases. (According to Wikipedia, the U.S. represents 4.4 of the world’s total population, and according to World Resources Institute, by 2010 the country produced 15.6 of the world’s green-house gases.)
“They have blasted the ozone zone, they have created global warming,” he said. “And when the world is warm, they switch their air conditioners and sleep. Who’s dying? The poor are dying.”
According to Bo, the world is today faced with an “environmental holocaust.”
“It is a very delicate moment. Pope Francis raised his voice against this impending disaster talking about modern sins, ‘ecological sins’ made individually and collectively by humans who destroy Mother Earth,” Bo said. Again quoting Francis, the cardinal said that humanity is destroying biological diversity by causing damage to its climate.
“To contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins,” Bo said. “Yes this is the age of modern computers, this is the age of modern smartphones, this is the age of modern sins – yes ecological sins. Individually and collectively human beings have chosen to destroy the mother earth. They are polluting the very womb that bore them. Modern day greed has unleashed an ecological terrorism against mother earth.”
Climate change is real, Bo said, and the earth is boiling, with some parts of the world “already roasted,” with many islands of Oceania at risk of disappearing if the world’s temperature increases by another four degrees.
This is ecological terrorism, he insisted: “The powerful of this world are deciding who should live and who should die. Is it for this Christ died on the cross?”
Joe, would you consider over population to play any role in this ecological crisis?
Is there a correlation do you think between the number of people in the world, since people are the consumers that drive industry, and the rate at which we are consuming natural resources?
Is it fair to lay all of the blame at big business?
Perhaps…
Would a renewable energy industry business, a big one, developing renewable energy sources, reducing the fossil fuels needed to power the modern world be responsible for ecological damage or would they be helping redress the problems caused by a growing human population?
Can the earth sustain a human population of such increasing numbers?
Yet the Catholic church opposes contraception and birth control. Why?
Is this purely to increase its numbers for financial gain as there is a correlation between parishners and parish donations and revenue.
In fact you could say that the Catholic church was itself big business and helping to drive this ecological terror through its efforts to drive this over population.
The more people, the more industry is needed.
The more people, the more homes, the more furniture, the more forests are cut down to feed the market demand.
The more people, the more cars, the more exhaust pollution, the more damage to the ozone, the greater the climate changes.
The more people, the more food needed, the more fertilization of land, more damage to the ozone, more over heating.
The more people, the more demand for mining, for development of land, for the ravaging of natural resources, the more litter, the more waste.
The more people, the more energy consumed, the more nuclear generators, the more dangerous substances released into the oceans.
The more people, the bigger businesses get including the Church which is one of the biggest businesses on the planet, and yes, it will result in catastrophic ecological damage.
Which is why Ireland investing in renewable energy and selling it to the rest of the world is such an important thing to me.
Some info on big business you might be interested in though:
“how much money does the Catholic Church have? No one outside the Vatican really knows, precisely. But it almost certainly has wealth that would rival that of many national governments. Last year, The Economist calculated that the Catholic church in America alone had a $170 billion annual operating budget. Globally, the figure is much larger.”
“Is the Catholic church using its wealth in the best way possible?”
“The Economist’s estimates found only about $5 billion in annual charity spending out of that $170 billion total— less than 3%. Even if the actual charitable spending were triple that amount, it would still mean that the American Catholic church spends less than 10% of its budget on direct good works.”
http://gawker.com/liquidate-the-catholic-church-1460133203