Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality
On Care for Our Common Home
1 of 1 copy available
In the Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, the beloved Pope exhorts the world to combat environmental degradation and its impact on the poor. In a stirring, clarion call that is not merely aimed at Catholic readers but rather at a wide, lay audience, the Pope cites the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change, and does not hesitate to detail how it is the result of a historic level of unequal distribution of wealth.
It is, in short, as the New York Times labeled it, “An urgent call to action . . . intended to persuade followers around the world to change their behavior, in hopes of protecting a fragile planet.”
With an insightful and informative introduction by Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes, famed for her bestselling Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 4, 2015 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781612195292
- File size: 1882 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781612195292
- File size: 1882 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from October 15, 2015
"We human beings...need to change"--this blunt requirement typifies Pope Francis's astonishing encyclical on climate change. He effectively reframes global warming from an abstract, technical issue into a moral one, and gives the problem a new urgency--just in time for his U.S. visit this past September and the upcoming world climate summit in Paris. It's a short work, but the subject matter ranges widely to include a host of human-bred ills, e.g., degradation of the oceans, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, poverty, urban squalor, and rampant consumerism. There are some surprises: the problem of overpopulation receives relatively small attention, for instance, while our inner malaise, which the Pope calls "mental pollution," gets extra emphasis; the creed that unregulated markets provide the best solution to economic inequality is criticized, as are our Western individualistic attitudes. The encyclical "circles" around the idea of the interrelatedness of things--i.e., we harm nature, we harm ourselves (and especially the poor); the idea is implicit in Francis's proposal for adoption of an "integral ecology," one that encompasses environmental, social, and economic strands. VERDICT Straight talk on climate change from one of the world's most popular people may provide the necessary nudge to policymakers (and the rest of us). For this, the work deserves an enthusiastic imprimatur.--Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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