Pope Francis and President Obama: Poverty, Pollution, and Climate Chaos
Tomorrow, Pope Francis and President Obama will be meeting in Rome. The White House had stated in January that “The president looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality." If this is the case, then we must fast and pray that the world's dependence on fossil fuels and the resulting pollution are on the list of topics. "Climate change" is not something of the future, it is present now, swamping poor island developing nations and causing droughts and disruptions of weather patterns. The poor are always the hardest and most relentlessly hit by environmental destruction. Fossil fuel industries all create massive water, air, land, and ocean pollution daily, from extraction (drilling, mining, and fracking) through transportation (pipelines, barges, trucks, trains) through processing, through disposal of bi-products and combustion. The pollution, poverty, and public health disasters mul...