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 multiply at each step of the process.

These are problems of faith and national policy that need to be addressed.  Not tomorrow. NOW. Because people are suffering NOW. Fossil fuels end up at every stage multiplying pollution and poverty. And we're all going to suffer more and more as the planet becomes less hospitable.

Even back in the 1990s, Blessed John Paul II was calling the world to stop greenhouse gases and deal with climate change and all the other environmental crises. We have waited too long to act. It reminds me of something he said in 1993:

         The future starts today, not tomorrow...
         
         The human family is at a crossroads in its relationship to the natural environment. Not only is it necessary to increase efforts to educate the world's people in a keen awareness of solidarity and interdependence, it is also necessary to insist on their understanding of the interdependence of the various ecosystems and on the importance of the balance of these systems for human survival and well-being.

Let us fast and pray today, that the pope and president talk seriously about fossil fuels, pollution, poverty, and climate chaos tomorrow.  And let us all get to work on the shift to a better, healthier world from this moment forward.

         Humanity and the world are at stake and they are endangered as never before. As I said before: Protect the world, this beautiful endangered world.
                                   Blessed John Paul II,  June 26, 1988