News Max reports that even though a growing body of evidence indicates that climate change is not occurring, Rome’s controversial pope is calling for urgent action on alleged global warming to be taken:
A draft copy of Pope Francis’ eagerly awaited encyclical on the environment calls for urgent action to protect the Earth and fight global warming, which the pope says is “mostly” due to human activity and the burning of fossil fuels.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Italian document that was leaked to the Italian newsweekly L’Espresso and published on its website Monday was not the final version and that the official encyclical would still be released as scheduled on Thursday.
The L’Espresso draft, which was published in galley form, makes many of the same points that Francis and his advisers have been making in the months-long rollout of the document.
In the draft, Francis lays out both the scientific and the moral reasons for protecting God’s creation, noting that the poor are already suffering the most from air pollution and toxic dumping and will continue to bear the brunt of rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions. The draft says population growth isn’t to blame for ecological problems but rather the consumerist, wasteful behavior of the rich.