Pope Francis calls out fossil fuel companies, says climate action is too slow
Pope Francis made his strongest statements yet about climate change Wednesday, rebuking fossil fuel companies and urging countries to make an immediate transition to renewable energy.
In a new document titled “Laudate Deum,” or “Praise God,” the pope criticizes oil and gas companies for greenwashing new fossil fuel projects and calls for more ambitious efforts in the West to tackle the climate crisis. In the landmark apostolic exhortation, a form of papal writing, Francis says that “avoiding an increase of a tenth of a degree in the global temperature would already suffice to alleviate some suffering for many people.”
“Laudate Deum” is a follow-up to the pope’s 2015 encyclical on climate change, known as “Laudato Si’,” which lamented the exploitation of the planet and cast the protection of the environment as a moral imperative. When it was released, “Laudato Si’” was viewed as an extraordinary move by the head of the Catholic Church to address global warming and its consequences.
Nearly a decade later, the pope’s message has taken on new urgency.
Imagine being called too slow to accept new ideas by the fucking pope
For papal standards, Francis is quite progressive.
I mean he picked Francis as his name for a reason, and compared to all the last ones who declared themselves strong leaders of God's might I will take someone that cares about plants and animals
Yes, he was even recognizing sexual abuse within church. Didn't do jack shit to prevent it, just recognized it. Give them another 600 years and thousands of ruined lives. They'll self-correct by then.
based pope
When the Catholic Church stops covering up the rampant sexual abuse and money grubbing cash grab scam operations then maybe I'll give two flying shits about what the Pope has to say.
People tend to overlook the fact that the words of someone with this level of influence are vitally important and can have enormous effects on the world.
Whether you in particular care about a famous/rich person's comments or not, there are millions that do--and that is important. Important enough that even without respecting that person, we should always take what they say and do very seriously.
You bring up a valid point so I won't debate. I still despise the institution that he represents and hope it all burns to the ground though.
Samesies
I really enjoyed this comment chain. Fuck organised religions, and this one in particular.
And for a musical coup de grace
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
And for a musical coup de grace
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I don't know why, but my mind went to this before watching your video.
It's from the Netflix show Sex Education, in case anyone wants to watch all of it. They just dropped the final season.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
this
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Thanks for that, cheered me up at half 5 in the morning when I felt like garbage.
We can hate the institution and still accept their help preventing the world from dying.
Enemy of my enemy, and climate crisis is everyones enemy. I would accept mafia support too, at this point.
It’s fine you don’t care, but there’s something like 1.4 billion Catholics that probably do.
News about what the head of the Catholic church does is as important as news about what the head of USA, China or Russia does. It's hugely influencial even when it comes to lives of non-catholics, non-americans, non-chinese... because of the massive number of people that belong to the religion or state and the power that religion or state has. It's a good thing the pope talks against fossil fuel companies, because his influence is big.
Can you name a few things that a pope has influenced politically in the last, say, three decades?
Because I call complete bullshit on this. Catholicism is big in its own domain (oversized Jesus-based pyramid schemes) but is irrelevant to the vast majority of the world, especially those countries which don't recognise it as the official state religion which is pretty much all of them.
The Popes of recent history have done nothing of note except hide pedophilia, hoard the earnings of the poor, and resign.
It may not be THE vast majority of the world. 🌍🌏
But having Catholicism as the main religion in ALL of Latin America is pretty relevant. (And i know because i'm chilean 🇨🇱).
Ok, but the question is what has the pope(s) influenced positively over the last 3 decades? Main religion in Latin America is a respectable feat but it is not necessarily a positive influence nor has that been established in the last 3 decades.
Yeah, SA is certainly an exception in that regard, but one that makes the rule
The pope influences opinions of millions of catholic voters.
Distributed across many countries, limiting the impact of their vote outside of countries that are state- or majority -catholic.
There are lots of countries with significant catholic population or even majority.
There are significantly more that don't.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. If you were to ask me, "are there a lot of Catholics in the world?” my answer would be: yes. Because there are. About 15% of the population of the planet is technically* Catholic. That's a lot of the population of the earth comparative to almost anything that isn't a birth-given attribute.
However, in the biggest countries in the world, and for the majority of countries in the world, they are not a majority. Even less so for countries that play a significant part on the world stage in a political way.
I'm happy to ask the same question again as I'm awaiting an answer and, as a scientist, I will change my view in line with the evidence that is presented: in the last 30 years, outside of Vatican City, and in states where Catholicism is not the state or most widely recognized religion or denomination, what meaningful and significant political decisions or stances has the pope influenced?
* The methodology of this is questionable but I'm happy to take it on face value for the purposes of this discussion.
E: it's easier to accuse someone of trying to impersonate you than it is to actually win an argument, see below for a demo.
E2: Oh so they always resort to childish ad hominems, how embarrassing for them! https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=3261234
Is Latin America not important enough? How about Poland or Italy? There are even 20% of catholics in the USA. According to Wiki, there is 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide - that's important enough to me. Do you really think major religions play no role on the political stage?
15% of the world's population is ~1.3b people. You don't need to quote the same stats back at me.
Where did I say anything about SA not being important? Equally, why fixate on SA if the pope has influenced so much politically in the rest of the world?
Also we're talking about Catholicism and the Pope, not other major religions. Stop moving the goalposts.
I'm still waiting for the answer to my question.
You say as they address your issue and name several Catholic majority countries where the opinions of the pope sway politics far more than you're accepting.
You're the one moving goalposts on them lol
Evidenced examples of that sway?
I'm still waiting.
Ok, abortion ban in Poland. Also the fight against lgbt in Poland - which is one reason why this news is really interesting. It can cause a divide among catholics, which can be desirable.
Politicians fight dirty over smaller voting demographics, Im pretty sure its a big enough percent to make a difference
E: the user I responded to attempted to impersonate me after losing this argument.
"pretty sure" is a very weak stance, especially with the continuing absence of evidence to support this conjecture
Oh, my bad, I was trying to be polite. Ill rephrase.
You are wrong. The professional demographics manipulators know better than you do. Which is why you are asking a question you know cannot be answered in the way you posed it without a 5 year study on catholic peoples opinions on a broad range of topics before and after a public vatican statement involving those topics.
The people whose jobs rely on the ability to read and understand demographics attribute weight to smaller demographics, and apply even greater weight to the catholic population. You are just openly incorrect.
The cuban vote is considered a huge swing population. Thats at 2.4 million cuban descent americans. Catholic americans top off just under 62 million. I am pretty damn sure that 18% of americans is a very relevant percent of americans. And, more importantly, every single career politician is pretty damn sure too, and this is the one topic you can be confident that a politician actually knows what they are talking about.
Do you think being snarky and running a gish gallop of nonsense assertions is useful? I thought politeness was a virtue but you've explicitly dropped yours so willingly. How revealing.
I am not wrong. I've laid my case, and you've laid a bunch of self imposed obstacles in your path to avoid answering the question. You've been disappointing but unsurprising, which I expect is rather thematic of your life given you'd rather be edgy than provide evidence to back your claims. Very sad.
I can always trust the religious to lose their cool before they back their own claims; an area of true consistency where no other lies.
E: the user I am talking with here attempted to impersonate me, and got banned.
Politeness is a courtesy, not a virtue, and one you made clear you werent interested in returning.
You havent laid a case, you posed a question you know cant be answered. "Show me proof of the popes words changing catholic opinion in 3 decades" is nebulous nonsense and you know that. Its why you asked it. You would need a depth of polling data to """prove""" that statement, which is often not public if anyone has even done that polling.
Now, you know fallacies as well as virtues, since I provided a single arguement. The professionals who know better than you know this demographic matters. I guess backing that up with the size of the demographic confused you? But the point stands firm, which is why youre blindly guessing Im religious (Im not, poor luck) instead of addressing it.
If youre really in a STEM field like you claim, you must not be great at your job. Most science professions require a better reading comprehension level than this.
Many times the victims of priest sexual abuse have approached the Vatican for a meeting and blessing from the pope. Every time the pope has turned them away and refused to even acknowledge their existence, or their plight. His lawyers tell him it's not a good idea. And of course the representative of god, flanked by lawyers and bankers, listens to his lawyers over god.
He also likes to threaten them with legal action.
Can't upset the oil companies, where do you think that lube they use for altar boys comes from? A cloud in the sky?
I love how you have good 25% down-votes as if there are people who cheer for more abuse. There's no way they think it's just a made up story for the 60000th time.
That's not why they're down-voting.
If only the church had billions of dollars to fight the evils of the world like hunger, homelessness, and pedos just to name a few.
Or you had the power to publicly shame Catholic leaders and say "you can't get into heaven until you stop sucking so bad"
it's a case that even a broken clock ticks the right time now and then
Oil companies will default to doing anything that makes them money. Governments need to make climate forcing cost them more than their revenue.
Exactly. US oil companies won't voluntarily "go green" unless it is more profitable to do so.
I was a production engineer at a US oil company for 5 years and each week I was instructed to calculate what the maximum amount of natural gas each well was allowed to flare while staying exactly below the legal limit. This is natural gas which cannot be sold so it is burned on-site which produces less greenhouse gases than just releasing it to the atmosphere.
Essentially, I was helping them pollute the maximum legal amount in order to maximize profit from the oil production. The gas pipelines hadn't been built yet but the oil company didn't want to wait for that since the oil is more valuable. This was A LOT of gas being burned. The fire balls were enormous and roared, sounding like a helicopter or jet engine at times.
Everything in the company worked this way. Old wells didn't get plugged and cleaned up until the local state government threatened fines. Leaks and spills were only monitored as closely as they were because the state had inspectors going around issuing hefty fines.
Yeah, this is the truth that people are too emotional to accept. I do air permitting and also spend every day calculating the "maximum allowable pollution" a site can produce while keeping it within applicable regulatory limits. Even if the CEO was like "alright, time to go green!" and devotes 100% of the profits to operating "green", they'll just get sued by the shareholders and be bankrupt or go to jail. Even if there are no shareholders, their operating costs will skyrocket and they'll be put out of business by the company next door, or even just Saud Arabia.
Passing government regulation is the only way. But we are also operating in a global economy, so you might just end up destroying your entire oil business in the process, sending all of that marketshare to places with even -worse- environmental regulation. Which just comes back to us anyways in the grand scheme of things.
Good points, it is certainly a fine line between controlling pollution and hampering a domestic industry which would otherwise be replaced by equally bad overseas industry. As bad as the pollution seemed, the wells were very clean compared to how things used to be done in the US not that long ago, and how I assume things are still done in many parts of the world.
I have a hard time blaming the oil company in isolation, they are just doing what they must do for shareholders, as you said. As long as there is demand for oil, there will be someone there to supply it. I mostly blame the government for not doing more to expedite the development of more economical green solutions.
BUT! Although the company I worked for was not one of the majors who hid climate change, they do have a substantial superPAC to influence politics and elections. The billionaire owner regularly flew to Washington to meet with people, even the president.
And when the state government wanted to increase taxes on oil to help the state pay for public services, the oil company printed lots of protest signs and bussed employees who volunteered to go to the state capital and protest. These types of interference in the government hinder progress and keep the oil companies in control. The gov needs to stop this behavior but I think it's a feedback loop of corruption.
Fucking hell. All the simple minded people in these comments who have no sense of nuance or incremental benefits... nothing will ever be perfect enough for them and they will be just as helpful for fixing the messes of our society as the ones who deny it at this rate.
Yeah it's a little and yeah it's late but it's something and he can be right about this and problematic elsewhere. Not everything can be solved with the mindset of an 8 year old who thinks people are either good or evil
I think all the hate is justified. Pope has been quick to point fingers in various directions for a while now but he never moved a step to fix issues in his own yard making whole church extremely hypocritical.
Is he the same guy who refused to condemn Russia for invasion?
Nah, I'm pretty sure he was feuding with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church over it, even called him an alter boy.
That is a real pain in the ass insult.
Real pain! And he knows what kind of... Well, orthodox priests are allowed to have wives so he might not be as horny as this guy.
If I didn't know better, I'd think he was running for reelection.
That'll tell those oil companies to stop making record profits!
Said the head of organization which requires personal donations and pays no taxes.
Why do the press even care what the pope says.
Because millions and millions of people care?
Same could be said about his religions action on molestation.
Oh, ok then, the pope had called it guys - time to pack it up and switch to renewables.
Fossil Fuel Companies: "Did someone say something?"
How is that dude's opinion relevant to anything outside his weird cult? Stop kid raping in your cult first, then you can try having opinions on things outside of it.
Cause there's billions of people who claim to be his followers, and climate change is the biggest issue humanity has ever faced.
Having the leader of one of the largest religions pushing for ecological improvements is a good thing.
Who claim to be his followers as long as it suits them.
Not every Catholic is a liar, lol
To be fair, I was implying they are hypocrites.
You're thinking of American catholics.
"His weird cult"
Dude, it's the main religion here in Latin America. 🌎
Doesn't make it any less weird or any less of a cult.
Genuinely curious why you think it’s a cult. Not even Catholic or Christian I just wanna get your reasoning
Not that guy, but the difference between the Catholic Church and Heavens Gate or Charles Manson is that its socially accepted with enough of a population to reach critical mass of speakers and followers to where it's assumed normal.
The different between a cult and a religion is how many followers it has.
That's a bit reductionist, not all religious organizations are high control groups, though many are (like JW's.)
This is part of the reason why I say that people who claim that church is anti-science, have never actually sat down and listened to the Pope.
While it's important to note all the harm that has been done by bad actors in its ranks, the Roman Catholic Church has been a huge supporter of science for a long time now.
The anti-intellectualism movements in many churches right now are a fairly recent trend. Many of the world's most-prestigous institutions of education and science were founded as religious institutions.
Understanding the natural world was long seen as examining the majesty of creation. The more people learned about the universe the grander its scale.
But of course there have also been times in history where the powerful worked tirelessly to deny people education and opportunity as they hoarded wealth for themselves, and they coopted churches to convince the people that knowledge was evil and that suffering was a sign of Godliness.
It's also important to note that even the Roman Catholic Church is not a monolith. There are certainly those in its hierarchy who are as bad as you might expect, and others who are far more progressive than you'd guess. And when most people (at least and especially in America) say christian, they mostly mean protestant, which is even far less monolithic than the Catholics since it's a bunch of similar churches with their own or sometimes no hierarchical structures.
Just to add, the current pope is a chemist technician
Francis is just running damage control for the absolute fascist that last pope was.
Good. We need damage control after fascists cause damage that's the point.
The Church was definitely anti-science when it threatened to undermine their authority, i.e., when it contradicted some article of faith. This started in the Renaissance and continued up until very recently. The Catholic Church was still fighting against evolutionary theory in the 1980s!
So, if they only believe in science when it doesn't contradict their superstition, and criticize and persecute scientists when it does... does that make them pro-science?
Things that make you go, "Hmmm..."
Actions, that's what counts. Words are empty, especially from catholic church.
You dropped this:
/s
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Pope Francis made his strongest statements yet about climate change Wednesday, rebuking fossil fuel companies and urging countries to make an immediate transition to renewable energy.
In a new document titled “Laudate Deum,” or “Praise God,” the pope criticizes oil and gas companies for greenwashing new fossil fuel projects and calls for more ambitious efforts in the West to tackle the climate crisis.
In the landmark apostolic exhortation, a form of papal writing, Francis says that “avoiding an increase of a tenth of a degree in the global temperature would already suffice to alleviate some suffering for many people.”
“Laudate Deum” is a follow-up to the pope’s 2015 encyclical on climate change, known as “Laudato Si’,” which lamented the exploitation of the planet and cast the protection of the environment as a moral imperative.
Francis’ “Laudate Deum” similarly highlights the outsize influence of the fossil fuel industry in the UAE, writing that “gas and oil companies are planning new projects there, with the aim of further increasing their production.”
The pope says he hopes COP28 proceedings produce “binding forms of energy transition that meet three conditions: that they be efficient, obligatory and readily monitored.”
The original article contains 483 words, the summary contains 194 words. Saved 60%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Something I struggle to understand with theistic religions: what is the place of human action in a divinely created universe besides prayer for and faith in divine intervention in any undesirable circumstance?
It strikes me that any action might require what one may call a suspension of faith, depending on the circumstances, otherwise it seems that the more rational course of action would be to submit to one's fate, however it may be decided by their deity.
Maybe he should find a carbon neutral alternatieve for the auto da fe, too.
Rules for thee not for me. It's always like that with big shots.
I call out Pope Francis for not doing enough to stop child abuse.
Thank you captain obvious. Now you need to focus on some of your own internal issues.
WTF? Is this reality? Where is the rapture? Where is the second coming? Where are the child living priests? He has absolutely no place complaining about the pace of anything until his house is in order.
FUCK THE POPE and FUCK those that stand in the way of climate change work.
Both of those are entities that have regularly and consistently stood in the way of progress to enrich themselves in wealth and power. Disgusting.
At least he admitted it.
Fuck you pedophile apologist. Stop ignoring and turning away the victims of your priest's rape and abuse.
This pope is nothing but PR bullshit and nice platitudes while he continues to be a vile piece of shit. And what the fuck does he know about fossil fuels and the energy industry? Shut the fuck up you fake wizard
Not as swift as Vatican, juggling the pedophile priests.
We the people calling these bastards out for their crimes against innocent children and teens. We should all band together and ram their arseholes.
Jeff from accounting doesn't have the ear of 1.4 billion people across the planet.
I bet Francis here has a cooler office chair than Jeff from accounting though
This bitch needs to stfu and concentrate all on the pedophiles he's protecting. Disgusting piece of shit!