I grew up in an environment where people were deeply Catholic but did not like the Church very much. I guess that rubbed off on me.
The Pope has released an
Encyclical on Care for our Common Home. It is rather long. It has good things. It has bad things. I do not like mystical waffle about Mother Earth, and I'm troubled by Earth being both mother and sister -- we should strive to be like God after all. I do not like the blending of Mary with Pachamama and Gaia. I am not impressed by normally a- or anti-religious intellectuals who suddenly discovered their inner papist. But let's focus on what Pope Francis has to say about climate change and climate policy.
Para 23 is all a bit strange, hopefully explained by inexpert translation from Italian to English. Climate is a commons good, for instance, rather than a common good*; and we normally refer to "land use change" rather than "changed uses of the soil". Carbon dioxide is referred to as pollution, which is a nonsense (outside the US legal system). Para 24 offers the alarmist claptrap you would expect to find in a
Greenpeace magazine. See the response in the
Catholic Herald.
Para 25 suggests that the poor are vulnerable to climate change because of where they live. Actually, they're vulnerable because they're poor. The Pope misdiagnoses, and thus recommends the wrong treatment. Economic growth is the prime strategy against the disproportionate impacts of climate change on the poor.
Paras 54 & 56 make strange claims about the nature of capitalism and international relations, and para 57 raises the prospect of resource wars. This is the stuff of failed undergrad essays.
Para 61 uses the tired rhetoric 'happy to talk to anyone who agrees with me' reinforced by the exclusive "people of good will" in Para 62.
Chapter Two argues for stewardship and against dominion; and extends the Sacrament of the Holy Communion to non-humans (!) Chapter Three identifies anthropocentrism as the root of all evil. Chapter Four does not seem to do anything much, but Three and Four together are very cautious about new technologies, including social media. The Church remembers Gutenberg. There is also a strong sense of distrust in free markets - a recent invention that eradicated so much poverty and power. See the response in the
New York Times.
Chapter Five has policy recommendations. Unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church is ardently internationalist: It sees itself, after all, as the successor to the Roman Empire.
In Para 170, Pope Francis comes out in favour of environmental taxes, but rejects uniform taxation because of differences in the ability to pay
between countries. Oddly, the same reasoning is not applied to the differential impacts of environmental taxes between rich and poor
within countries.
Para 171 argues against tradable permits because markets can't be trusted.
Para 175 calls for the eradication of poverty, but without acknowledging that energy access is a key part of that, and thus without realizing that climate policy may stand in the way of poverty eradication.
Chapter Six calls for a new spirituality, humans in harmony with their environment.
Overall, this is a disappointing encyclical. No one is waiting for the hare-brained social theories of the Catholic Church. The Pope can provide moral guidance, but the passages on intergenerational justice are mostly waffle. Laudato Si does not even recognize a key moral dilemma - both climate change and climate policy disproportionally hurt the poor - let alone offers a way out.
The real fireworks are in Chapter Two. Universal Communion? Wow!
*Joseph Heath
reminds us that Catholic social theory uses "common good" to refer to what economists call social welfare.
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