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New Zealand climate experts’ advice is almost identical to the Pope’s.
We have to modify our lifestyles. The earth is suffering. Excessive consumption of the earth’s resources has to stop. Or at the very least, change. Modify, says Pope Francis.
A major new international report shows 2021 record-breaking greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite that, international travel has been taking off.
Air New Zealand expects to be back to 90 percent of all its flights by 2025.
The world is set to reach pre-pandemic levels of air travel by 2024.
One way we in New Zealand can help is to re-think the way we travel. Our climate experts suggest canceling or cutting down on our trans-Tasman getaways especially. Have fewer, stay longer perhaps.
Transport and freight are major carbon contributors. Governments need to “do the heavy lifting to bring about change and decarbonise societies” climate experts say.
In his message for last Thursday’s World Day of Prayer for Creation, Francis said the climate crisis is a call for everyone, especially Christians. We must “repent and modify our lifestyles and destructive systems”.
Our common home’s state of decay merits the same attention as other global challenges, he said.
Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue. “It is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”
The earth has fallen “prey to our consumerist excesses” and an attitude where people are at the centre of the universe is evident.
This has led to the extinction of many species and the loss of biodiversity. It greatly impacts the lives of the poor and vulnerable indigenous populations. Their ancestral lands are being invaded and devastated on all sides, Francis said.
Younger generations feel “menaced by shortsighted and selfish actions”. They are “anxiously asking us adults to do everything possible to prevent, or at least limit, the collapse of our planet’s ecosystems”.
Francis hopes 21st century people will be remembered for generously shouldering their responsibilities.
Limiting global warming is a “call for responsible cooperation between all nations” to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero.
Francis hopes new agreements will “halt the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species”. He is hopeful these will come about when world leaders meet at this year’s COP27 and COP15 summits on climate change and biodiversity.
We need to modify “models of consumption and production, as well as lifestyles”. Then we must transform them into something respectful of creation and integral human development, he says.
This requires “a covenant between human beings and the environment”.
For believers, the environment is “a mirror reflecting the creative love of God, from whom we come and toward whom we are journeying.”
Justice, especially for workers most affected by climate change, must be met as well, Francis says.
To prevent “the further collapse of biodiversity” he says the mining, oil, forestry, real estate and agribusiness industries must “stop destroying forests, wetlands and mountains, stop polluting rivers and seas, stop poisoning food and people”.
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