Posted on 11/04/2005 10:40:03 PM PST by Coleus
Code: ZE05110406
Date: 2005-11-04
Sustainable Development a Responsibility, Says Vatican
Archbishop Migliore Warns U.N. of Future Challenges
NEW YORK, NOV. 4, 2005 (Zenit.org).- For the Holy See the promotion of sustainable development is a question of responsibility and solidarity vis-à-vis present and future generations.
The Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, made these comment Thursday in an address to the U.N. General Assembly's Commission on Sustainable Development.
"My delegation believes that development plans and poverty reduction strategies must be integrated into environmental sustainability," said the papal representative.
"Without environmental stewardship, development will have no sound foundation, and without development, there will be no means of investment, rendering environmental protection impossible," continued the apostolic nuncio, highlighting the vicious circle that sustainable development can entail.
"Responsibility and solidarity are linked here in such a way that action in favor of the environment becomes an affirmation of belief in the destiny of the human family gathered around a common project crucial to everyone's good," he added.
The above "echoes the first principle of the Rio Declaration that 'human beings are at the center of concerns for sustainable development,'" he said, referring to the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Declaration on the Environment and Development.
Looking forward
The three first and most serious threats to sustainable development articulated by the prelate were socioeconomic: poverty, infectious diseases and environmental degradation.
"These three questions ultimately threaten the security of present and future generations," he warned. "The need to address these challenges as an ensemble is indispensable to a collective security system. They are not stand-alone threats."
Another concern expressed by Archbishop Migliore was the loss of forests, "which remain essential in terms of food, shelter, fuel, fresh water and fiber to 90% of the world's 1.2 billion extreme poor."
The prelate also referred to the need to "provide incentives for the further development of renewable energy sources," and "to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies, especially for fossil fuel use and development, and invest in the research and development of a clean, efficient and cheap replacement for fossil fuels."
"The world is going to need dramatically more, not less, energy in the next 50 years," said Archbishop Migliore. "We owe it to future generations everywhere to start immediately on such a path."
That's putting it mildly.
Makes me wonder if the Vatican is a "Sustainable Development!"
Maybe you could educate these "high priests!"
That's what we get for borrowing beyond our ability to repay the principle.
All these sustainable development treaties and agreements are in essence contracts outlining caretaker guidelines and responsibilities and serve as a smokescreen to keep the public from knowing what happened.
The dog and pony show has been most effective, though not very entertaining.
The cure to poverty is private property and free enterprise. Socialists will never understand that. Sustainable development as defined by the UN is nothing more than communism dressed in a diffferent skirt.
Proper sustainable development is caring for private property in a way that increases your personal wealth.
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