Exactly. Propitiation (blood sacrifice) was required, and God demonstrated that by clothing Adam and Eve in the skin of dead animals.
Christ said the Son of Man "came not be served, but to serve." This pope will kiss people's feet or show faux humility for the cameras (always, always in front of the cameras). However, it is demonstrably obvious he is all about power. His.
Taking the lid off of the environmental pandora’s box in this manner pretty well guarantees it will be a power play.
A more thoughtful pontiff would have arranged for some kind of quiet private study. Not hopping on the nearest bandwagon that sounded vaguely like Christian teaching.
If there is something like an environmental sin it would be like the gross pollution in Beijing, where the tradeoff is pretty much only the filthy lucre that Francis is turning his nose up at. When it is a question of human survival vs. a nice environment the question is more difficult.