Jeff Sachs (left) and Pope Francis (center) and PGA (right) at the Vatican to discuss SDGs.
Posted on 09/11/2020 7:56:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In a letter marking the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Francis laments the destruction of nature.
“Our constant demand for growth and an endless cycle of production and consumption are exhausting the natural world,” he says. “Forests are leached, topsoil erodes, fields fail, deserts advance, seas acidify and storms intensify. Creation is groaning!”
But Francis thinks COVID-19 and the associated economic lockdowns are restoring nature: “Already we can see how the Earth can recover if we allow it to rest: the air becomes cleaner, the waters clearer, and animals have returned to many places from where they had previously disappeared.”
Sadly, as with the famous — or infamous — Laudato Si’ in 2015, this Papal letter is filled with errors.
It blames population growth and economic development for destroying nature. But didn’t God command humans to populate and control the earth?
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,” God told Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28. “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food,” He said in Genesis 1:29.
Do people consume resources? Yes. But we don’t just consume. We also produce. The long-term price trend (adjusted for inflation) for all extractive resources — mineral, plant, and animal — is downward. That shows that we make resources faster than we consume them.
Still, the pope claims population growth and economic production make creation groan. The phrase “creation is groaning” comes from Romans 8:20–22:
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”
The verses teach that the world groans because of Adams sin and God’s curse.
Creation groaned in Paul’s day, when total human population was around 300 million — about 1/25th of today’s. It groaned long before humans made significant use of oil, coal, and natural gas. It has groaned from the day Adam and Eve sinned — when global population was 2, and those 2 had never used a drop of oil, a lump of coal, or a cubic foot of gas.
The world groans in anticipation of redemption and restoration. Christ accomplished redemption on the cross. Restoration will occur not when the world reaches “net-zero carbon emissions,” but when Christ returns.
Contrary to the pope’s assumptions, ecosystems are thriving. For example, in Europe, forest and woodland area increased by 90,000 square kilometers between 1990 and 2015. In India, where 1.3 billion people live, forest cover increased by 3 percent in the past decade.
Not just ecosystems, but also animals are thriving. Contrary to claims that they were headed for extinction, polar bear numbers have increased steadily in the past two decades, and tigers in India have doubled in population between 2006 and 2018, while India’s cities and industries expanded rapidly.
Yes, there are endangered species. But empirical evidence suggests that far fewer are endangered than population biologists’ models project. Meanwhile, we’ve learned to protect them.
Pope Francis laments that “topsoil [is] eroding and deserts [are] expanding.”
Yes, improper soil management occurs in some places. But with modern farming practices, most agricultural land is actually improving. Record-breaking crop yields meet the nutritional demands of a growing world. Food production outpaces population growth.
This pattern will continue wherever economic development enables farmers to afford better techniques. Sadly, the pope’s letter calls for policies that will slow that development.
Contrary to the pope’s claim, none of these positive changes resulted from the COVID-19 economic lockdowns.
The worldwide economic collapse will harm billions for years to come. Yet, the pope writes, “the current pandemic has led us to rediscover simpler and sustainable lifestyles.”
A simpler lifestyle without a job and the means to feed a family? It may be simple, but it’s not healthy! The pope should visit poor rural households in India and Africa, where people with “simpler lifestyles” struggle to survive.
Creation care does not mean imperiling the lives of billions by halting economic activity. It means stewarding creation to benefit mankind, while making sure nature is not abused through pollution and exhaustion.
Pope Francis’s claims stand in stark contrast to well-established scientific evidence. His attempt to link creation’s groaning to man’s rightful use of resources twists Biblical teaching.
Vijay Jayaraj (M.Sc., Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, England), is a Research Contributor for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.
Dear Pope, What happened to the Salvation Message. It’s the ONLY one that matters.
The world is biblically and scientifically corrupt, and Francis is part of the problem.
Mother Earth is Angry. -Nancy Pelosi
Sorry pope, creation doesn't groan, but Christians do.
Sin is the real problem in this world, not topsoil erosion.
The Church is groaning under the leadership of the Communist Pope.
The pope is a communist. I doubt he has actually read the Bible in decades.
Dear Pope,
The Church is groaning under your secular browbeating.
Stop being a politician and try being a spiritual leader.
A communist pope who has chosen the environment as his particular hobby horse and welcomes the return of coyotes to central Los Angeles. As I’ve reported here before I went to a Jesuit university and my elder son to a Jesuit high school. I’m sure there are some who aren’t left wing cranks but I’ve yet to meet one.
I think he refers to Romans 8:22
Nevertheless, this awful pope is a bolshevik.
While we can ignore this- or don't have to think or care about these poor souls living in polluted, poverty stricken, disease ridden parts of the world - where death by starvation still exists - it does in fact exist just the same. You can google this polluted human travesty... but you won't like what you see. Neither does this Pope. It is not our fault for sure- but that doesn't mean we can't care about it just the same.
It is of those people the Pope must speak of, as Christ often did, regardless of how we tune it out. He has to speak of them.
When this Pope speaks of groaning he is speaking of Mother Earth Gaia, aka Pachamama, which is the same deity whom the Aztecs did human sacrifice to.
Off the track and in the weeds. Pope on Dope.
RE: There are many places on earth where man has destroyed God’s creation - which does not qualify as neither control, nor dominion. The Pope is the only one who can speak on behalf of these poor who have no other choice but to live there. Blame governments for sure, but in 2020 no one should have to live as some do- in sewage.
If deliberate destruction of the environment is all the Pope is referring to, NO SANE person ( Liberal or conservative ) would have any qualms with the Pope. But that is NOT the only one the Pope is talking about.
The problem is the pope claims population growth and economic production make creation groan. In his encyclical, Laudato Si, he blames population growth and economic development for destroying nature. He assumes that economic development DESTROYS the environment and creates pollution while ignoring the fact that GROWTH and ENVIRONMENTAL PRESERVATION CAN GO HAND IN HAND and the best way to uplift the lot of the poor is by ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, not by preventing it from happening.
If the Pope limited his letter to telling people to care for the poor while continuing economic development, I would have no issues with him. But this is NOT what he is saying.
Frankie is morally bankrupt
Why only Bergoglio? Why can't Greta or Jeffery Sachs speak on their behalf?
And is Bergoglio's pachamama only groaning in her "peripheries"?
I wish the pope spoke on behalf of the unborn, the underground Catholics and other Christians in Red China and the Middle East, rather than illegal invaders and his "mother earth".
Sometimes when we are filled with enmity ..... we don’t always listen.....
10 Things Pope Francis has said about abortion
https://aleteia.org/2020/01/22/10-things-pope-francis-has-said-about-abortion/
I am of the same. I do not want him making me feel guilty. If he does not say exactly what I can agree with, I dismiss him.... and with an air of superiority. Pollution was way worse before the industrial and tech revolutions sprang up.
But at the same time... I know I am fooling myself....as I know, the point is that only the Pope has the capacity....as the vicar of Christ , to call us humans out for our failings. And even that authority has been tested of late... but no other world leader or other Important person can speak on matters to the level the Pope can. I for one wouldn’t listen. The Chair of Peter is special.....always will be...
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