London - Pope Francis on Thursday declared that the world is becoming an “immense pile of filth” in his long-awaited call for action on climate change.
He released a papal encyclical warning: “The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth.”
In the document, considered the most important so far in his two-year papacy, Francis urged Christians and others to campaign for measures designed to curb man-made climate change – implying strongly that to deny the importance of global warming or to maintain that it is not happening is a sin.
He condemned politicians who hang on to power “only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so”.
Blaming the profit motive, Francis added: “The environment is one of the goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or protected by market forces... The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes.”
His overtly political message is likely to provoke a backlash among Christians sceptical about climate change but charities and environmental groups welcomed the intervention.
Daily Mail