Ten kilometres above the earth, the Pope delivered a message to the people of Sydney: the world is God’s creation and humanity needs to safeguard it against the ravages of climate change.
His message, unexpected and delivered in Italian, called for a spiritual response to the environmental crisis and asked Catholics – especially young people – to find “a way of living, a style of life that eases the problems caused to the environment”.
“We need to rediscover our earth in the face of our God and creator and to re-find our responsibilities in front of our maker and the creatures of the earth he has placed in our hands in trust,” he said.
“We need to reawaken our conscience ”¦ I want to give impulse to rediscovering our responsibilities and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life and ways to respond to these great challenges.”
This is what an Orthodox view of caring for the earth looks like. If ever seated together for a formal occassion/dinner KJS and Benedict at least have something to talk about politely. How nice and how sad.
It’s a good message. The last big climate change, the ‘little ice age’ (ended around the mid-1850s*) resulted in massive grain crop failures, and the ‘bread belt’ moving further southward. Countries switched to more cold resistent crops such as potatoes and other tubers to survive (which is how Ireland became so dependent on the potato, and why the crop failure to blight was such a disaster).**
Countires also found the grape crops couldn’t survive, which is why the Mediterrian and Rivera areas of France and Italy are now the wine centers, and where hardier crops like barley and hops led to the development of a beer culture in Germany and Britian.
When the warming trend started up again (cycles, you know), those countries who had adapted survived nicely, those that didn’t were decimated.
So, with that in mind, watching for signs of natural climate change is a good idea to look for how to shift crops again by region.
Peace
Jim E. <>< *For years afterwards, up until the mid 1900's, scientists feared the return of a new Ice Age, and headlines were filled with dire predictions of "pollution is causing temperatures to drop!" Now, of course, the fear is of a new, stronger warming trend. **A nice documentary can be seen occasionally on the History Channel called "Little Ice Age, Big Chill". Even though they felt they had to include a propaganda ending for Global Warming, it's fairly well done.