ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IS RICH COUNTRIES’ “ECOLOGICAL DEBT”: POPE

Thu 21 July 2022:

Pope Francis has urged world leaders to pay attention to the “chorus of cries of anguish” coming from the Earth as a result of climate change, extreme weather, and biodiversity loss.

He urged nations to address climate change with the same attention as global challenges like wars and health crises in a message on Thursday for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, claiming that global warming primarily harms the poor and Indigenous populations.

Francis claimed that wealthy nations owed a “ecological debt” because they were primarily responsible for the environmental pollution that has ruined nature’s song over the past two centuries.

“Tragically, that sweet song is accompanied by a cry of anguish. Or even better: a chorus of cries of anguish. In the first place, it is our sister, Mother Earth, who cries out. Prey to our consumerist excesses, she weeps and implores us to put an end to our abuses and to her destruction,” he wrote.

“Exposed to the climate crisis, the poor feel even more gravely the impact of the drought, flooding, hurricanes and heat waves that are becoming ever more intense and frequent,” Francis said.

“Likewise, our brothers and sisters of the Native peoples are crying out. As a result of predatory economic interests, their ancestral lands are being invaded and devastated on all sides, provoking a cry that rises up to heaven.”

Francis repeated an appeal “in the name of God” that he first made last year to the mining, oil, forestry, real estate and agribusiness industries to “stop destroying forests, wetlands, and mountains, to stop polluting rivers and seas, to stop poisoning food and people”.

The appeal came just days before the pope’s trip to Canada, where he will meet with Indigenous people in Iqaluit, in the Canadian Arctic, which is part of North America’s fastest-warming region.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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