European Bishops publish report on climate change

Sunday, November 2, 2008

European Bishops publish report on climate change

GENEVA -An expert group set up by COMECE last January and chaired by the former EU-Commissioner Prof Franz Fischler yesterday published its report.

The document: 'A Christian View on Climate Change; underlines the huge challenge that climate change represents for mankind. It calls on European leaders to anchor their climate change policies in ethical thinking, based on inter-generational justice and solidarity towards countries of the South. The experts also call on the Church and on Christians to show an example by adopting life styles based on moderation.

It must be recognised that the fight against climate change is first of all a problem of public ethos. It will be hard to solve without challenging certain ways of organising society, without questioning the ways we live together and the value system of civil society. In order to convince citizens to fundamentally change their way of thinking and living, political leaders should turn to profound ethical reflection and debate.

According to the report, this reflection could be based on Christian theology which has developed interesting ideas on this topic. Above all, the values and principles of the social teaching of the Church - global justice, disposition towards the weakest, subsidiarity, solidarity and responsibility for the common good - could allow climate change policies to be assessed.

The authors of the report emphasise the fact that climate change is especially an issue of intra- and inter-generational justice. Consequently, they call on the European Union to take up the leadership and to raise its voice for the developing countries and for future generations who bear or will bear the highest burden of climate change.

The authors underline the fact that the EU bears a special responsibility for combating climate change, in view of its technological and financial means and its experience with cooperative action. The EU should show the example and convince all actors concerned of the necessity of protecting the Earth's climate.

The report recalls that climate change is but one symptom of an unsustainable way of life, modes of production and patterns of consumption that have evolved in the industrialised world but which are not sustainable in future.

It calls on citizens to question their own lifestyles that are too dependent on material goods and to base them much more on cultural and relational goods. In fact, our lifestyles should be based on voluntary 'moderation', a central virtue that should be understood as having the aim, not of diminishing, but rather of supporting a higher quality of life and a greater reason to rejoice.

The Catholic Church and all the Christians are best placed to propagate such changes in lifestyles, through concrete proposals and by their modest examples. In order to contribute to the debate on Climate Change, the COMECE Bishops officially decided on 23 November to set up an ad hoc Working group on "EU Climate Change Policies and Christian Lifestyle". The Working group, which consists of 10 European personalities from Politics and Science, will submit its report to the COMECE Bishops on the occasion of their Plenary Assembly, on November 12-14 next. The full report will be available at www.comece.org

30 October 2008

© Independent Catholic News 2008

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Penance -- Then and Now

In the Middle Ages, there was no buying and selling of carbon indulgences. Now it's a booming business. "The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church's sale of indulgences back before the Reformation," said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. "Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins." The New York Times, 4/29/07

The 12 Steps of Carbon Awareness

1. We admit that we are selfish users of the earth's limited resources. Standing alone, we feel powerless to stop our wasteful ways. We resolve to manage our lifestyles more effectively, to address the rapidly mounting ecological crisis.

2. We believe that through increased social awareness we can reduce our individual and collective carbon footprint.

3. We have decided to step up our social activism until such time that global warming is effectively stabilized and reversed.

4. We will conduct a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and our behavior together on this planet.

5. We will reveal the exact nature of our wrongs to the natural and social world.

6. We resolve to overcome the persistent defects of character that result in our imposing an excessive carbon burden on the planet and other human beings.

7. We invite other conscious consumers and natural beings to help us overcome our personal and collective shortcomings.

8. We will engage in a regular program of study and inquiry to understand all the persons, natural beings and planetary processes we may have harmed and disrupted, and to the extent possible, we commit to making amends to them all.

9. We will make direct amends to nature and other people injured by reckless use of resources wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. We will continue to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong, we will promptly admit it.

11. We will look within ourselves and our communities to mobilize a collective response that is fully commensurate with global warming and other pending ecological threats.

12. Having achieved profound clarification and inspiration through these steps, we will also carry this message to other compulsive consumers. By our example and leadership in increasing our social activism and changing our destructive lifestyles, we will encourage them to practice these principles in their affairs as well.

Common Carbon Sins

- Driving a gas guzzler
- Taking unnecessary personal car trips
- Failing to car pool
- Failing to take mass transit
- Using too much heat or air conditioning
- Buying a house that is too large
- Failing to us a programmable thermostat
- Overconsumption of clothes and footwear, when you already have plenty to wear
- Leaving lights on all over the house
- Using the dryer when you could use a clothesline
- Using disposable paper OR plastic bags, when you could have used a reusable canvas bag
- Printing large documents on only one side of the paper
- Using virgin paper when you could have used recycled paper
- Flying or driving a long way to meetings where little or nothing is accomplished
- Throwing away recyclables
- Using incandescent bulbs when you could use compact fluorescent bulbs

Confess Your Carbon Sins - CarbonConfession.org

Sunday, November 2, 2008