Kicking humanity’s addiction to oil, gas, and coal before those industries render the planet uninhabitable may take a miracle. So it’s a good thing that the climate movement found a patron saint.
I’m talking about Pope Francis, of course. Before an upcoming encyclical makes the Vatican’s stance official, he’s already spreading the gospel of a fossil-free future.
In case, like me, you’re not Catholic: An encyclical is a basically a memo the church sends its 1.2 billion believers — one out of six people alive in a community that includes 30 percent of Congress and a gaggle of GOP presidential hopefuls. Here’s looking at you, John Boehner, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz.
Two years into what he says will be a brief tenure, the pope’s putting climate skeptics on the defensive.
Fretting about the fate of the Earth is part of his broader condemnation of the global status quo, which Francis considers to be a “throwaway culture.” And it explains why he and some of his top aides came to call for a transition to greener energy.