PD Editorial: Pope is right — climate fix is an ‘imperative’

The environmental movement has taken on the unlikeliest of champions of late - the pope.

The pontiff’s persistence in filling what has become a leadership void on the issue of climate change couldn’t be more welcome. In addition to providing a healthy dose of reason with his conclusion that reversing the effects of human-induced climate change is a “moral imperative,” Pope Francis may have managed to alter the debate in a way that has long been needed.

First, he jumped into the fray in June by issuing a papal encyclical supporting the research of scientists who conclude that not only is global warming real, it is the result of the build-up of greenhouse gases caused by human activity. The pope drew a connection between the devastating environmental effects of a fossil-fuel based economy and the economic troubles facing a growing number of the world’s poorest people.

“Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it,” the pope wrote.

Then he followed up this week with a Vatican conference for the world’s mayors and governors, a gathering that included California’s own Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, who pontificated himself on the need to get past the debate over whether climate change is real.

Climate change deniers are spending “billions on trying to keep from office people such as yourselves and elect troglodytes and other deniers of the obvious science,” he said. He also offered a sense of urgency in observing that humanity needs to change course quickly or possibly face extinction.

But it was the New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio who offered the most pragmatic assessment of where to go from here. “It’s increasingly clear that we, the local leaders of the world, have many tools, more than we may have in fact realized,” he said in his summit remarks. “And we must use them boldly even as our national governments hesitate.”

True enough.

Through his encyclical and summit, the pope has provided the not-so-subtle reminder that the world shouldn’t be waiting on Congress or the Kremlin or the National People’s Congress of China to take action. The majority of the world’s greenhouse gases are produced by the world’s most heavily populated urbanized areas. And, as noted above, those cities and residents have more tools than they may realize, if they choose to use them.

It’s a needed wakeup call. We all have the power to act - even if our nation’s political leaders continue to avoid responsibility. As all the mayors and governors agreed in putting their names to a joint statement at the Vatican summit this week, taking action is not an option. It’s an imperative.