In the mean time 121 days since Laudato Si that the Davenport Diocese has not turned off its air-conditioners
How fortunate that Pope Francis arrived in Washington during daylight hours.
He would have been so dismayed had he flown over the east coast and seen the billions of bright lights that illuminate the cities. What a terrible assault on “Mother Gaia”!
Looks good to us.
In his “climate change” encyclical, Laudato Si, Francis formally admonishes the capitalist economic system for similar transgressions such as the proliferation of air conditioning just to make profits:
(para. 55. ) … “People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive.”
Had His Holiness viewed firsthand the enormous “use and power” of illumination of just a few of America’s major cities, he would almost certainly be moved to despair by “markets” which immediately “benefit from sales” of fixtures, bulbs, and electrical delivery systems, which, the Pope would keenly observe, serves to “stimulate ever greater demand”.
That’s the trouble with free markets and capitalist systems…people see all the things they produce that would potentially make their lives better…and they want it! And then, the producers cynically “benefit from (the) sales”.
How much better for Mother Gaia and for the environment, in Francis’s words, (para.208) “…If (only)we can overcome individualism, we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society.”
Viva Il Papa! DLH
