There’s
no calm ahead of the storm that the Pope's embrace of climate action will stir
up.
Some of corporate America’s biggest climate-change deniers — from Exxon-Mobil to the Koch Brothers — are dreading a potent storm that’s gaining strength and headed right at them. It’s the category-5 “Hurricane Francis,” which threatens to overwhelm their flimsy ideological castles.
Rather
than extreme weather, this has to do with a diminutive human who’s become a
force of nature: Pope Francis.
This
summer, he intends to deliver a powerful papal encyclical putting the moral
energy of the church solidly behind the urgent imperative to end the industrial
pollution that’s causing global warming.
Specifically,
Francis will lead Catholics in a worldwide campaign to enact sweeping reforms
proposed by the United Nations to halt the toxic emissions that profit a few
wealthy investors at the expense of humanity itself.
The Pope’s principled, stout-hearted stand is causing fainting spells, gnashing of teeth, and bombastic rants in the lodges of the profiteers and their right-wing, anti-science devotees.
A
delegation of climate change deniers from a Koch-funded outfit called the
Heartland Institute even scurried off to Vatican City to protest what it calls
the “mistake” that Francis is making. And a right-wing writer aptly named
Maureen Mullarkey ranted:
“Francis sullies his office by using demagogic formulations to bully the
populace into reflexive climate action with no more substantive guide than
theologized propaganda.”
Whew.
They
can wail all they want. But Pope Francis — who chose his papal name in tribute
to the patron saint of animals and the natural world — is right. Stopping the
looming human disaster of climate change is not only a matter of science, but
also of moral duty.
OtherWords
columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.
He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org.