For
most of us, the Pope's visit was inspirational. Any of us can think of
at least a few of the topics where Francis will effect us for years to
come. One of these is climate change and the fact that Shell is pulling
out of Arctic drilling has leaves you thinking! I am delighted to post
the article below.
Vi benedica santo padre!
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Pope Francis
Hails Tech To Fight Climate Change In 'Our Common Home'
The pontiff has a complicated
relationship with technology, but he sees its potential in at least one area.
Alexander
Howard Senior Editor for Technology and Society, The Huffington Post
Posted: 09/23/2015 07:04 PM EDT |
Edited: 09/24/2015 11:10 AM EDT
If Pope Francis' prayers are answered, humanity will
devote more of its collective efforts toward cleaning up our planet instead of
polluting it. How and where he thinks technological progress should play a
role in those efforts is a more complicated question.
President Barack Obama officially welcomed the pope to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. At the
White House, Francis began his remarks by applauding the United States' history of immigration. He went
on to say that climate change was an issue that must be addressed now.
"Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are
proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution," the pope said, as Obama looked on.
He continued:
Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that
climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation.
When it comes to the care of our "common home," we are living at a
critical moment of history. We still have time to make the changes needed to
bring about “a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things
can change” (Laudato Si’, 13). Such change demands on our part a serious and
responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our
children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has
overlooked them.
Video of the pope's full remarks is embedded below.
The pope's recent focus on climate change has not been
uncontroversial in the U.S., where the partisan divide over global warming remains as wide as ever, despite the overwhelming scientific consensus on the matter.
According to the Pew Research Center, 68 percent of
Americans believe global warming is occurring, but only 22 percent of
Republicans say that it's because of human activity -- something that nearly
all of the world's scientists agree to be the case. The hottest summer on record has done little to shift those
views, much less galvanize the Republican-controlled Congress to take action.
It seems unlikely that the Pope's address to the U.S. legislature on Thursday
will alter the trajectory of that debate.
Based on a generous reading of the encyclical that Francis wrote earlier this year, it seems
like he would probably endorse the White House's use of open climate data in the hopes of
increasing the resilience of the coastal cities where a majority of humanity
will live in future decades, and enabling governors and mayors to protect
hundreds of millions of people.
After all, in a June letter to the Catholic Church, the pope laid out a moral case for fighting climate change grounded
in the need to protect the poor from pollution and environmental degradation.
In that letter, the pope embraced and supported the
development of clean technology, including solar energy, to replace fossil
fuels.
But even as he heralded technology as a possible
solution, he decried not only the role that industrialization has played in
pollution but also a modern mindset that exalts the use of technology to
manipulate the natural world.
"It can be said that many problems of today’s world
stem from the tendency, at times unconscious, to make the method and aims of
science and technology an epistemological paradigm which shapes the lives of
individuals and the workings of society," he wrote.
Given the Catholic Church's history with practitioners of the
scientific method, we might be inclined to take that with a grain of salt, but
in fairness the church has moved away from being an enemy of science in
recent centuries.
Pope Francis himself appears to have something of a love-hate relationship with technology. The 78-year-old
pontiff, who holds a degree in chemistry, has supported the application of
technology in various areas, including genetic modification in agriculture, and has called the Internet a "gift from God." He's
also urged young people not to waste time online or on smartphones, which almost all of us do.
The man often described as the most influential world leader on Twitter uses social
media to communicate with the public as @Pontifex, albeit not personally -- he has confessed to being a "disaster with machines"
himself.
The pope has also urged families to employ technology thoughtfully, using screen sense as well as common sense when it comes to incorporating devices into our lives.
"By growing daily in our awareness of the vital
importance of encountering others, these 'new possibilities,' we will employ
technology wisely, rather than letting ourselves be dominated by it," he
wrote in January.
The pope called attention in his climate change
encyclical to the limits of taking an explicitly technocratic approach to a
complex social, economic and environmental issue.
"Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of
urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution,
environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources," he wrote.
"There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of
thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality
which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm."
In his encyclical, Pope Francis expressed concern about
the effects of technology on our capacity to make decisions and find space for
creativity. More subtly, he wrote about the need to use technology in a moral
and ethical way, one that makes change possible without abandoning our ideals
of "freedom and justice."
But he also acknowledged that in many ways, technology
has improved life in ways that would have once seemed impossible.
"We are the beneficiaries of two centuries of
enormous waves of change: steam engines, railways, the telegraph, electricity,
automobiles, aeroplanes, chemical industries, modern medicine, information
technology and, more recently, the digital revolution, robotics,
biotechnologies and nanotechnologies," the pope wrote. "It is right
to rejoice in these advances and to be excited by the immense possibilities
which they continue to open up before us, for 'science and technology are
wonderful products of a God-given human creativity.'"
Whether or not you agree with his views on technology -- and not everyone does -- the pope's focus on applying tech
for public good, and his habit of calling attention to the ethical questions that disruptive technology can pose to society,
are bringing more sunlight to issues that deserve it.
I think that's a valuable public service, and it's one reason among many
that I welcomed Pope Francis to Washington on Wednesday. Here's hoping that his
presence brings about more connection, not more controversy.
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