| Advocacy Issue: Global Climate Change |
Global Warming/Global Climate Change
Click here for 2008 Resource Packet
Earth Day
Background: The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ~ a synthesis of scientific findings from more than 100 countries, including the United States ~ found that the warming of earth’s climate is unequivocal, cites human activity as the likely cause and warns that continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and will induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century.
The report has outlined more clearly and compellingly than ever before the case for serious and urgent action to address the potential consequences of global warming/climate change and highlights the dangers and costs of inaction. The potential impact on New York State residents includes heat waves/heat-related illness and death for the elderly, poor and vulnerable; rising sea levels; disruption of agriculture; torrential rain/flood; drought; loss of species and vegetation; spread of insect vectors and more.
Catholic Social Teaching*
· Priority for the Poor: Inadequate or misguided responses to climate change will likely place even greater burdens on already desperately poor peoples. Action to mitigate global climate change must be built upon a foundation of social and economic justice that does not put the poor at greater risk or place disproportionate and unfair burdens on developing nations.
· Pursuit of the Common Good: Responses to global climate change should reflect our
interdependence and common responsibility for the future of our planet. Individual nations must measure their own self-interest against the greater common good and contribute
equitably to global solutions. Our obligation to pass on the gift of God’s creation to future generations without doing irreversible harm is one aspect of the demands of the common good.
· Practice of Prudence: Prudence suggests that we do not have to know with absolute
certainty everything that is happening with climate change – it is better to act now than wait until the problem gets worse and the remedies more costly.
*Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence and the Common Good (U.S. Catholic Bishops )
