Catholic World News

Ecumenical Patriarch: address root causes of environmental crisis

June 09, 2017

Speaking near a polluted river in Boeotia, Greece, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said on June 6 that “no technical or technological achievement can ultimately address the ecological crisis in its root causes.”

“The roots of our ecological crisis are found precisely in the transgression by humankind of its balanced relationship with the natural environment and in the incapacity of the natural ecosystems and resources to sustain our contemporary lifestyle,” said the prelate, who holds a primacy of honor in Eastern Orthodoxy, in an address delivered to the Greek president and other civic and religious leaders.

The Ecumenical Patriarch added:

To be more precise, our very own financially developed world is already leaving an untenable footprint through the greedy production and consumption of goods, the uncontrollable pollution of modern transportation, the limitless waste and endless carbon emissions, together with the vast industrial and nuclear accidents, all of which contribute immensely to global warming and climate change with irreparable and irreversible ramifications.

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