Pope Francis is now the world’s most influential climate activist, but he didn’t utter the word “climate” in his recent speech to Congress. He merely referred to his 184-page encyclical known as Laudato Si, the eco-manifesto that solidified his reputation as a climate thinker when he released it in June. At the time, I only skimmed the breathless stories suggesting that Laudato Si could galvanize global action against global warming at the coming Paris climate talks, so now I figured I ought to read what His Holiness actually wrote.

And, it’s, um, well…how to put this delicately…unusual? Not what I expected?

OK, forgive me, Holy Father: It’s super-weird.

There is some stuff about climate, most of it sensible and useful. But there’s much more stuff about techno-economic paradigms and information overload and aesthetic education and misguided anthropocentrism. There are quasi-Marxist passages that sound like Noam Chomsky on acid. There are technophobic passages that sound like they were written by an Amish hippie grad student. There are asides about “the feeling of asphyxiation brought on by densely populated residential areas” and the inability of the individual to “prescind from humanity” that sound like that guy at the microphone at the zoning hearing with two comments and one question.

It has been noted that the pope’s beliefs scramble the traditional fault lines of American politics, but Laudato Si puts them into a kind of bizarro-world Vita-Mix. Conservatives who are already annoyed by the pope’s climate advocacy might not be too happy to hear him link laissez-faire economics to slavery, pedophilia, organized crime and the abandonment of the elderly in paragraph 123. Liberals who are fawning over the pope might not want to read paragraph 117, where he compares neglect of the environment to support for abortion. And while I’m no theologian, I’m pretty sure that paragraph 155, the one about “valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity,” implies that sex changes are anti-environmental, too.

Full disclosure: I’m not Catholic, and I’m not remotely qualified to criticize the religious content of a papal encyclical, if anyone is. I also must admit I reflexively wince at the preachiness of sixties-style enviros who see capitalism and consumerism as the root of the problem, as if Mother Earth would easily heal if we would just stop being such greedy, wasteful, self-absorbed litterbugs. The pope is definitely one of those enviros, but he’s presumably entitled to some slack: popes are supposed to be preachy, right?

Still, as a modern environmental document, and especially as a call to climate action, Laudato Si is really problematic. Pope Francis makes an excellent case in paragraphs 23 through 25 that climate change is the eco-challenge of our time—and it’s great that he’s making that case to the world—but he fails to recognize that it’s a different kind of eco-challenge than the others he mentions in his encyclical, like toxic dumping and endangered species. The pope understandably puts great faith in the healing power of more moral and less selfish individual behavior, but that won’t save the climate. And while the pope doesn’t think much of capitalism or technology, those things are already helping to save the climate.

The main theme of Laudato Si, repeated constantly, is that everything is connected, that “we cannot presume to heal our relationship with the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships.” In paragraph 138, the pope takes this concept to the kind of extremes rarely heard from thinkers who don’t have the munchies: “Time and space are not independent of one another, and not even atoms or subatomic particles can be considered in isolation.”

His point, more or less, is that the thoughtless, profligate, me-me behavior we abhor in human relations is also ravaging the planet. Thanks to our love of money, our obsession with technology, and our insatiable demand for stuff, “the earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” We mistreat nature as we mistreat the poor, the sick and yes, the unborn. With our excessive consumption and “throwaway culture,” promoted by venal profiteers through soulless advertising, we abuse the resources God gave us.

The pope’s primary example of our insensitive efforts to take dominion over nature with out-of-control consumption is, incredibly, “the increasing use and power of air conditioning.”

"The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand,” the pope writes about the relentless worldwide expansion of A/C. “An outsider looking at our world would be amazed by such behavior, which at times appears self-destructive.”

Hmm. Maybe I’m biased living in Miami, but I’m pretty sure that what generates demand for air conditioning is the damn heat. And the destructiveness of air conditioning, at least in climate terms, is purely a function of its electricity source. In a solar-powered home, you can run your AC full blast with your doors open, and for that matter plug an Xbox into every electrical outlet you own, without generating any carbon emissions. It doesn’t matter how much electricity you waste or how little you care about our common home. On the other hand, even, say, a virtuous spiritual leader who writes 184-page encyclicals urging people to care for the earth contributes to global warming when he flies around the world spreading his message of love. Not even the Holy Father has a zero-emissions plane.

The thing is, greenhouse gases aren’t like litter. We don’t have to be wasteful or thoughtless to emit carbon; we just have to live in a society developed before anyone knew the danger of carbon emissions. The pope is right that taking public transportation and turning out the lights when we leave a room can help; he chastises cynics who “think that these efforts are not going to change the world.” Fine, let’s just say they’re not going to change the world enough. LED bulbs, over 80 percent more efficient than regular bulbs, can do far more to reduce global emissions, even though they’re a dreaded “technology.” Converting the electric grid from coal and natural gas to zero-emission wind and solar can do even more.

The pope may be right that we ought to spend less time on the Internet, have fewer abortions, and develop a deeper appreciation of natural beauty, but that kind of individual self-improvement is not going to significantly reduce our combustion of fossil fuels. And while the pope is certainly right to push for more Third World debt relief and less inequality, that could actually make emissions even worse; promoting long-overdue economic growth in the developing world would help it afford to burn more coal, gas and oil.

The truth about reducing emissions is not very spiritual at all. We need clean sources of energy to become cheaper than dirty sources of energy, so that they turn into the norm rather than the exception in a hurry. Then we will no longer contribute to the warming of the planet when we drive to the grocery store or keep ourselves cool or fly across the ocean to address joint sessions of Congress. Perhaps the pope has a point that “genuine care for our own lives and our relationship with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice, and faithfulness to others,” but emissions are really just a numbers game, and the key to lowering the numbers in a meaningful way is to make green electricity and transportation cost-competitive.

The U.S. is already moving toward cleaner energy, thanks to supportive public policy as well as the entrepreneurial and technological innovation the pope finds so suspicious. President Obama’s clean-air regulations have made coal plants more expensive to operate, while strict fuel-efficiency standards have made our cars and trucks guzzle less gasoline. Meanwhile, a combination of government policies (for clean energy research and deployment) and technical advances (more efficient solar panels and wind turbines, better batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage) are making green energy cheaper. The cost of solar power has dropped 80 percent since 2009, the cost of wind power 60 percent, the cost of advanced batteries 50 percent. In California, a market-based cap-and-trade system is also helping to ratchet down emissions, even though the pope, in his otherwise sensible overview of the climate issue, offers the leftist conspiracy theory that carbon trading schemes “may simply be a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.”

The pope isn’t a big fan of the profit motive, but it’s the best hope for bringing clean-tech products to the masses. It’s what inspired firms like Solar City and SunRun to offer no-money-down leases for rooftop solar panels. It’s what’s inspiring Wall Street to securitize those leases for investors, which will pour more money into the solar industry and further drive down costs. Elon Musk hopes to change the world, but Tesla wouldn’t have a prayer of reinventing transportation (and now grid storage as well) without investors who hope to make a buck. What matters is slashing emissions in a hurry, because as the pope clearly describes, the alternative could be catastrophic. And as hard as it is to transform the way the world consumes energy, it’s probably easier than trying to transform hearts and lifestyles.

The pope’s message in Laudato Si is surprisingly gloomy for such an inspiring figure, especially at a time when the world’s largest emitters, the U.S. and China, are cleaning up their own act and leading a push for global reductions in Paris. Pope Francis writes about the dangers of excessive growth, which “leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit,” but economic growth usually produces better environmental protection, which often seems to be a luxury poor countries can’t afford. And in America, at least, self-sacrifice is a losing message, reminiscent of Jimmy Carter telling Americans to wear sweaters during the oil crisis. It’s not going to inspire support for policies that can accelerate the green-energy transition.

“There is also the fact that most people no longer seem to believe in a happy future,” the pope wrote in Laudato Si.

Aw, Your Holiness, is that really a fact? It really feels like things are starting to get a little better, and may be on path to get a lot better. Have faith.





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