For many Tea Party leaders and their representatives in Congress, it is an “article of faith” that the Earth was given to humans by God for their exploitation and dominion.
Many have used this dis torted theology
to support destructive mining and drilling projects, and to pass legislation attempting to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate planet-warming carbon pollution.
Conservative members of Congress would rather the federal government subsidize oil companies than invest in clean energy technology.
But such reckless disregard for the Earth, its people, and natural resources is being challenged by a broad base of faith leaders who point to the many passages in the Bible that call for humans to be caretakers and good stewards of the planet. We can now add to their voices those of a working group of scientists appointed by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a nonsectarian organization presided over by Werner Arber, a Nobel laureate and a Protestant.
The academy has just issued a report that declares, w ithout qualification and w
ith utmost urgency, that global climate change is occurring, that humans bear responsibility for it, and that it is our gravest moral imperative to reduce carbon emissions as quickly as possible.