Question

Prompt 1 in his 2015 papal encyclical, laudato si', in which he addresses climate change and our collective responsibility to care for our "common home," pope francis , s.j., observes that, "climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political, and for the distribution of goods." prompt 1 question: much has been written about the environmental implications of climate change, but less about the distribution of goods or the social, economic, and political implications. which one of these less studied aspects of climate change seems to you most worrisome for our "common home," and why?

Answer 1

Suppose in studying Climate Change we discover that in one country, deserts are going to be created where formerly there was grasslands and an abundance of water and in another place the coastlines are going to be altered. If you are an American, how do you think a politician is going to respond to such a problem.

Will his/her response be well thought out based on scientific preparedness, or will he (or she) grab onto the first solution suggestion to him/her and try and implement that?

Whatever he/she does, it will cost and everyone will be affected. A starting place is to find out what presidents in the past have done. During the Bush administration (the second Bush), there was an oil crisis. He responded by allocating more acreage to the growing of corn so supplementing oil production. Replaceable resources for non renewable ones. Sounded like a very good solution, but was it? As it turned out, no. He was robbing Peter to pay Paul. Thousands of people suffered (and died) with that decision because food is much more important than solving transportation problems at the expense of food.

The same is true here. If a solution is sought for global warming, politicians have to be well aware of what they are doing. And that has to be studied very carefully.