Pope warns of destruction of Earth's ecosystem and calls for worldwide effort to combat climate change (video)
Pope Francis called on the world Thursday to combat global warming to prevent environmental ruin to the Earth, Voice of America reports. In a landmark letter, the pontiff supported scientific evidence that climate change is mostly caused by human activity that he said could lead to "an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems" in this century. He called for an end to what he said is a "culturally perverse" economic system in which the world's wealthiest countries exploit the poorest, leaving the Earth looking "more and more like an immense pile of filth." Francis said a massive political and economic transformation is needed, to replace "without delay" the world's dependence on highly polluting fossil fuels that lead to climate-changing global warming. He said the world's resources are "being plundered because of shortsighted approaches to the economy, commerce and production." "Doomsday predictions," the Pope warned, "can no longer be met with irony or disdain." "The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," Francis said. "In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish." The pontiff's plea came in a 191-page encyclical aimed directly at the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, but more broadly at world leaders considering a global climate pact later this year at a Paris conference. It was the first such papal environmental statement in the centuries-long history of the church.
