In an international equivalent of donning a sandwich board and declaring that the end of the world draws nigh, sixty mayors from around the world and at least one U.S. governor accepted an invitation to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican to discuss global warming.
Dozens of mayors from around the world demanded Tuesday that their national leaders take bold steps at the Paris climate talks this year, saying that could be the last chance to keep the Earth’s warming to levels still safe for humanity.
One by one, some of the 60 mayors invited to a two-day Vatican conference lined up to sign a final declaration stating that “human-induced climate change is a scientific reality and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity.”
They were aiming to keep the pressure on world leaders ahead of the Paris negotiations in December. Pope Francis last month released an environmental encyclical that denounced what he calls a fossil fuel-based world economy that exploits the poor and destroys the Earth.
Francis told the gathering Tuesday that he had “a lot of hope” that the Paris negotiations would succeed, but also told the mayors: “You are the conscience of humanity.”
We’ve been hearing talk about human-caused weather Apocalypses for a long time. How many last chances can the planet get? Just be thankful that this is the “final declaration” of our errant planet-destroying ways from these people.
Uh huh. That’ll be the day. Something, let’s call it experience, tells me that this embodiment of humanity’s conscience isn’t going to shut up with its verdict of our collective guilt anytime in the near future. If we make it that long.
As for the governor who showed up for the end-of-the-world party:
Drawing rousing applause, California Gov. Jerry Brown denounced global warming deniers who he said are “bamboozling” the public and politicians with false information to persuade them that the world isn’t getting warmer.
Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, urged the mayors to not be complacent in opposing climate deniers. California has enacted the toughest greenhouse gas emissions standards in North America.
“We have a very powerful opposition that, at least in my country, spends billions on trying to keep from office people such as yourselves and elect troglodytes and other deniers of the obvious science,” he said.
Yeah, that sounds like something Jesus would say. You will deny our climate countless times with your abhorrent billions of silver pieces before we politicians with our vast objective knowledge of long-term weather patterns crow. You bamboozling troglodytes can all go hang.
It’s adorable that the Governor of California–who oversees the state with the largest economy, with government being its largest industry, and with the strictest environmental standards in the nation–would rail on powerful people with money.
Among the other U.S. leaders at the Vatican’s two-day shindig are the mayors of New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Portland (OR), and Minneapolis.
“I will walk out of here knowing even more deeply how interrelated and intertwined poverty and climate change are,” Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges tweeted from the Vatican on Tuesday.
“‘Enviro justice’ isn’t sidebar [for] main work of combatting/responding [to] climate change; it’s intrinsic to every bit of the work.”
Another enviro-weenie blames the climate for the existence of poverty. Don’t bother to look at the leadership of most of the cities where poverty is so prevalent. Many of those leaders are at this gathering, in fact. At least Mayor Hodges didn’t blame greedy white men. Maybe another time.
And who will fight for “enviro justice” to punish all the guilty perpetrators who came from around the world by way of various carbon-emitting modes of transportation to get to the Vatican?
I can wait for an answer. The world has ended yet. There’s still time.
