A while back, I mentioned that Pope Francis is working on an encyclical focusing on the environment. No word quite yet on when it is expected to come out. In the meantime however, The Vatican is kicking off a 5 day conference focused on sustainability called "Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility".
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga gave the opening address, focusing on ethics and ending with this:
The solution to mankind’s sustainability issues is not to be improvised:
we must prepare ourselves through education by developing
discerning citizens that are committed with the ideals of democracy,
justice, and respect for one another and the environment.
The conference won't be focusing on documenting the long list of environmental woes. Instead, it's main purpose will be fostering dialogue between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Climate change has been suggested as at least a contributor to the
Syrian civil war, the
Sudan genocide and
could spark a war over water and other resources.
The National Catholic Reporter notes some of the fields represented are microbiology, law, labor, economics, philosophy, business and astronomy from 14 countries. On Fri, the conference will start with looking at demands on food, health and energy and how climate change impacts those areas. Day 2-3 will be on the needs of nature, the cryosphere (ice caps) and the biosphere. Social issues will be addressed on Mon and Tue, ranging from unsustainable growth, inequality and ownership of nature.
Catholic Ecology notes that this conference will also build upon the United Nation’s Rio+20 Summit on biodiversity preservation.
The Rio+20 conference failed in many respects because it fostered “no collective endeavour among natural and social scientists,” the Vatican announcement notes. “That is why we are proposing a joint PAS-PASS workshop on Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature.”
[Basically,] the pontifical academies are offering the world's academicians a platform to gather, share, and listen to each other—and thus to better understand how their individual efforts can, when brought together, create a symphony of the sciences that can shore up human dignity and the common good (two aims mentioned by Pope Francis is a recent Tweet).
Andrew Revkin of the New York Times is expected to give the closing comments.
Catholic Climate Covenant will also be live blogging the event.