Pope Advisor has Harsh Words for Climate Deniers
June 19, 2015 - Peter Raven, a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences for 25 years, has little patience for people who deny that global climate change is happening. He and the academy advised Pope Francis leading up to this week's papal encyclical on the environment. Raven is president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, chairman of National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration, and a member of the National Geographic Society's board of trustees.
Click here to read more about the encyclical.
Transcript
Peter Raven
Member
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
President Emeritus
Missouri Botanical Garden
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, like the entire scientific community, considers that there's no debate about climate change or the fact that human beings have a major role in it. Those who try to spread misinformation about climate change are simply wrong and are doing that for some other aim.
Like all members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences I've had the chance to meet Pope Francis briefly, and found him to be just as affable and charming and charismatic as he seems to be and as he is widely considered, justifiably.
Pope Francis is a great communicator and I think it comes from his background in Argentina where he consistently dealt with the problems of the poor and came face to face with the kinds of issues that are destroying the world at the present time.
Among the important elements of the encyclical that I think will surprise people or may interest them in they haven't thought about it are the acceptance of scientific findings as such. Many people distort or ignore them for one reason or another, and this encyclical really lays the foundation for accepting them and then thinking about what to do about it together.
Not only is the living world essential to our survival in terms of safeguarding our soils and water and climate worldwide, but if we destroy it simply mindlessly because of short-term gain of one kind or another; personal, corporate, national. We'll face a very uncertain future in which what we consider to be civilization will be unlikely to last more than 30 or 60 years, simply because things are getting to be too difficult. That's what Pope Francis has brought out so well in the encyclical just issued.
