Saturday, March 24, 2012

Global climate change is the cover story in both America magazine and Commonweal magazine

Thanks to Carol Ann Jokerst for sending in this information from the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, March 22, 2012

Climate Change Challenge of Disbelief

In response to the on-going moral and ethical challenges of climate change, both America Magazine and Commonweal Magazine have featured climate change as the cover story in their respective current issues.

In Climate for Change: What the Church Can Do About Global Warming, Xavier theology professor Elizabeth Groppe considers the moral dimensions of climate change and how the Catholic Church can serve as a catalyst for change which more fully cares for God’s Creation and the poor. As Groppe says, Our imperiled planet needs the distinctive paschal witness that the Catholic community can offer. The article is an adaptation of Groppe’s 2011 online article
Climate Change: A Life Issue which appeared on America Magazine’s website.

In
“Global Suicide Pact:” Why Don’t We Take Climate Change Seriously? , Creighton theology professor Richard W. Miller paints a dramatic picture of the possible consequences if humanity doesn’t begin to seriously address the issue of climate change. Miller notes that when people are confronted with the gravity of the situation, many people express disbelief, a reaction that the American Psychological Association, in its report Psychology and Global Climate Change, refers to as denial in the face of overwhelming and uncontrollable risk. Despite this reflexive response of avoidance, Miller maintains that [w]e have a moral responsibility to join together in our communities—universities, hospitals, parishes, dioceses—and communicate to our elected leaders (and to businesses that fund opposition to climate legislation) that we do not intend to be complicit, through silence, in the mass death of human populations and the mass extinction of species.

No comments:

Post a Comment