Flourish and Decay Exploring Religion in Process

Still, we can experience their effects in polluted air and water in oil and wastes on our beaches in the loss of farmland, wetlands, and forests and in the decline of rivers and lakes. Opinions vary about the causes and the seriousness of environmental problems.

Greenhouse gases and chlorofluorocarbons affect the earth's atmosphere for many decades, regardless of where they are produced or used. Acid rain pours on countries that do not create it. Our problems are the world's problems and burdens for generations to come. The problems, however, reach far beyond our own neighborhoods and work-places. The effects of environmental degradation surround us: the smog in our cities chemicals in our water and on our food eroded topsoil blowing in the wind the loss of valuable wetlands radioactive and toxic waste lacking adequate disposal sites threats to the health of industrial and farm workers.

It calls us to examine how we use and share the goods of the earth, what we pass on to future generations, and how we live in harmony with God's creation. 1, 15, December 8, 1989Īt its core, the environmental crisis is a moral challenge.

Pope John Paul II, The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility, nos. new ecological awareness is beginning to emerge. An Invitation to Reflection and Action on Environment in Light of Catholic Social TeachingĪ Pastoral Statement of the United States Catholic Conferenceįaced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past.

Flourish and Decay Exploring Religion in Process