Citation
Leal-Filho, W. (2015), "Editorial", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 26 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-06-2015-0113
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 26, Issue 6.
MEQ welcomes papal encyclical on environment
Pope Francis has recently issued an unambiguous call for action in the face of global environmental degradation and climate change. The encyclical goes across all religions.
At the start of the document, the pope wrote, the Earth “is protesting for the wrong that we are doing to her, because of the irresponsible use and abuse of the goods that God has placed on her. We have grown up thinking that we were her owners and dominators, authorised to loot her. The violence that exists in the human heart, wounded by sin, is also manifest in the symptoms of illness that we see in the Earth, the water, the air and in living things.”
According to Pope Francis, our response to environmental degradation and climate change cannot only be defined by science, technology or economics. It is also a moral imperative. Pope Francis stressed that we should not overlook the fact that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable suffer most from the changes we are seeing today.
The pontiff calls on people to change their lifestyles and energy consumption or face grave consequences. Pope Francis also called for a new global political authority tasked with “tackling […] the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions.” His appeal echoed that of his predecessor, pope Benedict XVI, who in a 2009 encyclical proposed a kind of super-UN to deal with the world’s economic problems and injustices.
MEQ will continue to report on developments in respect of how we treat the environment, and disseminate research on how environmental quality can be up-kept, worldwide.
Enjoy your reading!
Walter Leal-Filho