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Benedict XVI says that neither the poor nor future generations should pay the price for current waste of shared resources, and he urged governments to take responsibility for the environment. The Pope gave this exhortation in a video message taken from a general audience by which he addressed the U.N. summit on climate change. The meeting was a lead-up to this December’s event in Copenhagen.
Japanese weathermen predict that global warming will spawn ‘supertyphoons’ in the second half of this century that will hit coastal Japan, causing unprecedented damages. However, typhoons and tropical storms have already sown death and destruction in the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Vietnam.
Countries tackling food insecurity and climate change adaptation can greatly benefit from agroforestry – integrating fleshy plants and trees into their farming systems, environmental specialists say. Those in Sub-Saharan Africa, that have a history of food insecurity brought on by meager rains, land degradation, declining soil fertility and bad management of resources, would have much to gain.
Where God is respected, so is nature, affirmed Benedict XVI. Noting the gift of nature, and the “phenomena of environmental degradation and natural calamities,” the Pontiff recalled the need for mankind to enter into “a correct relation with the environment.” And noted: “A new sensitivity to these topics is being developed, which arouses the correct concern of the authorities and of public opinion, which is also expressed in the multiplication of meetings at the international level.” Benedict XVI called the earth “a precious gift of the Creator,” and said “we must hold ourselves as stewards of His creation.”
Christians in Pakistan are working against the controversial law on blasphemy. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Pakistani Bishops’ Conference, has called for the signing of a petition to be presented to the government, calling for an abolition of the law. Specifically speaking, they refer to Articles 295 (b) and (c) and 298 (a), (b), and (c) of the Pakistani Penal Code, which have to do with the laws over blasphemy which are often used against religious minorities like Christians and Ahmadi. The Code condemns “any, who with words or writings, gestures, or visible manifestations, direct or indirect insinuations, insult the sacred name of the Prophet.” The punishment for violating the law is life in prison or the death penalty.
Asia faces an unprecedented food crisis and huge social unrest unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems to grow crops for its burgeoning population, according to a UN report quoted by the British newspaper The Guardian. India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant state-sponsored irrigation systems and introduced better seeds and fertilizers. But the extra 1.5 billion people expected to live on the continent by 2050 will double Asia’s demand for food, says the report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank-funded International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
Long-term development in East Timor – which celebrated the tenth anniversary of its vote for independence on August 29 – will be “seriously hindered” if justice for past crimes remains undelivered, the international development agency Progressio has warned. Despite a decade of self-rule, East Timor is still the poorest country in the region and one of the least developed nations in the world. An estimated 40% of the East Timorese people live on less than a dollar a day.
Massive subsidies and quotas for biofuels are wreaking social and environmental havoc and in many cases actually exacerbating climate change, says a new Christian Aid report. Titled “Growing Pains,” the study demands a radical overhaul of governments’ multi-billion dollar support for biofuels, so that only crops which offer genuine greenhouse gas savings and wider social benefits are encouraged.
Child laborers working in Malawi’s tobacco plantations are being exposed to dangerous levels of nicotine, tobacco dust, abuse and exploitation, says a new study by Plan, a UK-based international children’s charity, titled “Hard work, little pay and long hours.” According to the report, child pickers are subjected to high levels of nicotine poisoning – the equivalent of 50 cigarettes per day. “You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest; then blood comes when you vomit,” one child told researchers.
Industrialized nations owe the poorer countries a US $2.3 trillion “ecological debt,” said a University of California study, and it should be assessed and penalized by an international court, an ecumenical gathering heard. “Ecological debt keeps growing,” Joan Martinez Alier, a university professor in Barcelona, told the World Council of Churches hearing in Geneva, held during a meeting of the WCC’s main governing body, Ecumenical News International reported. “The demand for economic growth means more use of energy and resources, which produces more waste.”
