President Obama to the U.N. Summit on Climate (9/23/14):
"For all the immediate challenges that we gather to address this week
-- terrorism, instability, inequality, disease -- there’s one issue that
will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any
other,
and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate....
"the climate is changing faster than our efforts to
address it. The alarm bells keep ringing. Our citizens keep marching. We
cannot pretend we do not hear them. We have to answer the call. We know
what we have to do to avoid irreparable harm. We have to cut carbon
pollution in our own countries to prevent the worst effects of climate
change. We have to adapt to the impacts that, unfortunately, we can no
longer avoid. And we have to work together as a global community to
tackle this global threat before it is too late....
"The
United States has made ambitious investments in clean energy, and
ambitious reductions in our carbon emissions....
"all
told, these advances have helped create jobs, grow our economy, and
drive our carbon pollution to its lowest levels in nearly two decades --
proving that there does not have to be a conflict between a sound
environment and strong economic growth....
"But let me be honest [Was he actually acknowledging that he had NOT been honest up to that point?]. None of this is without
controversy. In each of our countries, there are interests that will be
resistant to action. And in each country, there is a suspicion that if
we act and other countries don't that we will be at an economic
disadvantage. But we have to lead. That is what the United Nations and
this General Assembly is about.
"Now, the truth is, is that no
matter what we do, some populations will still be at risk. The nations
that contribute the least to climate change often stand to lose the
most. And that’s why, since I took office, the United States has
expanded our direct adaptation assistance eightfold, and we’re going to
do more.
Today, I’m directing our federal agencies to begin
factoring climate resilience into our international development programs
and investments....
"While you and I may
not live to see all the fruits of our labor, we can act to see that the
century ahead is marked not by conflict, but by cooperation; not by
human suffering, but by human progress; and that the world we leave to
our children, and our children’s children, will be cleaner and
healthier, and more prosperous and secure" [Insert "Imagine" at this point.].
Pope Benedict XVI's Message for the 2010 World Day of Peace (1/1/10)
"a correct understanding of the relationship between man and the environment will not end by absolutizing nature or by considering it more important than the human person. If the Church's magisterium expresses grave misgivings about notions of the environment inspired by ecocentrism and biocentrism, it is because such notions eliminate the difference of identity and worth between the human person and other living things. In the name of a supposedly egalitarian vision of the 'dignity' of all living creatures, such notions end up abolishing the distinctiveness and superior role of human beings. They also open the way to a new pantheism tinged with neo-paganism, which would see the source of man's salvation in nature alone, understood in purely naturalistic terms"
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