Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

Hurricane Ida was supercharged by the warmer-than-usual waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane caused $20 billion in damage and vast suffering. Was its power strengthened by climate change?

The dozens of uncontrolled wildfires in California have burnt hundreds of square miles. Has the historical western drought been worsened by climate change?

Our bishops wrote a statement this past Wednesday, September 1, 2021 for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. https://www.usccb.org/resources/Statement%20on%20Upcoming%20World%20Day%20of%20Prayer%20for%20the%20Care%20of%20Creation,%20September%201,%202021.pdf

The bishops did not link recent weather events to climate change. They did say that climate change is one of the most serious moral challenges we face. Our Christian response is to form our ecological conscience.

To form our conscience, we must first repent. The bishops write, “There is no room for denying the human impact on the climate nor for delaying further action! About the past, we should repent.”

Forming our conscience means informing it with the light of faith and reason. “For Catholics, faith and reason work together in the pursuit of the truth.” The bishops invite us to consider the findings of the recent report of the United Nations. https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/

Some of the reports’ findings:

“Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century.” The world is getting hotter and will continue getting hotter. Deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions can lower how hot it gets. It would take around 20 years to make a difference.

“Many changes in the climate system become larger in direct relation to increasing global

warming.” The hotter it gets, the more heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and intense storms, and the less Arctic sea ice, snow cover and permafrost.

“Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level.” Some of these things will not return to normal. They will get worse and stay worse for many, many lifetimes.

With a properly formed ecological conscience, we make prudent judgments and take action.

Our bishops note the ambitious climate policies currently proposed and enacted by Congress, many with support from both political parties. They appeal to Congress to work collaboratively and courageously on environmental problems with ingenuity and development. They pray for climate scientists, the November UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, and “especially for all creatures and people affected by climate change, especially the most poor and needy among us.”

Pope Benedict wrote that the Church must speak up. “The Church has a responsibility towards creation, and she considers it her duty to exercise that responsibility in public life, in order to protect earth, water

and air as gifts of God the Creator meant for everyone, and above all to save mankind from the danger of self-destruction” (World Day of Peace, January 1, 2010, no. 12).

Not only must we form our individual consciences. For the care of God’s creation, we must be the conscience of our society.

In Christ,

Father David