Koch Versus The Pope

About the Series

Pope Francis released on July 18, 2015 an unprecedented encyclical on climate change and the environment entitled “Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home”. In the 180-page document the pope calls for the phase of fossil fuels, touts the benefits of small-scale community renewable energy projects and criticises the “regrettably few” advances made by world leaders to tackle climate change thus far.

The Pope didn’t hold back any punches as he challenged wealthy nations to take responsibility for the ecological impact of their consumption and pay their “grave social debt” to the poorer nations which are feeling the brunt of wealthier nations’ fossil fuel exploitation. The encyclical makes a compelling case for humanity’s moral responsibility to “protect our common home” by tackling the root causes of two of the greatest interlinked global crises of our time: climate change and poverty.

It warns: “We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now.”

Fearing the worst, Koch- and fossil fuel-backed climate denial groups including the Heartland Institute, CFACT and the Cornwall Alliance swiftly mounted an offensive starting in April ahead of the encyclical’s release, essentially telling the Pope to ‘butt out’. Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Jeb Bush also wasted no time in ironically telling the Catholic Church to leave climate change to the scientists. This DeSmogBlog series tracks the Koch-funded climate deniers’ attack on the Pope’s climate campaign.

Photo: Catholic Church of England and Wales via Flickr

In This Series

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The Roman Catholic Church did some catching up last week with a clear and definitive statement calling for decisive action on global greenhouse gas emissions. In Pope Francis’ “encyclical”, the ...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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Well, The Onion beat me to the punch on this with Frustrated Republicans Argue Pope Should Leave Science To Scientists Who Deny Climate Change, but here goes anyway. Rick Santorum has some advic...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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Pope Francis has released his long awaited encyclical, or teaching document, on climate justice and the environment, and it flies in the face of everything climate deniers stand for. The encycli...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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We've already seen Pope Francis cast as an action hero in an epic movie trailer for his encyclical on climate justice, but this might be the best take yet: The Pope gets up on stage to drop a few r...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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It is an open secret now that Pope Francis will deliver a papal encyclical on June 18 focusing heavily on the issue of energy consumption, climate change and “the unprecedented destruction of the e...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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Pope Francis will officially unveil his encyclical on climate change and human stewardship of the environment this Thursday, which can mean only one thing. The Koch Brothers and other fossil fue...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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This is a guest post by Charles J. Reid Jr., professor of law at the University of St. Thomas. It is a line repeated with tiresome regularity in right-wing circles: Pope Francis has no business pro...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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“The ideology surrounding environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn’t want to stop ruining the environment because they don’t want to give up their profits.” This is not the react...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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By Brendan Montague and Kyla Mandel in Vatican City, Italy The clowns of the climate denial travelling circus pitched their tent in Vatican City today to demand Pope Francis ignore the dangers of g...
Series: Koch vs Pope
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Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, has taken a very strong stance recently on the need to address climate change, to protect the environment and respect “God's creation.”  In an addre...
Series: Koch vs Pope