We Found It Very Good

Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment will be issued very soon, and I look forward to it.    Many aren’t, especially Catholics and other Christians wedded to the idea that global warming isn’t real and climate change isn’t happening as described by scientists involved in tracking such matters. 

For example, in The Tablet (March 28) an article entitled “Not everyone loves Francis” the author highlights a “small but determined group that is highly critical of him.”  That “group” tending to be conservative in nature, “questions his competency to assess the science of climate change.”  Being a marine fisheries manager/scientist now faced with changed fish distribution and apparent effects of climate change on fish abundance (such as cod) here in New England, I wonder. 

All I’ve been told so far by well-respected marine fisheries scientists I’ve known for many years is climate change is real and is evidenced by marked changes in the marine ecosystem off New England including reduced productivity.  NOAA Fisheries recently released its Draft Climate Science Strategy.   Consequently, it’s increasingly evident that something’s up – and it’s more than just ocean temperatures. 

Regardless of what the Pope is going to say, i.e., whether we agree or disagree, the fact of the matter is that we humans read in our Bible, “God said: ‘Let us make man is our image, after our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26) and “…God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good…” (Genesis 1:31).  This makes it clear that God has obliged us to care for creation.

However, Genesis (28) reports God also telling us, “…God blessed them [male and female] saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.  Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth…”  Taken at face value, I guess we humans have dominated, and what a mess we have made.

If we think “dominion” means rule with a harsh hand to enforce our will of careless exploitation, then God should have anticipated our ignorance and given us humans a divine thesaurus making it clear the caring for creation is not the same as dominating and ruining it.

Deacon David Pierce