Pope Summons Scientists to Shape Climate Change Debate

By John Follain, Bloomberg Business

Pope Francis summoned scientists, government officials and religious leaders to a villa in the manicured Vatican Gardens on Tuesday as he stepped into the heated climate-change debate.

“Climate change is a defining issue of our time,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told attendees at the Vatican conference. “It is a moral issue, it is an issue of social justice, human rights and fundamental ethics.”

The conference, which is being held under the auspices of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, precedes a papal encyclical scheduled for publication in June. The encyclical, a letter to the world’s bishops but with broader resonance because of the pope’s moral and political authority, will aim to influence a UN summit in Paris at the end of the year, at which nations may pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The pontiff’s action on climate change “is the most aggressive of any pope,” John Thavis, author of “The Vatican Diaries”, said in a telephone interview. “Francis won’t just repeat platitudes in the encyclical about our being stewards of creation, he wants to engage scientific and political leaders, and influence public policy.”

“Corporations and financial investors must learn to put long-term sustainability over short-term profit and to recognize that the financial bottom line is secondary to and at the service of the common good,” Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told the scientists, government representatives, religious leaders and business figures attending Tuesday’s conference.
Secret Encyclical

Although the encyclical is so far secret, the official program for the Vatican conference offers some clues as to what the leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics will write.

The notes say the meeting’s goal is to raise awareness “with a special focus on the most vulnerable” and “to elevate the debate on the moral dimensions of protecting the environment”. It also seeks to build “a global movement across all religions for sustainable development.”

The outcome, the notes add, will be a joint statement on “the moral and religious imperative” of sustainable development, underscoring “respect for people - especially the poor, the excluded, victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, children and future generations.”

These themes echo the 78-year-old pope’s call for “a poor church for the poor” just after his election in March 2013, and his choice of the papal name “Francis,” itself harking back to Saint Francis of Assisi. The saint lived in poverty and was declared the patron saint of ecology by Pope John Paul II in 1979 for his love of animals and the environment.

According to Vatican watchers, the pope is expected to insist that both rich and developing nations have an obligation to act and fund measures against climate change, despite several developing countries blaming richer nations for the problem.
Moral Issues

“For Francis climate change has a scientific side, but we all have to discuss the moral issues too. He sees climate change weighing the most on the poorest people, and he’ll likely say that developing countries have the political and economic power to act,” Thavis said.

Even before he publishes his encyclical the pope - who trained as a chemist before entering the priesthood - has drawn fire from critics who say he has no business meddling in a scientific issue like climate change.

“The Pope has no special knowledge, insight or teaching authority pertaining to matters of empirical fact of the sort investigated by, for example, physicists and biologists,” Robert George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, wrote in the Christian journal First Things in January.
High Hopes

For Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, senior analyst with the National Catholic Reporter newspaper, the pope has very high hopes for his encyclical. “The pope wants to make the environment one of the signature issues of his papacy,” Reese wrote last week.

Reese recalled the pope’s comments to journalists shortly after his election. The pope explained he had chosen the name Francis partly because St Francis was “the man who loves and protects creation.” The pope added: “These days we do not have a very good relationship with creation, do we?”

In January 2014, he told diplomats at the Vatican: “God always forgives, we sometimes forgive, but when nature -- creation -- is mistreated, she never forgives.”

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The planet’s e-waste problem is out of control — and getting worse | SALON

By Lindsay Abrams

The world generated 41.8 million metric tons of e-waste in 2014 alone

Humans generated an astounding 41.8 million metric tons (Mt) of electronic waste in 2014. And we recycled less than 14 percent of it.

A new report from the United Nations University puts new, shocking numbers on our growing production of “e-waste,” which is defined as all electrical and electronic equipment, from cell phones to appliances, that’s tossed away as trash. Figuring out what to do with these products, it stresses, is a massive problem for both developing and developed countries. And it’s projected to get worse.

Here’s the breakdown of our most recent year in e-dumping, according to UNU:

12.8 million metric tons of small equipment (such as vacuum cleaners, microwaves, toasters, electric shavers and video cameras);

• 11.8 million metric tons of large equipment (including washing machines, clothes dryers, dishwashers, electric stoves, and photovoltaic panels);
• 7.0 million metric tons of temperature-exchange (cooling and freezing equipment);
• 6.3 million metric tons of screens;
• 3.0 million metric tons of small ICT equipment; and
• 1.0 million metric tons of lamps.

By 2018, the amount of e-waste is expected to surge 21 percent, to 50 million Mt, the report finds — a product of the many new electronic products being sold coupled with their shortening lifespans. We’re not building electronics to last, is the implication, and yet we’ve failed to come up with a sufficient strategy for dealing with outdated products once we’ve moved on to the next, newer model.

There are two ways of looking at these mountains of waste. One is as what UNU calls an “urban mine”: The 2014 e-waste stream, according to the report, represents $52 billion in “potentially reusable resources,” boasting 16,500 kilotons of iron, 1,900 kilotons of copper and 300 metric tons of gold — equivalent to 11 percent of the world’s total gold production in 2013.

But our e-waste can also be seen as what UNU calls a “toxic mine”: it contains metals and chemicals that can leach into the environment from landfills. The report estimates that we discarded 2.2 Mt of lead glass, 0.3 Mt of batteries, along with mercury, cadmium, chromium, which are potentially carcinogenic, and are associated with other health problems like impaired mental development and liver and kidney development. It documented some 4,400 tonnes chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs), which harm the ozone layer, as well.

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Why Lack Of Toilets Is Killing Millions | Test tube

Over 1 billion people are forced to defecate in the open due to a severe lack of toilet facilities, and the consequences are deadly. Could this be the world's next major public health crisis?

`Ghost nets’ causing immense damage to marine life | IndiLeak

By IndiLeak

Kochi: Even if this is being done unintentionally or out of sheer ignorance , the fact remains that the same is causing immense damage to marine fauna.

Predatory species like turtles are lured into the nets by the fish already caught and then become entangled themselves

Sample this: A report states that fishing nylon nets lost or abandoned, that are also called “Ghost Nets” which drift in the sea are actually harming sea life especially the highly endangered Olive Ridley Turtle of Odisha.

According to a report prepared by a citizen science-based ‘Olive Ridley Project’ to overcome the problem of ‘ghost nets’ in the Indian Ocean states that during the north-east monsoon thousands of Olive Ridley sea turtles migrating for nesting on Odisha coast are at risk owing to these ghost nets.

“Predatory species like turtles are lured into the nets by the fish already caught and then become entangled themselves. Often unable to break free from the mesh, they drown or slowly starve to death,” the report stated.

“The nets are made out of strong plastic-type material and persist in the water for a very long time, killing and killing again,” says the report published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

It states that the ‘ghost nets’ are pushed mostly from India’s waters across the Indian Ocean by East-West or West-East currents – depending on the monsoon – and many end up on the islands of the Maldives archipelago which spreads along a North-South line.
“Ghost nets from the Maldives have been found to have the same measurements of nets used in India,” says the report.

Here it may be noted that in the Maldives, the nets are totally banned and fishing is done by pole and line –a traditional, eco-friendly fishing method.

These floating ghost nets trap other nets, plastic and organic debris, as well as a range of fish, turtles, sea birds and marine mammals.

“Between July 2013-July 2014, at least 107 nets were found (in the Indian Ocean) and 74 analysed (in the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka). It is likely that many more floated by unseen,” the report further said.

These nets will often travel by ocean currents to considerable distances and have devastating effect on marine life.

“This means that their detrimental effects can be prevalent far from their original point of entry into the water. They will entangle many threatened animals along the way,” the report added.

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