2 weeks Ago By Frederica Perera
On this Earth Day, the world is facing the increasingly harrowing effects of climate change. With the death of Pope Francis, we have also lost a powerful voice for action to protect our natural environment. Ten years ago, the pope surveyed the damage from pollution and climate change and summed up the irrefutable scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause.
Drawing on 2,000 years of Catholic teachings about caring for nature – and broader questions about the relationship between God, humans and the Earth – Pope Francis concluded that urgent action was needed to halt the destruction of the planet. He called for local, national and international agreements to protect the environment and assist low-income countries. Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical “Laudato si,” named for a line in Latin from St.
Francis of Assisi’s “ Canticle of the Creatures ,” which praises God by meditating on the goodness of the sun, Earth, water and other natural forces, gave a powerful push to global heads of state to adopt the landmark Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. As a scientist and health researcher for more than two decades, I have been focused on the health effects of fossil fuel emissions that have accelerated air and water pollution, frequent and severe storms, heat waves, wildfires and floods. Children around the world are more likely now to be born too soon or too small, and to suffer from asthma, learning and mental health problems.
Unless we act now, our grandchildren will suffer even more. Jay Parini April 21, 2025 In the words of Pope Francis: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us?” While the pope’s passing will be felt acutely, his voice was not alone. Leaders of every major faith tradition in the world have called for urgent climate action based on the same moral principles.
For those who, like me, are searching for guiding light in this dark time, we can find it in their writings. Francis’ message was welcomed and echoed by leaders of other faiths worldwide. Environmental conservation has been a lifelong guiding principle for the 14th Dalai Lama , Tenzin Gyatso, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism.
As early as 1992, he addressed the global leaders’ gathering at the Rio Earth Summit. He was the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate recognized, in part, for his work on environmental preservation in 1989. In the closing line of a 2018 book compiling his conversations with leaders on climate change, the Dalai Lama declared : “The earth is our home, and our home is on fire.
” He has also called on governments around the world to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy. “I’m a monk, so I have no children,” he wrote in 2020, “but people who have children have to think about how life will be for them and their grandchildren.” The 2015 Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change called on Muslims around the world and people of all faiths to take urgent climate action to phase out all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and commit to using 100% renewable energy.
The core of the declaration was a body of ethics, based on the Quran, that defined our place in Creation as stewards of the Earth. The declaration asked: “What will future generations say of us, who leave them a degraded planet as our legacy?” An international Jewish Climate Change Campaign , announced in 2009 and reaffirmed in 2015, was another call to action to respond to the challenges of climate change and environmental degradation. In 2020, citing Elijah’s Covenant , more than 500 rabbis, cantors and other Jewish leaders and teachers urged Jews to act on the climate crisis and to seek environmental justice: “Our children and grandchildren face deep misery and death unless we act.
They have turned their hearts toward us. Our hearts, our minds, our arms and legs, are not yet fully turned toward them.” In 2006, the leaders of 86 Evangelical U.
S. churches issued “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action,” which stated that “since 1995 there has been general agreement among those in the scientific community ..
. that climate change is happening and is being caused mainly by human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels.” The leaders urged then President George W.
Bush to take urgent action not just for our generation, but also to avert further climate destruction that will harm our children and grandchildren. Justin Angle Jan. 13, 2025 The Hindu Declaration on Climate Change of 2009 also focused on stewardship and our responsibility to those who come after us: “Climate change is a stark symptom of the deeper problem of humanity living out of balance with what .
.. our shared planet can renewably provide.
” It concluded that a transition towards using 100% clean energy is desperately needed and that we “must do all that is humanly possible to protect the Earth and her resources for the present as well as future generations.” Spiritual leaders around the globe have continued to sound this clear message. In 2023, Francis delivered another urgent call for the world to transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy, saying that “what is being asked of us is nothing other than a certain responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind, once we pass from this world.
” Francis has now passed from this world, but his urgent message and that of other spiritual and faith leaders continues to light our way. Government leaders in the U.S.
and around the world must heed their words and follow these leading lights in taking action to protect our planet, humanity and future generations. Frederica P. Perera is a special research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and founder of the Center for Children's Environmental Health, where she served as director for 21 years, at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
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