Who Needs an Ecological Conversion? – and a Canonization Note, by Robert Royal

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing, October 14, 2019

We begin today – the delightfully incoherent “Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day” in the United States – with several questions. Where has environmental harm to rivers, air, and soil been most reversed? And where is it now most difficult for factories to pollute streams, for farms to allow fertilizer and pesticide runoff to poison local flora and fauna, and for both companies and individuals to put soot and other unhealthy particulates into the air? And where, too, are the strongest advocates for taking care of both the 7-billion people on the planet, and the global ecosystem on which we all depend?

Many people won’t like the answer: it is in the rich, developed, capitalist countries of the world. They aren’t perfect, because perfection in these matters is not possible. An intelligent environmentalism always looks at tradeoffs: What development will produce jobs for people; where do we locate heavy industries, necessary for our prosperity, so that they have the least harmful effects? And most important of all: How much do we spend now on installing relatively undeveloped renewable sources of energy, when investing in promising research will, in the longer run, give us far better overall outcomes? ….

Read more:  https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/10/14/who-needs-an-ecological-conversion-and-a-canonization-note/