It gives me no pleasure to identify the essential problem at the heart of Pope Francis's recent Apostolic Exhortation, Laudate Deum: it condemns the economic progress produced by the Industrial Revolution from the mid-19th century to the present. That progress has made life better for the very people the Holy Father wishes to help.
No doubt some environmental impacts could occur and that they would naturally be mixed. These are called tradeoffs. Increased energy use driven by increased productivity did increase greenhouse gas emissions, for example. But further technological advances mitigated those effects, and recent studies indicate that these positive trends are increasing. This is a recurring pattern. REV.
The most frustrating thing I see in Laudate Deum is the lost opportunity it represents. There is no end to the plethora of studies, books, papers, and articles produced by the scientific community on the challenges presented by economic growth and its impact on the environment. Indeed, the pope cites many of them in his exhortation. What is sadly missing, however, and the unique contribution the pope might have made, comes from his own competency – what economists call comparative advantage.
This is ironic in that the solution that the pope seeks ultimately comes down to this very competency: converting the moral environment, whether it be that of the 'technocratic paradigm' that he condemns , or the political remedy seen in the sequence of climate conferences for which he holds great hope and enumerates -- yet he admits that these efforts have largely failed.
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