Pope: ‘Insatiable Consumption’ Depleting Earth’s Resources

Pope Benedict XVI hit a green note Thursday, pontificating (har har) about the environment to a crowd of pilgrims at the Roman Catholic Church’s youth festival in Sydney, Australia, and making good on his eco-friendly nickname, “the green pope.”

AP via MyWay News:

“Some of you come from island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising water levels; others from nations suffering the effects of devastating drought,” the pope said, referring to global warming.

He noted that during his more than 20-hour flight from Rome to Sydney he had a bird’s eye view of a vast swath of the world that inspired awe and introspection.

“Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption,” he said.

Types of “poison” are afflicting the world’s social environment, he said, such as substance abuse, along with the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation, for which he blamed television and the Internet.

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