Pope Francis: Americans’ ‘Irresponsible Lifestyle’ Fuels Climate Crisis

Pope Francis has thrown the moral authority of the papacy behind the so-called climate crisis, insisting that the world “is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point” due to global warming.

“Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident,” the pontiff writes in a new teaching letter titled Laudate Deum (Praise God).

“No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other cries of protest on the part of the earth that are only a few palpable expressions of a silent disease that affects everyone,” he writes in the letter published Wednesday.

The pope goes on to say that “what we are presently experiencing is an unusual acceleration of warming, at such a speed that it will take only one generation – not centuries or millennia – in order to verify it.”