CLIMATE CHANGE UNIT 4 AOS 2 Flashcards
What is the challenge of climate change?
How Roman Catholics should respond to the present ecological climate change challenge now facing the world (God’s Creation).
What is the category - theology, ethics and/or continued existence?
It relates to the Roman Catholic theological belief in God as the Creator, the ‘maker of heaven and earth’ (Nicene Creed).
It relates to how Catholics should behave in relation to the environment and so is an ethical issue.
When and where the challenge occurred or is occurring?
The ecological climate change challenge has been increasing significantly since the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 19th Century, but has expanded rapidly throughout the world in the past century.
Why is the challenge significant for the Catholic Church?
- humans are called to nurture the environment as it is our common home and God the creator has created this earth so we can be stewards and tend to the earth rather than abuse its resources
What are the three stances taken by the catholic church against this challenge?
- stewardship
- integral ecology
- dominion
What is the stance of stewardship?
Stewardship is a stance that means looking after God’s Creation – acting like ‘stewards’ to the world around them. This was the natural way all people related to the world around them until the rapid changes heralded by the Industrial Revolution
What is the stance of dominion?
It was believed that humans had been instructed by God to have dominion (power) over Creation, and to subdue it for their own purposes was what God intended. (became relevant after the industrial revolution as it was self serving)
What is the church’s present stance on the challenge?
The understanding that nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.
- all Creation is inter-connected and that nature is not separate from us, not ‘a mere setting in which we live’ (par 139). We live within the world, and so how we treat the world directly affects us and future generations.
what are the two main approaches to acting for change?
- advocacy
- service
What is the act of service in relation to pushing for change?
SERVICE is when we take direct action related
to the change that we want.
The intention is to
make practical changes in the present time.
What is the act of advocacy in relation to pushing for change?
ADVOCACY is when we speak out to challenge decisions
that are being made which lead to the problems in the first place.
The intention is to make structural change for the future.
Name one service response the Pope encourages.
- Pope Francis calls for the immediate replacement of “technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels
Name one advocacy responses the Pope suggests.
Pope Francis challenges us to see every act of consuming as a moral act that involves gifts of creation (air, land, and water) and the dignity of workers and local cultures
What stance has the Religious Tradition taken towards the challenge?
The Roman Catholic tradition, under the leadership of Pope Francis, has joined with other religious traditions and secular organisations in demanding change.
In his encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ the particular stance he takes, informed by Catholic teaching, is INTEGRAL ECOLOGY.
What aspects relate to this challenge?
Laudato Si is a significant papal (written by a Pope) encyclical and so is a TEXT.
- The whole debate is about our behaviour in the world, and how Catholics in particular should behave because of their belief that ‘God is the Creator of all that is’ [Nicene Creed] … BELIEF.
And because it is about how we should behave and the choices Catholics should make, the debate is also centrally about … ETHICS.
