Letter to Senate from Bishop Wenski on Climate Change Bill, June 2, 2008

Letter to Senate from Bishop Thomas G. Wenski on Climate Change Bill, June 2, 2008

As the Senate takes up vital climate change legislation, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) wants to remind you that “the debate about how the United States is responding to questions and challenges surrounding global climate change is a test and an opportunity for our nation.”∗ The Catholic Bishops of the United States insist that “at its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God's creation and the one human family.”  

As chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, I urge you and your Senate colleagues to focus in the coming debate and decisions on the three ethical priorities outlined in the bishops’ statement on climate change: 

• The moral and practical demands of prudence, which require wise action now to address problems that will grow in their magnitude and consequences: “Significant levels of scientific consensus – even in a situation with less than full certainty, where the consequences of not acting are serious – justifies, indeed can obligate, our taking action intended to avert potential dangers.”
• The focus should be on the “bold and generous action on behalf of the common good” rather than the demands of narrow interests. We need “a different kind of national discussion. Much of the debate on global climate change seems polarized and partisan … The search for the common good and the voices of poor people and poor countries sometimes are neglected.”
• A clear priority for the poor, who will bear the greatest burdens and pay the greatest price for the consequences and costs of climate change: “Action to mitigate global climate change must be built upon a foundation of social and economic justice that does not put the poor at greater risk.”

letter-to-senate-from-bishop-wenski-on-climate-change-bill-2008-06-02.pdf