Morning Fog

Papal Effects On The Environment

The Pope's recent encyclical on saving the planet is ground-breaking simply by the subject matter chosen, so perhaps for that reason alone, it has attracted a lot of attention. 

There has been a lot of negative reaction.  The Pope?  Environment?  The juxtaposition doesn't compute, it's not his business, he can't blame capitalism for the deteriorating state of our air, water, and earth.  A lot of this comes from the same people who are challenged in the encyclical:  climate-change deniers, for example, and commercial-industrial interests who suggest that a profitable end justifies any means.

However, environmentalists have good reason to be pleased by most of the points the Pope makes, and The National Catholic Reporter approves the Pop's message and interprets it as a "challenge to the rich." 

I think it's great for the Pope to express his view.  He unquestionably has global influence, and if he can help to make saving the environment a moral issue, he may be able to add impetus and urgency to the movement toward change. 

Perhaps, though, he has missed a trick.  His suggestions - and those of many other environmental activists - really treat the symptoms of our environmental problems rather than the root cause.  For example, I myself often rail against "Big Oil" and the profits they reap, yet at the same time I have to acknowledge that they couldn't keep on doing what they do without the excuse of a very real and seemingly insatiable demand for energy.  Burning fossil fuels is a symptom, but overextended human population growth is the root cause of nearly all the various ways in which we homos-not-so-sapiens foul our own nest.

That's why I read the lengthy "Laudato si" encyclical in full.  [Evidently the authoritative final English version isn't yet available but you can find a translation of the pre-release version, dated May 24, on www.papalencyclicals.net.]  It's a page-turner (really!) with a lot of good thinking on environmental issues, but given the centrality of population in the save-the-world equation, I particularly wanted to see whether Francis might consider revoking/revising the 1968 encyclical referred to as "Humanae vitae," which reaffirmed the Roman Catholic church's ban on artificial birth control. That would indeed be a find, something to get excited about!

I don't expect to find it, and I didn't. Instead, there was this, in Paragraph 120:

Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away”.

Well, I suppose that's palpably and predictably papal.  But for me, particularly if "everything is interrelated," how can we possibly exclude rampant population growth from consideration as we seek to pin down the relationship between the finite and the infinite?

 

Greece Makes For A Slippery Slope

Greece's economic crisis -- too much borrowing, too little GDP -- has roiled international markets and now in light of Greek voters' rejection of the additional belt-tightening measures prescribed by the EU, could threaten the stability of the EU (according at least to some Cassandras). 

I don't think the EU will really fall apart over this. Not immediately, at least.  First, because Greece still has the option to negotiate a deal that is more to its liking - if the country's leaders are realistic about how far the new popular mandate extends.  Even if Greece pushes itself into abandoning the EU ship, that's not necessarily fatal to the Union.  There will be discomfort.  There will be adjustment.  There may be recriminations...

Ah yes, recriminations.  I'm no economist but I in my view whatever harm does befall the European Union will be its just desserts.  Greece was not ready for membership in 1981 and ought not to have been included until its economy was on a sounder footing.  I'd argue the decision was primarily a political one, maybe to some extent also a nostalgic one (Greece was the cradle of western civilization, they said) but it could have been made only while wearing a pair of very dark-tinted rose spectacles.

Long-term, there may be a greater danger to EU unity.  As Robert Samuelson has pointed out, several other EU countries, as well as the U.S. and Japan, face somewhat similar economic imbalances (basically, debt too high) with limited options for overcoming them.  Greece is the basket case now but we should all hope it doesn't turn out to be the leading edge of a huge wave.

 

What Should Cuba Give?

With the announcement that Cuba and the U.S. will soon exchange ambassadors and reopen embassies in each other's capitals comes another spate of grousing.  Opponents of normalization say that we ought to have exacted concessions of some kind from the Cuban government in exchange.

I'm not of that school.  Almost sixty years ago we decided to try to isolate Cuba as a way of "punishing" Castro for his effrontery.  Breaking off relations, putting in place a strict embargo on trade and tourism -- these were the tools that would bring him around, moderate his behavior, maybe even cause his fledgling revolutionary government to fail.  Or, viewed from a slightly different angle, you might say that we expected to change his "behavior" (a word that incidentally, has no legitimate place in diplomacy).

We've seen how that worked out.  Isolation can be counterproductive.  It left us without any influence or channels of communication, and made Cuba totally dependent on and influenced by, the Soviets. It cut off trade and tourism, to no one's particular benefit, and virtually guaranteed that Cuba would try to export communism to other parts of Latin America. 

Now, those who oppose normalization suggest that, having failed to leverage any concessions after six decades of embargo, we can now  "require" Cuba to make changes we want as the political quid pro quo for our abandoning our (unsuccessful) embargo.  That is inconsistent, to say the least.

I wouldn't rule out that the Castro government could be pushed to take a couple of steps in our direction, especially to pave the way for a visit by Secretary of State Kerry, or even by President Obama.  But for now, I think, the reestablishment of dialogue is the main prize.  Diplomacy is about talking.  If, as many analysts suggest, Castroism is on the verge of total collapse, we'll be in a better position if we're on the ground beforehand, ready to talk to elements hoping for change.