News Journal: Pope Francis changed the climate debate for the good

Thursday’s release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on man-made climate change is a big deal on a number of levels. One of his biographers, Austen Iverveigh said, “This will be his signature document and it’s been on his mind from the very beginning. This is the soul of Pope Francis. This is him.”

I suspect by the end of this year we will look back on the encyclical as the decisive catalyst that changed the mainstream debate from “does it exist?” “to “what we should do about it?”

I have devoted any number of past columns to the overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of climate change. The intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s massive report on 30,000 scientific climate change studies said with 95 percent certainty that nearly all warming seen since the 1950s is man-made. All 200 major scientific societies around the world have issued public statements that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activity. 97 percent of all peer-reviewed articles by climate scientists agree about the human causes of global warming. Actuaries in every insurance company in the world factor in climate change when setting rates. Our State and Defense Departments are knee-deep in studies about how best to handle the catastrophic disruptions that rising sea levels and global warming may cause.

And yet. It has become increasingly obvious that a certain percentage of Americans simply don’t or won’t listen to the scientists. So I think Katharine Hayhoe, who has a Ph.D. in atmospheric science and is Director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, has it right when she says, “The reality is climate change is not a scientific issue any longer. It is an ideological issue. We have to appeal to people based on values. Not just on data and facts. And for me as a scientist to say that is very unusual, so from that perspective the pope is a very effective messenger.”

Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climatologist who says he is not a religious person, agrees with Dr. Hayhoe, saying, “The pope’s encyclical is probably going to have a bigger impact than the Paris negotiations.”

Dr. Schmidt was referring to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in December in Paris, where world leaders are supposed to sign a binding agreement to reduce global greenhouse emissions. Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, who participated in the drafting of Thursday’s encyclical, confirmed that its release before the Paris conference was significant. “2015,” he said, “is a critical year for humanity.”

Cardinal Turkson was acknowledging other important meetings being held before the Paris conference. In July, the Third International Conference on Financing for Development will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Sustaining Third World development while still reducing greenhouse emissions will be on the agenda. In September, the U.N. General Assembly is expected to agree on a new set of sustainable development goals running until 2030.

Finally, in December, the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris will consider the plans and commitments of each member government to slow or reduce global warming. What happens there will have a profound effect on the future of our planet, and the timing of Pope Francis’ encyclical recognizes that.

Although the encyclical urges all of us to accept the scientific consensus on the reality of global warming, it is not itself a detailed scientific analysis. Instead, it is the pope’s reflection on humanity’s responsibility as custodians of the Earth God has given us.

“Faced with the global deterioration of the planet,” Pope Francis writes, “I want to address every person who inhabits this planet…In this encyclical, I especially propose to enter into discussions with everyone concerning our common home.”

Of course, as a Catholic, I consider the pope a uniquely effective messenger. But what he said on Thursday will have an impact that goes well beyond the billion-member Church he leads.

Everyone. Our common home. The only Earth we have. I’m genuinely hopeful that Pope Francis’ encyclical will help end the ideological debate about the existence of man-made climate change and bring us together in a common effort to reduce its impact.

Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. Senator from Delaware.