Benedict The Green
So, what's left on the ideology menu? Fascism's nasty, communism's fatal, socialism's drab, Islamism's demanding… the only untainted game left in town for those who want to be anti-something or everything is environmentalism. Lots of old bores have gotten the religion. Canny chap that he is, Pope Benedict XVI knows a golden calf when he sees one, so he's making sure that the Church will not be caught offside. At Sunday's Angelus, he made a powerful plea for the environment:
"This coming Friday, 1 September, the Church in Italy will celebrate the first 'Day for the Protection of Creation', but today the great gift of God is exposed to serious dangers and lifestyles which can degrade it. Environmental pollution is making particularly unsustainable the lives of the poor of the world. In dialogue with Christians of various confessions, we must pledge ourselves to take care of creation and to share its resources in solidarity."
So, prepare to see more churches erecting solar panels and expect to see fewer cardinals being ferried around in SUVs. Meanwhile, frequent flier Al Gore was in Scotland. "The former presidential candidate said television networks in the world's biggest and most powerful democracies must do more to foster debate, which he said was crucial for democracy to flourish." As Tim Blair waspishly pointed out, "He may have a point; after all, the last time Al Gore was involved in a series of debates, it resulted in the election of George W. Bush." And there are more clouds on the horizon. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
"In former Vice President Al Gore's recent film 'An Inconvenient Truth,' the melting of Greenland's ice cap, along with a similar cap in the Antarctic, is portrayed as one of the greatest threats of global warming. If the layers of ice and snow holding billions of tons of water were to melt, scientists warn that global sea levels would rise by 40 feet, submerging lower Manhattan, the Netherlands and much of California.But to many of the people who live here in Greenland, the warming trend is a boon, not a threat."
You see, Greenland is turning green again: "Stefan Magnusson lives at the foot of a giant, melting glacier. Some think he's living on the brink of a cataclysm. He believes he''s on the cusp of creation. The 49-year-old reindeer rancher says a warming trend in Greenland over the past decade has caused the glacier on his farm to retreat 300 feet, revealing land that hasn't seen the light of day for hundreds of years, if not more. Where ice once gripped the earth, he says, his reindeer now graze on wild thyme amid the purple blooms of Niviarsiaq flowers ...'We are seeing genesis by the edge of the glacier,' he says. Genesis? Isn't that what Benedict believes in?
