The Earth is not a math problem

Why a technocratic approach to the environment is doomed to fail

Earth.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

"The earth, our home," Pope Francis wrote, "is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth." That was five years ago. Many observers, not only in secular media but in "conservative" Catholic circles as well, misunderstood the point of his encyclical on the subject of what he calls "human ecology" by insisting that its theme was climate change.

This is a very narrow understanding of the great crisis of our age, the dimensions of which transcend graphs and their apparently alarming upward-sloping lines. The problem of human ecology that we are confronted with is the absorption of all creation into a sinuous continuum of decontextualized economic exchange. It has distinct but overlapping political, social, economic, and, of course, spiritual and ecological dimensions. Its urgency is such that the Holy Father has addressed many of his recent pronouncements not merely to the Catholic faithful but to all persons of good will throughout the world.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.