Pollution: A Sin

Last weekend, the Vatican’s official in charge of exploring new forms of sin, Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, outlined a range of modern sins that the Church would now officially condemn. In addition to activities such as drug trafficking and stem cell research, Girotti pointed to “ecological” offenses as one of the most pressing new forms of sin.

An institution that has undergone a significant green transformation, the Vatican and its leaders have made numerous calls in recent months to combat climate change. In fact, the Vatican recently went so far as to host an international conference on how to reduce the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels. In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively "green".

It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels.

Girotti, who is number two in the Vatican "Apostolic Penitentiary," which deals with matter of conscience, also listed drug trafficking and social and economic injustices as modern sins.

But Girotti also bemoaned that fewer and fewer Catholics go to confession at all.

He pointed to a study by Milan's Catholic University that showed that up to 60 percent of Catholic faithful in Italy stopped going to confession.

In the sacrament of Penance, Catholics confess their sins to a priest who absolves them in God's name.

But the same study by the Catholic University showed that 30 percent of Italian Catholics believed that there was no need for a priest to be God's intermediary and 20 percent felt uncomfortable talking about their sins to another person.

Who is Going Greener?

A couple of days ago, I found an article about China being the leader at developing green tech. The article mentions that Asian countries are the ones developing this type of energy quicker. Countries like China, Korean and Japan have invested a lot of money in different types of clean energy, like wind turbines, solar energy, etc. I thought that the United States was ahead of every other country. But the fact is that it is not anymore. The article explained that the USA has focused its investments in recovering from the economic crisis. Since Asia was not affected by this crisis, countries like China focus their money on making these types of energy grow.

I think this has a lot to do with the class because we can see another way the economic crisis affected certain countries. Green technology is the technology of the future. In the next years, we will be needing technology that not only satisfies our needs but also that helps us save our planet. This was mentioned by a report of Breakthrough Institute. This really called my attention because the Breakthrough Institute is a think tank in Oakland. It was nice to find a term learned in class applied in the outside world.

I think it is really interesting how economy shapes everything in a country, for instance its technology. The United States has always being very competitive at being the first at developing something. For example, the arms race, the space race and now the green race. I think they have made a race out of it because it is urgent to find ways of not harming our planet anymore. The sooner, the better. We do not know how much time we have left before it is too late.

Mexico is trying its best to go green. Unfortunately, our economy and our culture are the ones stopping this movement. Economy is a matter where neither of us can do much. On the other hand, we can change our culture. Obviously it is not going to be easy, but we still have to do our best. If we care for our planet, it is up to us to make the rest of the people conscious. At school, we have the student group Greenology. As a member of this group, I have the responsibility of inviting the rest of the students to care about our world.

Everyone is trying to do their best to help the Earth out. But how do we know that what we are doing is enough? The truth is that we cannot be sure that our actions will work; but at least we can try. Asian countries may be the ones finding the solution to our problem. Whatever they discover or invent will benefit humanity and everything that lives on Earth.