Vatican envoy calls UN to “ecological conversion”

(27 Oct. 2006) : “The world needs an ecological conversion so as to examine critically current models of thought, as well as those of production and consumption," said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations in New York on Wednesday. "The environmental question is not only an important ethical and scientific problem but a political and economic problem too, as well as a bone of contention in the globalization process in general," the prelate said in his English-language address to the 61^st session of the United Nations’ General Assembly on the theme of ‘sustainable development’.
Economic growth cannot be sustained, the archbishop reasoned, if the natural resources needed for life and growth are not preserved. So he argued that, "rather than being external or marginal to the economy, environmental concerns have to be understood by policy makers as the basis upon which all economic-– and even human-- activity rests." Archbishop Migliore recommended that governments place greater emphasize on "renewable energy, fuels, and clean technologies." All economic actors, he said, should "do much more to stop and reverse current trends in consumption and pollution." He urged a "serious public investment in clean technology," and even recommended efforts to find "cleaner air and sea transport technologies."