Too much Focus on Money Destroys the Environment: Cardinal Rodriguez

December 06, 2011: Excessive focus on money is destroying the environment and dehumanizing people, said Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, president of Caritas Internationalis. He was speaking at a panel discussion at the United Nations-sponsored climate change talks in Durban. Officials from nearly 200 countries are participating in ‘climate change talks between Nov. 28 to December 9.
The cardinal led a 20-person Caritas delegation to the talks to press for a reduction of emissions by more than 40 per cent by 2020 and for an agreement on behalf of poor countries that have been severely impacted by climate change.
In a panel discussion held on 1^st December with religious leaders on "What's God got to do with it?" when it comes to the issue of climate change, Cardinal Rodriguez said, "Our economic system and its search for money above all have dehumanized human beings. Religious groups have a duty to humanize them again."
Panellists, who represented Christian, Jewish and other faiths, argued that climate change is a moral issue, not just an environmental concern. Cardinal Rodriguez said climate talks two years ago in Copenhagen failed even to focus on the environment and instead only debated economic issues, resulting in a failed bid to create a worldwide agreement that would bind major industrial nations to emissions reductions. "Our tendency to search for money is destroying the environment," he said.
Religious communities have a duty to call attention to the importance of the human person, who is "at the center of creation," he said while international leaders were debating the extension of legal limits on the production of greenhouse gas emissions.