Climate crisis, reflection meeting in Cagliari

Day of reflection today in Cagliari focused on the climate crisis. At the Volunteer Service Center in Viale Monastir, the Acli Sardegna organized a meeting that started from the apostolic exhortation "Laudate Deum" by Pope Francis - which completes what was already stated in the Encyclical "Laudato si'" - to launch an alarm and a call to co-responsibility in the face of the emergency of climate change, before it is too late.

After greetings from the regional president of the Acli Mauro Carta, it was His Excellency Giuseppe Baturi, Archbishop of Cagliari and general secretary of the CEI, who introduced the topic.

«With this exhortation the Pope says it clearly: if we want to be interested in man we must be interested in the environment. Equally, anyone who wants to be interested in migrants and the poor cannot fail to be interested in the climate issue; we saw it with Morocco, even before the earthquake there had been little rainfall for years and this will probably mean further movements of people", said Baturi.

The prelate then quoted the exhortation, paragraph 25: «We cannot even say that nature is a mere "framework" in which to develop our lives and our projects, because we are included in it, we are part of it and we are part of it. interpenetrated , so that the world is not contemplated from the outside but from the inside. We must take care of the environment because this is not an aesthetic element: nature is an element of creation that has been presented since genesis. The Pope adopts some scientific data - interestingly, the Pope speaks clearly about the upcoming COP in Dubai - and says that the crisis of nature depends on man; the idea that is spreading is that man will be able to solve this problem by further developing his power but the Pope says no, we must all rethink human power, its meaning and its limits".

Monsignor Baturi continued: «What ethical purposes does power have today? Who defines power? With what criteria, for example, do we choose banks? I'm talking about us because the Pope says that there is a macro responsibility, of those who exercise "macro power" at a high level, but also of each of us. “In one's own conscience - says the Pope in paragraph 33 - and in front of the children who will pay for the damages of their actions, the question of meaning arises: what is the meaning of my life, what is the meaning of my passage on this earth, what is ultimately the meaning of my work and my commitment?".

The second intervention was that of Valter Piscedda , member of the environmental commission of the regional council: «The Pope's call to action is clear, to act today. Even in Sardinia we have seen how nature is suffering: today in late October there is unusual heat, a few years ago in the same period there were environmental disasters. We must also take responsibility for the future, as individuals and as a community. I quote the Holy Father: "No one is saved alone" and technology will not be enough, for which there is still a problem of "access", but human will is needed. Even at a local level - continued the regional councilor - we must understand, for example, how to relate to energy production, make choices without being afraid of the new. We need to talk about these issues, use the wealth of existing knowledge and adapt it to today's business to meet this survival challenge. In the last 5 years we have never talked about an organic law on energy; in fact, today, the Sardinia Region does not have a clear objective in the energy sector".

More technical was the intervention of Gianluca Cocco , director of the regional Department for the Environment, who recalled that Sardinia is working from a general perspective of mitigation (avoiding carbon dioxide emissions as much as possible) and adaptation ( understand what climate change is and act accordingly). Through the SEA and the sustainable development strategy, an action document has been prepared with the aim of reaching everyone also through subsidiary activity policies.

Carlo Torchiani , former meteorologist at the Air Force and member of the scientific committee of Legambiente, started with a reminder and a series of quotes from the papal encyclical "Laudato si'" and then talked about concrete meteorological data. Not positive data: «We are in a dramatic situation, in September 2023 we already had a degree and a half of increase in temperature and we have a series of extreme meteorological phenomena, just think of the hurricane that hit Libya a few weeks ago, an event that until a few years ago it was unthinkable in the Mediterranean and only possible in the Tropics."

Closing: Vania Statzu , environmental economist and Acli-Iares researcher. «We should give more importance to the positive aspects of good environmental practices; few know it but various studies have shown that sustainable companies are companies that work better and where the employees themselves work better. The truth is that we can change, we can build a different economic model. I also go back to saying that "it doesn't save us alone": a fisherman showed me the blue crab in 2017, then in 2019 we started talking about it and now the topic has exploded throughout the Mediterranean. Well, if we work together it is possible to come out of this well together."

(Unioneonline/ss)