Monthly Archives: June 2015

The Pope’s Encyclical on Climate Change & Cities

19 June 2015: It’s unlikely I’m going to get through the  full 180 pages of the Pope’s Encyclical on Climate Change (by the way – if you’re looking for the contents page – it’s at the end of the document), but I did want to see if there was anything there on cities – and was pleased to see that there is specific consideration on how the quality of life of urban dwellers is impacted on by the state of the environment around them.

Selected below are parts of the Encyclical that touch upon the challenges placed upon cities due to environmental stresses and increasing climate change.  Much of it is quite general, and much of it is probably more targeted at those growing mega-cities of the South – but the points equally resonate to pockets of deprivation in London as well as in many other developed cities.

“44. Nowadays, for example, we are conscious of the disproportionate and unruly growth of many cities, which have become unhealthy to live in, not only because of pollution caused by toxic emissions but also as a result of urban chaos, poor transportation, and visual pollution and noise. Many cities are huge, inefficient structures, excessively wasteful of energy and water. Neighbourhoods, even those recently built, are congested, chaotic and lacking in sufficient green space. We were not meant to be inundated by cement, asphalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature.

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