Papal Encyclical on Climate Change

Floor Speech

Mr. KING. Mr. President, there has been a great deal of discussion this week, and there will be, I am sure, over the next few days, about Pope Francis's comments in his encyclical issued this morning on the issue of climate change and on the issue of the preservation of the environment. Some of the reaction has been that the Pope should stay away from science and stick to morality and theology. I am here this morning to say I believe that is exactly what he is doing. He is sticking to morality and theology, and that is why he has made the statement that he has.

I have always viewed this issue in fundamentally an ethical and moral context. There has been a lot of talk, discussion, and debate in committees and on this floor about the science, which I think is irrefutable--the science of climate change, the science of the increasing load of CO

2 in the atmosphere, the most we have ever had in some 3 million years, and the impact it will have. I have talked about the practical impact it will have on the lobster population in Maine and on the shellfish, on our forests, on moose in New Hampshire, on water-edged cities and communities all over this country. All of those practical and scientific things we have talked about at great length on this floor. The only thing I would say is that I am convinced the science is irrefutable that, A, something is happening; B, it is detrimental to the future of the world; and, C, we--people--are largely responsible for it.

Fundamentally, this is a moral and ethical issue. It has always occurred to me in two moral and ethical contexts. One is that I don't understand what right several generations of people on this Earth have to use up a finite resource that was created over millions of years. It took 3 or 4 million years to create the oil and gas that is underneath our Earth. How do we have the right to use it all up in 200 or 300 years? That assumes we are the only people who will ever occupy this planet. Indeed, I don't believe that is the case. Obviously, it is not the case. There are generations that will come after us--6, 7, 8, 10 generations of people who will come after us. Why do we have the right to use resources that the Earth created for all of time?

One of the fundamental premises of the Old Testament is, of course, the Ten Commandments. One of the basic Ten Commandments is ``Thou shalt not steal.'' I believe we are stealing resources from future generations by simply using them up in our lifetimes. That is moral and ethical issue No. 1.

The second ethical issue is the fundamental ethical and moral principle of stewardship. The first line of the Bible says: ``In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'' God created--God created--the heaven and the Earth. We have a responsibility to steward, to take care of the creation that God gave us.

There are some very interesting Biblical references early in the Bible, in Leviticus, the third Book of the Bible, about this concept of stewardship. One is in Leviticus 25. The Lord said to Moses: ``The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me.'' This is God speaking: The land belongs to me. ``You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me.''

That is the concept of a long-term stewardship--that we don't own the land. Yes, we have deeds and we think we own it, and we can pass it on to our children, but we don't own the planet, and we have a responsibility to pass that resource on to our children in good shape and not destroy it.

Another interesting provision in Leviticus--and I hope it is OK to make notations in the Lord's Book because that is what I did. In Leviticus 25, Moses is told a very interesting thing about how to take care of the land. God talked about a Sabbath for the land, just as He talked about a Sabbath for people--a day of rest. ``For six years you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest.''

Very interesting--the land must have a Sabbath. It is the Lord's Sabbath. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards during that year.

And then later on in Verse 32, God tells Moses what will happen if you don't observe that rule. In other words, if you just keep planting and abusing the land, He said--this is again quoting God here in Leviticus 25: ``Your land will become desolate.'' There is an interesting observation. God said:

Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed.

The concept is we have an obligation to the land, to the Earth that has been given to us.

Then, we skip all the way from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end of the New Testament to the Book of Revelations, and there is a kind of admonition, I think, for all of us in terms of our stewardship of the Earth.

In Revelations 11:18, the Chapter says: ``But your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants ..... and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.''

That is something we ought to take very seriously; that the time will come for the destroying of the destroyers of the Earth. This is all about morality, theology, and ethics. This is about simply taking care of the asset the Good Lord gave us--whatever Name you
[Page: S4257] give to the Good Lord. It is the Earth we have been given. It is the only Earth we have. It is the only home we have, and we simply can't destroy it. Yet in Genesis it says man is given dominion over the waters, the Earth, and the animals. But that doesn't mean we are entitled to destroy it. It means we have to steward it, we have to conserve it. That is really what this discussion is all about. This is about ethics. This is about morality. It is about theology, as I have demonstrated.

Now, I want to go from the Good Book to another way to state this. In Maine we have what is called the Maine rototiller rule. It is all you need to know about environmental stewardship: If you borrow your neighbor's rototiller to clean up your garden in the spring, the principle is you always return it in as good shape as you got it, with a full tank of gas. That is environmental stewardship. We don't own this planet. We have it on loan. Therefore, we have a responsibility to pass it on to our children and grandchildren and countless generations ahead of us in as good of shape as we got it and maybe with a full tank of gas. And that means we just can't willy-nilly act like there are no consequences for our actions, that we can befoul the air and the land and the water for our convenience, for our aggrandizement, for our material comfort. We have to think about other people. That is of course the fundamental principle of every religion in the world: ``Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'' I would submit that ``others'' includes not only those of us here or those of us in America or those of us around the world but those of us who haven't been born yet.

We have an obligation to ``do unto others as we would have them do unto us.''

So I welcome the Pope's words this week as a valuable voice in an important discussion. I realize we will have differences about how to solve this problem. We will have differences about the exact dimensions of it. We will have differences about what the resolution should be and the technology we should use and how we should get there and transitions and all those kinds of things. That is perfectly legitimate. But, fundamentally, we have to think of this as a moral and ethical issue--as a moral and ethical issue--the obligations we owe to other people in this country, to other people in the world who have no voice in the use of the resources that are being taken away from them, and particularly to the people whom we don't yet know who are going to follow us on this wonderful home we have been given to steward, to preserve, to use but to pass on in as good or better shape than we found it.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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