Killing Climate Change with Leadership

Nick Blitch

In this day and age, mobilizing the public to fight for a common cause is a feat that is seen few and far between. This is especially evident in the ever-evolving, environmentally hyper-vigilant age that currently exists today. It seems to have become the case that even if there is ample evidence that supports the fact that a person’s actions negatively affect on the environment, amassing a fight to change those behaviors is often extremely arduous. This inability to rally support for changing our environmentally degrading behaviors is a result of a plethora of things, including the lack of funding for renewable technologies, as well as people’s natural aversion to change. Fortunately, I believe there is some one who can help us; his name is Pope Francis.

Arguably, one of the most important reasons for the lack of change in unsustainable behaviors is a result of a lack of proper leadership. This world lacks a leader who can effectively motivate change amongst the public. This failure not only appears in the absence of specific motivational language used by leaders to explain certain situations, but also in the lack of a specific person that people can rally behind and listen to. These inadequacies must be addressed in order to fully tackle the problem at hand. A proper environmental leader should be able to concisely inform the public, gather support, and motivate change to help the environment. Overall, the lack of leadership in the environmental movement is a serious problem, and steps need to be taken to motivate sustainable change among the public.

One of the key issues in people’s inability to properly motivate the masses is the lack of world leaders actively and aggressively targeting climate change along the side effects that accompany it. While there have been some big-time names fighting for environmental sustainability like President Obama and Al Gore, they have obviously not been fully successful in implementing change. Its not until someone like Pope Francis comes along and announces his support in the fight against climate change that a larger discussion is sparked. The Pope has recognized America’s ability to disseminate information quickly and efficiently, thus calling on them to, “…embrace its role as a leader on climate change”, (Tercek). The Pope has certain characteristics that make him an especially effective spokesperson for issues such as this. His lack of ties to any government certainly appeals to the man’s credibility in that he has no ulterior motives on his agenda. As well, the fact that he has two billion Christians that are devoted to him and his word, gives him just a tad of persuasion power in regards to issues such as climate change. Not only are the Christians a quantitatively large population of people, but they are also widely geographically dispersed, making it easier to spread the environmental ideals they will have been instilled with to others.

Pope Francis also made an emotion appeal to his constituents, calling for to world, “to set aside differences and come together to take care of our common home and of one another”, (Tercek). In addition, the Pope became the first to write an encyclical regarding to the environment, thus outlining climate change as a moral issue. This most definitely plays on the hears strings of all those good Christians out there, and to be honest, its exactly what we need. His recent exposure in the U.S has brought to light just why he is the perfect one to lead this movement. Just look at the ridiculously overwhelming support that he received over the last few days. He is such a loved man, that all people, not just Christians, listen to him as if he is a god. This world is lacking in leaders who are successfully motivating change in this world for the environment, and this man may be the answer to that problem.

We are at a delicate time in earth’s life right now, as at this point in time our immediate future and our decisions in that time will directly affect our livelihoods. It is of the utmost importance that we rally worldwide support for the protection of what environment we have left, otherwise we may put ourselves in a hole we can’t get out of. We need a leader like Pope Francis that can rally support and motivate change amongst the public.