Pope's thinking is outdated: Opposing view

Pope Francis' encyclical letter on "care for our common home" reflects the thoughts of an extraordinary person on some of the most important issues of our time. Without showing disrespect toward the pope or his followers, it is important to recognize the letter's shortcomings and unintended consequences.

Pope Francis says, "The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth." This is contradicted by extensive data on water and air quality, public health, lengthening life spans, and decreases in worldwide hunger and poverty.

The past decades have seen dramatic successes in improving the environment in the U.S. as well as billions of people lifted from poverty and hunger by free trade, cheap and reliable energy, and yes, by capitalism.

The pope says the only way to address the possible problem of climate change is for carbon dioxide emissions to be "drastically reduced." But this is outdated thinking. Scientists, economists and even the United Nations agree that adaptation to future climate change, rather than expensive and futile efforts to control climate by reducing emissions, is more likely to have a discernible positive effect on public health and safety.

The pope's letter will have a profound and tragic unintended consequences if it leads to passage of laws and international treaties that raise the cost of, and reduce access to, fossil fuels. Such laws already pose serious hardships on the very people the pope says he hopes to help: the poor and the elderly, the sick, and vulnerable populations in all countries, but especially in Third World countries.

Spending billions or trillions of dollars to reduce carbon dioxide emissions might shave some fraction of a degree of expected warming a century from now, but those dollars would be better used to save and improve lives by investing in clean water and life-saving drugs, and increasing access to electricity.

Global warming is just one of many problems facing humanity in the 21st century, and it is far from being at the top of the list.

Joseph L. Bast is president of The Heartland Institute, a non-profit based in Chicago that promotes free-market policies. It no longer discloses its donors.