Border Wall and Catholic Teaching on Environment

[Tolle_Lege]

Please document why you believe that profligate use of fossil fuels is necessary to live the Christian life, which I am sure you will agree is the highest quality of life that is possible on this side of the grave.

Well, I never equated using fossil fuels as necessary to living a good Christian life, as obviously many Catholics and Saints throughout the centuries did without them. And I didn’t claim that using them with reckless abandon is prudent either. But it can’t be argued that our standard of living today would be better without them. I mean burning coal and oil to produce power for heating, powering hospitals and homes, schools, factories to make food and clothing cheaper and more readily available to people, tractors for farming, etc. In a way isn’t this ingenuity a reflection of being made in God’s image, of man’s ability to create for the good? Obviously there are limits to consumption, and being obsessed with material goods is a vice, but we were never commanded not to buy anything or improve our lives.

Besides, the Holy Father often speaks up for migrants seeking a better life. Let’s be honest, the countries these unfortunate people come from have nowhere near the standard of living that we do. If they did, they would stay there.

 

[PetraG]

Well, I never equated using fossil fuels as necessary to living a good Christian life, as obviously many Catholics and Saints throughout the centuries did without them. And I didn’t claim that using them with reckless abandon is prudent either. But it can’t be argued that our standard of living today would be better without them… Obviously there are limits to consumption, and being obsessed with material goods is a vice, but we were never commanded not to buy anything or improve our lives.

Besides, the Holy Father often speaks up for migrants seeking a better life. Let’s be honest, the countries these unfortunate people come from have nowhere near the standard of living that we do. If they did, they would stay there.

A great many things have been accomplished via all the things we have accomplished using petroleum, without a doubt. I’m only responding to juxtaposing a pursuit of “quality of life” and the plain meaning of the Gospels. Better living through chemistry is not among the “unchanging truths of the faith.”

I am only saying have to be honest about what decisions have been made to get us cheaper clothing–how much more clothing do we now think we “need” compared to when it was more expensive?–what decisions we make to defend our access to petroleum, what decisions we have made to travel where we want and in the time frame we want and so on. We have been commanded how we are to treat those who are strangers, who are hungry, who are thirsty and so on. Even the Old Testament prophets were very clear about how the Almighty views hospitality towards migrants. How much more that applies to countries that are relatively stable and, compared to the rest of Christian history, unimaginably wealthy and comfortable. We obviously have ingenuity. Who has it really been serving? Sometimes humankind, but sometimes a far smaller fraction of humanity, at the expense of others. With which group does Our Lord identify? He chose to be poor. He chose to be a migrant. He told us which group we ought to see as representing Him in His Need.

Turning away those who are fleeing war and an economy that makes subsistence difficult to impossible as if they were fleeing a house fire is not according to the New Testament, nor according to the Law and the Prophets. Their needs come ahead of improvements to or the maintanence of our standard of living. That’s the plain meaning of Holy Scriptures.

If you are only saying that what is really needed is to bring peace, stability and know-how to distressed countries from which these refugees are fleeing in desperation, I could not agree more. If we take in every refugee, we would still know that there are far more unfortunates in their home country and that in the end they’d probably all rather be able to just live in peace in their own homeland, where their grandparents and great grandparents are buried, and in a way that is sustainable for generations.

 

[blackforest]

Respectfully, I’m going to defer to what actual scholars and experts are saying on the environmental issue and not anonymous Internet posters who ideologically want the wall.

You seem to think you know a lot about this subject,

I’m simply conveying what I do know.

but most of what you have stated here is old news from 3 years ago during the campaign.

He’s been unreliable on this topic. I don’t trust the man. Trump’s Evolving Words on the Wall - The New York Times

 

[Gingersnaps4]

It seems like whoever authored the article in your OP ideologically may not want the wall. I mean, they are either deliberately or unknowingly obtuse wrt this issue.

1. They state “continuous border wall”. After it was already known that it wouldn’t be . It can’t be, that’s impossible as we found out shortly after the election.
2. Flooding. Flooding likely won’t be a big concern with the border barrier design that was chosen. Water can pass freely through.

Who knows about larger animals. They would have to go around. But they are already going around highly trafficked areas now anyway.

We should all be much more concerned about the impact this issue is having on humans. It’s a leading cause of human trafficking and a dangerous trip. And rapid DNA testing has shown that 1/3 of “families” are lying about their relationship with the children. Many aren’t related at all. Border patrol agents have stated that they are starting to recognize children because they are being “recycled” over and over, used as a pawn for people to illegally enter. Are these children being sold, or kidnapped? What happens to these children in the end? Everyone should care more about human trafficking than they do about animals. The animals will adapt. People should really hear about this situation going on now, it’s eye opening.

https://cis.org/Arthur/Fake-Family-Units-Border

 

[blackforest]

To repeat, this is a thread about the environmental impact of the wall. not the other repercussions of the immigration issue. Let’s please keep the discussion focused, as there are plenty of other threads right here on CAF to discuss the risk these people are willing to take to protect their families from dangers in their homelands.

I’m not sure if you’re clicking on my links or, if so, reading them thoroughly, but both smaller animals and plants are likely to perish, as well. If larger animals can “just go around,” then so can humans - you know, the other “larger animals.”

 

[Theo520]

Can you provide some research that isn’t predicated on a continuous 3200 KM wall?

Of course it will have some impact, but not as projected with that assumption.

many of the complaints in your article were not about harming existing populations, but about how they might not be naturally reintroduced given the wall. This is a hypothetical and seems to ignore the reasons they already left US territories, they might have never come back naturally.

Not having a wall also doesn’t stop the claims research is impacted by border security officers. Is it wrong that they have to go through the border to meet in Mexico with their fellow researchers?

 

[blackforest]

Well, this one was already in my OP and doesn’t presuppose 3200K. Did you catch it the first time? https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/10/740/5057517

That said, experts have spoken out since before Trump took office, in the years immediately following the Secure Fence Act, before there was any dialogue about walling off 3200km. Remember that even segments of border walls have curtailed migration patterns when a such a delay means life or death for some species.

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/57/1/96/224718

Sonora/Arizona area: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01277.x

Impact on Texas: https://law.utexas.edu/humanrights/...-Environmental-Impacts-of-the-Border-Wall.pdf

Using elsewhere in the world as a warning: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/reel.12169

Impact on plants as well as animals - this one, in particular, debunks the ridiculous myth that a border fence will somehow enable plants to “thrive.” https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ween-the-United-States-and-Mexico.pdf#page=65

 

[Theo520]

Well, this one was already in my OP and doesn’t presuppose 3200K. Did you catch it the first time?

LOL, I read it more closely than you. It repeatedly references a continuous wall

along the 3200-kilometer US–Mexico border, fence and wall construction over the past decade and efforts by the Trump administration to complete a continuous border “wall”

A continuous border wall could disconnect more than 34% of…

For example, continuous walls could constrain endangered Peninsular …

 

[blackforest]

If you did, you missed the point and context entirely. The article already establishes that continuity is irrelevant when damage has been done already. For the continuity that is referenced, there’s no evidence that they’re referring to all 1900 + miles.

Already-built sections of the wall are reducing the area, quality, and connectivity of plant and animal habitats and are compromising more than a century of binational investment in conservation.

As of 2017, the DHS had constructed 1050 kilometers of “primary” pedestrian and vehicle barriers serviced by 8000 kilometers of roads, as well as many thousands of kilometers of undesignated routes created by off-road patrol vehicles. Human activity, light, and noise associated with the wall further displace wildlife, making additional habitat unavailable.

Scientists have established that even segments of the border wall are causing harm.

Even when not “impassible,” border barriers harm wildlife because they require building new roads, which are used to patrol and maintain the barriers, and which disrupt animals’ normal behaviors and movement. Wildlife can also be killed trying to cross these roads.

But then, the scientists mapped out “conservation hot spots.” Would you advocate for supporting science by putting a wall only in areas that do not fall in that category?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[RCIAGraduate]

1. May I ask why you don’t want to read Laudato Si? Specially since it seems to be Pope Francis’s first major encyclical. Realizing my question sounds quite slanted. And a guilt-trip specially since I have no right to insinuate others ought to rad it since I have no read it myself. Sorry for sounding a certain way (pushy and with an agenda and slanted and all that).
2. I also get that the political themes and the confirmation of climate change seems disconcerting to some, but isn’t the fact is that since it’s an encyclical, now it’s part of the Magisterium? Again, slanted and insinuating (with no right to be pushy or have an audacity to imply or insinuate this or that) but would you please explain what do you think of encyclicals? What are they to you?
3. Also, if I may ask you, how important do you think the Encyclicals are? They might not be gospel but are there words also like golden and help explain Church Teaching. Do you think many Catholics would be well-catechized if they familiarized themselves with the Encyclicals? Don’t they work as good explainations, clarifications and guides?

 

[Ender]

May I ask why you don’t want to read Laudato Si

Determining what immigration policies to implement is not a moral question; it is an entirely prudential one. blackforest has been touting all the environment damage that will result if a wall is built. I reject the claim, but that is a practical concern, and nothing in Scripture or Laudato Si provides a clue as to which position is correct.

The point here is that while we know our obligations we don’t know the best way to achieve them. Yes, we are required to welcome the immigrant, but if that was an unlimited obligation the church wouldn’t have said countries have a right to control their borders. At some point the right of immigrants conflicts with the right of countries, and again, neither the church nor scripture tells us where that point is, and making that decision does not involve a moral choice.

I also get that the political themes and the confirmation of climate change seems disconcerting to some, but isn’t the fact is that since it’s an encyclical, now it’s part of the Magisterium?

How and why the climate is changing, and what if anything ought to be done about it, are practical, scientific questions, not moral ones. The church is no more justified in taking a position here than she was in taking one on geocentrism vs heliocentrism.

Also, if I may ask you, how important do you think the Encyclicals are?

On immigration? If we read them to understand what our obligations are they are valuable. If we read them to discover what specific policies should be implemented we have misunderstood them completely.