Papa preach

The Pope is in town, an by town I mean America. The Pope only rarely visits, so his trip to the US has been dominating the news the last few days.
He's had a number of things on his itinerary and he's made time for a short speech at different stops along the way.
I'm not Catholic, so what the Pope says is not normally something that interests me. This particular Pope, Francis, has been different, however. It's interesting to me that his interpretations of the Church's role in society have been such a change from previous Papal commentaries.
Recently, one of his speeches included the idea that human beings need to do more to take better care of the environment. Ecology isn't often a topic for church discussion, but I think the Pope has hit on something important – as pointed out by comedian Louis CK, who said of the Earth, if God gave this as a gift to us, why would we think he wouldn't want us to take care of it – what did you do, Louis's angry God asks. Who did this? Why are the polar bears brown?
It's a rare moment, for sure, when the Pope and Louis CK are on the same page, but here we are.
The most interesting thing about the environmental debate – aside from the fact there is one in light of the mountain of evidence supporting man-made changes to the environment – is the nature of the questions being asked.
There are two groups of people engaged in this debate, those who believe man's presence on the Earth and use of fossil fuels in particular, is having an adverse affect on the environment, weather patterns and the like and those who don't know how to science that good.
The people still unsure climate change is a thing, I assure you, it's a thing. It's totally happening and, to quote a Saturday Night Live skit, I get 500 letters a day telling me the same!
Still others think it's a thing but aren't sure man is causing it. That's the heart of the main point of contention in this debate. Is man causing it. That's where my issue comes in.
Of course we are, but that's not my point. My point is, it's the wrong question. I'm in the question-asking business so I know what questions are the right ones to ask and is man causing global climate change isn't the right question.
Te right question is can man fix it?
Who cares how it's happening? Is it happening? Yes. Did we cause it? Unimportant. When your house is on fire, you call the fire department. They come and put the fire out. THEN they try to figure out the cause. Nobody figures out the cause THEN calls the fire department. The cause is unimportant right now. Can humans fix the problem? That's the only question that matters.
If no, then kiss your ass goodbye because this is how ice ages start. It's been a while since the last one, but this is how they start. The planet heats up then it cools off – a lot.
If yes, then let's get to the fixing it part or, as Jeff Spicoli said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, otherwise we'll be bogus, too.
That's it. End of questions. Can we fix it? Probably we can, I think. It's hard, but mankind can do hard things. As Louis CK said, you just throw human death and suffering at it until it's done. Well, there's been plenty of human death and suffering so far. If we don't fix it quickly, there will be a lot more to come.