Robert Manne describes the Papal Encyclical as the first work that has risen to the full challenge of climate change. Robert Manne ads:

There can be little doubt that the Papal Encyclical is the most consequential intervention in the discussion of climate change since Al Gore’s film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.  … Like Al Gore, indeed, like all rational people, Pope Francis accepts the consensual conclusions of the climate scientists.  … For Pope Francis the climate crisis is the most extreme expression of a destructive tendency that has become increasingly dominant through the course of industrialisation. … The Encyclical argues that we have become slaves both to what is called the technological paradigm and the theory of market fundamentalism. … In the Encyclical, the analysis of the condition of contemporary culture in turn provides the explanation for the most troubling puzzle of the modern era, our abject failure thus far to rise to the challenge of global warming. … Climate change denialism is the most obvious self-interest of the economically powerful voices of society who, in the words of the Encyclical “mask the problems … and conceal the symptoms”.

This article by Robert Manne was published in The Monthly on 1 July 2015. For link to the article see  https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/robert-manne/2015/01/2015/1435708320/laudato-si-political-reading .

John Menadue