Pope to blame profiteers for killing the planet

Pope Francis will call June 18 on the world's leaders to pull together to fight global warming, publishing his hotly-anticipated thesis on the environment which slams profiteers and slaves to progress.

Released six months ahead of a key climate change meeting in Paris, Francis's text calls on international actors to take responsibility for "new modes of production, distribution and consumption", according to a leaked draft.
 
The pontiff's attack on the unruly power of the finance sector is expected to elicit a strong reaction from the liberal right, particularly in America.
 
US Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush summed up the conservative backlash June 18, quipping, "I don't get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinal or my pope."  

The other villain of the pope's piece is technology, or those in thrall to it, who disregard responsibilities and ethics for the gods of consumerism and profit.
 
The 200-page encyclical, a statement of principles designed to guide Catholic teaching, is the first by the Argentine pope and aims to reach beyond the world's 1.2 billion Catholics and speak to all, regardless of their religion.
 
Back in 2013 a UN report concluded that there was a 95 percent chance that global warming was the result of human activity.
 
But the straight-speaking Latin American is bringing a popularity to the issue which could potentially influence millions of people, generating fresh pressure on the nearly 200 governments which will be represented in Paris in December.
         
The picture he paints is bleak: climate change is mainly caused by human greed and self-destructive enthralment to new technologies and progress. But the pope is expected to insist there is...