By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--August 17, 2015
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“The Riachuelo can be seen as a microcosm of the environmental problems in the cities of Argentina,” says Leandro García Silva, an ombudsman specializing in environmental human rights. “The Riachuelo as a river is absolutely overloaded with contamination as compared with its size—it’s a small river with a big city around it.” “More than 40 miles long, the river winds through Buenos Aires, and exceeds by more than 50% the permitted levels of mercury, arsenic, zinc, and lead, creating critical levels of pollution at the Matanza-Riachulo. The area affects about 5 million people, 35% of whom are without safe drinking water and a further 55% without appropriate sewerage systems. “The situation reached a crisis in 2008, during Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio’s term as archbishop of Buenos Aires. In that year, Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled that the basin needed urgent attention and decreed that many of the most at-risk families—those living in makeshift slums right on the shores of the river, in places such as Inflamable and Villa 21-24—would need to be relocated.”Though authorities are dealing with the pollution, it’s a slow process and any inhabitant of the shantytowns affected by the Riachuelo will tell you the reasons for worry are still there. Pope Francis as Jorge Mario Bergoglio did nothing about it, but his fans will be sure to tell you that he prayed for the victims of Riachuelo River pollution. All prayers about Saving the Environment should be ones that start with thanking God Almighty for His Creation. When Bergoglio was bishop, archbishop and cardinal, and before he picked up his ‘Save the Environment’ placard before joining Obama and the United Nations on global warming activism, there were almost two million vehicles every day on the roads of Buenos Aires. The capital has the longest road in the world (Avenida Rivadavia) as well as the widest (9 de Julio); both of which are brought to a standstill on a daily basis by the heavy rush-hour traffic. (Agentina Independent, Aug. 1, 2008) Pope Francis didn’t discover global warming/climate change. You could say it discovered him. The pontiff’s entry into global warming/climate change activism at this juncture of time is a mystery that needs thorough probing. How much doubt can there be that a majority of people want Pope Francis in the business of saving souls while a Barack Obama-minority wants him in the lucrative business of Saving the Environment? Meanwhile, his imminent trip to Washington, D.C., and to the United Nations to give society his take on saving the environment makes us want to pray that the first global warming activist pontiff will see the light of truth. When he’s in America spouting off about global warming as the cause for human slavery, stewards of Mother Earth should pray that authorities come back down to earth and deal with real pollution. It would make no sense to pray for global warming because people don’t pray for something that doesn’t exist.
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