The most anticipated papal letter for decades will be published in five languages on Thursday. It will call for an end to the ‘tyrannical’ exploitation of nature by mankind. Could it lead to a step-change in the battle against global warming? 
 
 Pope Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday. 
 
 In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds. The much-anticipated message, which will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops, will be published online in five languages on Thursday and is expected to be the most radical statement yet from the outspoken pontiff. 
 
 However, it is certain to anger sections of Republican opinion in America by endorsing the warnings of climate scientists and admonishing rich elites, say cardinals and scientists who have advised the Vatican. 
 
 The Ghanaian cardinal, Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a close ally of the pope, will launch the encyclical. He has said it will address the root causes of poverty and the threats facing nature, or “creation”. 
 
 In a recent speech widely regarded as a curtain-raiser to the encyclical, Turkson said: “Much of the world remains in poverty, despite abundant resources, while a privileged global elite controls the bulk of the world’s wealth and consumes the bulk of its resources.” 
 
 The Argentinian pontiff is expected to repeat calls for a change in attitudes to poverty and nature. “An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it,” he told a meeting of social movements last year. “I think a question that we are not asking ourselves is: isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature? Safeguard creation because, if we destroy it, it will destroy us. Never forget this.” 
 
 The encyclical will go much further than strictly environmental concerns, say Vatican insiders. “Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that the environment is not only an economic or political issue, but is an anthropological and ethical matter,” said another of the pope’s advisers, Archbishop Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Peru. 
 
 “It will address the issue of inequality in the distribution of resources and topics such as the wasting of food and the irresponsible exploitation of nature and the consequences for people’s life and health,” Barreto Jimeno told the Catholic News Service. 
 
 He was echoed by Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, who coordinates the Vatican’s inner council of cardinals and is thought to reflect the pope’s political thinking . “The ideology surrounding environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn’t want to stop ruining the environment because they don’t want to give up their profits,” Rodríguez Maradiaga said. 
 
 The rare encyclical, called “Laudato Sii”, or “Praised Be”, has been timed to have maximum public impact ahead of the pope’s meeting with Barack Obama and his address to the US Congress and the UN general assembly in September. 
 
 It is also intended to improve the prospect of a strong new UN global agreement to cut climate emissions. By adding a moral dimension to the well-rehearsed scientific arguments, Francis hopes to raise the ambition of countries above their own self-interest to secure a strong deal in a crucial climate summit in Paris in November. 
 
 “Pope Francis is personally committed to this [climate] issue like no other pope before him. The encyclical will have a major impact. It will speak to the moral imperative of addressing climate change in a timely fashion in order to protect the most vulnerable,” said Christiana Figueres, the UN’s climate chief, in Bonn this week for negotiations. 
 
 Francis, the first Latin American pope, is increasingly seen as the voice of the global south and a catalyst for change in global bodies. In September, he will seek to add impetus and moral authority to UN negotiations in New York to adopt new development goals and lay out a 15-year global plan to tackle hunger, extreme poverty and health. He will address the UN general assembly on 23 September as countries finalise their commitments. 
 
 However, Francis’s radicalism is attracting resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US – where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives, and Rick Santorum, a Republican presidential candidate. 
 
 Earlier this year Stephen Moore, a Catholic economist, called the pope a “complete disaster”, saying he was part of “a radical green movement that is at its core anti-Christian, anti-people and anti-progress”. 
 
 Moore was backed this month by scientists and engineers from the powerful evangelical Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, who have written an open letter to Francis. “Today many prominent voices call humanity a scourge on our planet, saying that man is the problem, not the solution. Such attitudes too often contaminate their assessment of man’s effects on nature,” it says. 
 
 But the encyclical will be well received in developing countries, where most Catholics live. “Francis has always put the poor at the centre of everything he has said. The developing countries will hear their voice in the encyclical,” said Neil Thorns, director of advocacy at the Catholic development agency, Cafod. “I expect it to challenge the way we think. The message that we cannot just treat the Earth as a tool for exploitation will be a message that many will not want to hear.” 
 
 The pope is “aiming at a change of heart. What will save us is not technology or science. What will save us is the ethical transformation of our society,” said Carmelite Father Eduardo Agosta Scarel, a climate scientist who teaches at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Video: Suzanne Goldenberg visits the Heartland Institute’s conference in Washington, an annual gathering of climate sceptics, to hear what delegates – including US senator James Inhofe and blogger Marc Morano – think about the Pope’s upcoming encyclical on the environment and climate change . 
 
 Earlier popes, including Benedict XVI and John Paul II, addressed environmental issues and “creation”, but neither mentioned climate change or devoted an entire encyclical to the links between poverty, economics and ecological destruction. Francis’s only previous encyclical concerned the nature of religious faith. 
 
 The pontiff, who is playing an increasing role on the world stage, will visit Cuba ahead of travelling to the US. He was cited by Obama as having helped to thaw relations between the two countries, and last week met the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to discuss the crisis in Ukraine and the threat to minority Christians in the Middle East. 
 
 The pope chose Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, as his namesake at the start of his papacy in 2011, saying the saint’s values reflected his own. ||||| CLOSE Shannon Green and Gregg Zoroya discuss the encyclical from Pope Francis to be issued by the Vatican on Thursday, June 18, and the excitement it engenders among climate scientists. USA TODAY 
 
 Pope Francis encyclical on the environment is due to be released Thursday (Photo: Alessandra Tarantino, AP) 
 
 Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this article misstated Pope Francis' chemistry education. He studied chemistry and worked as a chemist prior to attending the seminary. 
 
 Scientists weary after years of often vicious opposition by doubters of their climate-change findings see this year as crucial to the planet's future because of a religious document expected from Pope Francis on Thursday. 
 
 The rare encyclical, or teaching letter, expected to promote climate action as a moral imperative could do more to slow global warming than international negotiations this year to limit greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say. 
 
 "The encyclical is going to go out to over 1 billion Catholics — that's a way of getting a message across to a segment of society that the scientific community could never do," said an excited Jeff Kiehl with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "I mean it's just unbelievable." 
 
 "I'm not a religious person at all," said Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climatologist. But he sees faith-based efforts to shift thinking on climate action as very promising. 
 
 "The pope's encyclical is probably going to have a bigger impact than the Paris negotiations," he said. 
 
 The 21st United Nations conference on climate change, which is set for December in Paris with more than 190 countries, hopes to reach agreement on emissions that would keep further warming of the planet less than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond global temperature at the time of the Industrial Revolution. 
 
 Catholic leaders expressed hope last week that the encyclical will transcend partisan fighting over the causes of climate change, arguments that have stymied efforts in the U.S. Congress and elsewhere to reduce greenhouse emissions. 
 
 "This encyclical is aimed at everyone," Pope Francis said Sunday. "Let us pray that everyone can receive its message and grow in responsibility toward the common home that God has entrusted to us." 
 
 He said Friday that to show unity of purpose, the document will be unveiled by three people: a Catholic cardinal, a Christian Orthodox church leader and a climate scientist the Vatican identified as an atheist. 
 
 The pope, who studied chemistry and worked as a chemist before entering the seminary, has a history of environmental concern. He said in January that science is largely settled on the causes of climate change and that greater stewardship of God's creation is necessary. 
 
 "Mostly, in great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face," he said. 
 
 There has already been push back from conservative Catholic religious writers and figures such as Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who is Catholic, accusing the pope of being alarmist. 
 
 "The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists," Santorum recently told a radio-talk show host. "When we get involved with political and controversial scientific theories, then I think the church is probably not as forceful and credible." 
 
 Scientists, however, applaud the pope for urging moral choices in a discussion dominated by the recitation — or among deniers, the misrepresentation — of facts. 
 
 "Many people have this rosy view that there's this knowledge deficit, and that if we just provided more information or if we explain the science better or if we package it better, maybe with colored graphics, or write another scientific paper, that will be the one to convince (doubters)," said climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University. 
 
 "But the reality is it's not a scientific issue (any longer). It is an ideological issue. We have to appeal to people based on values. Not just on data and facts. And for me as a scientist to say that is very unusual," Hayhoe said. "So from that perspective the pope is a very effective messenger." 
 
 Scientists say that some predicted changes such as a warming Arctic, rising sea levels, more intense heat waves, extreme snow and rain storms and animal or plant extinctions are happening faster than anticipated. Frustration over a lack of response by the federal government has been growing. 
 
 A website created by Australian science communicator Joe Duggan called "Is this how you feel?" contains dozens of letters from climate scientists angry or stunned by a lack of forceful action by policymakers. 
 
 "I feel like nobody's listening," Australian research fellow Helen McGregor wrote last fall. 
 
 "There is so much noise around the issue that I often feel compelled to be outraged by our own inability as a species to respond," scientist Carlo Buontempo wrote, "But the truth is that more often than not I just feel tired." 
 
 The vast majority say they remain optimistic. Last year, a consortium of North American universities created a speakers network for climate change discussion and more than 370 scientists have since signed up to give talks at libraries, chambers of commerce, schools, colleges and community clubs. 
 
 But change still seems too slow, many say. 
 
 "As a scientist, I can say that it is possible for us to prevent truly catastrophic, potentially irreversible climate change. But I cannot say as a scientist whether or not we will find the will to do what's necessary," said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University who published a book on the role of science deniers in subverting global warming discussions. 
 
 Mann said only strong public outcry can force policy changes, and this is where the encyclical is crucial. 
 
 "There are a lot of people out there who thus far have been either skeptical or indifferent," Mann said. "I think this (encyclical) will make a difference for them." 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Sfph3i ||||| Conservative distrust of Pope Francis, which has been building in the U.S. throughout his pontificate, is reaching a boiling point over his plan to urge action on climate change — and to do so through a document traditionally used for the most important papal teachings. 
 
 For months, Francis has been drafting an encyclical on the environment and global warming which he hopes to release by June or July. Encyclicals are written with the help of a small group of advisers working under strict secrecy. But in a news conference as he traveled last week to the Philippines, Francis gave his strongest signal yet of the direction he'll take. 
 
 He said global warming was "mostly" man-made. And he said he wanted his encyclical out in plenty of time to be absorbed before the next round of U.N. climate change talks in Paris in November after the last round in Lima, Peru, failed to reach an agreement. 
 
 "I don't know if it (human activity) is the only cause, but mostly, in great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face," Francis said. "We have in a sense taken over nature." 
 
 Even before these remarks, several conservative U.S. commentators had been pre-emptively attacking the encyclical. At Investor's Business Daily, Forbes and TownHall.com, writers had accused the pope of adopting a radical environmental agenda. 
 
 "Pope Francis — and I say this as a Catholic — is a complete disaster when it comes to his public policy pronouncements," wrote Steve Moore, chief economist of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "On the economy, and even more so on the environment, the pope has allied himself with the far left and has embraced an ideology that would make people poorer and less free." 
 
 At the website of the Catholic journal First Things, a blogger accused the pope of promoting "theologized propaganda" on conservation — a post the journal's editor later disavowed — and published guidance by prominent Catholic thinker Robert George about what should be considered authoritative in an encyclical and what could be ignored. 
 
 "For the most part, they are conservatives who have criticized other Catholics in the past for disagreeing with definitive statements in papal encyclicals." said David Cloutier, a theologian at Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland who specializes in the environment. "They're scared that the document is going to say something definitive that they can't agree with. That will put them in a very difficult situation." 
 
 While Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI took strong stands in favor of environmental protection, Francis will be the first to address climate change in such a significant way. He will be doing so following a series of sermons, interviews and writings that have unsettled American conservatives accustomed to hearing many of their priorities — on abortion and marriage especially — echoed loudly from Rome. 
 
 Francis' strong and frequent denunciations of the global financial system and trickle-down economic theories prompted radio host Rush Limbaugh to call the pope's economic views "pure Marxism." The pontiff has said he is simply quoting church teaching on helping the poor. 
 
 After Francis helped normalize U.S. relations with Cuba, Sen. Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and Florida Republican who opposed detente, said he would "ask His Holiness to take up the cause of freedom and democracy." 
 
 By tackling climate change, Francis is marching through yet another U.S. partisan minefield and taking a position abhorrent to many Republicans. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to consider climate-change real and largely man-made. While about a quarter of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents agree, the rest blame natural patterns, say not enough is known or insist warming is not occurring at all, according to the Pew Research Center. In the new GOP-controlled Senate, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who has called global warming a "hoax," has been chosen by fellow Republicans as head of the Environment and Public Works Committee. 
 
 "What they're worried about is the solution," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. "Climate change is the ultimate collective-action problem. It's going to require local, state and national policy change, and it's going to require international cooperation, which means the United Nations." 
 
 Those on all sides of the debate will be watching for how far the pope will delve into the science around climate change in the body of the encyclical. In a news conference last August, Francis said that since the document is "doctrinal and needs to be certain," less-certain scientific theories could be mentioned in footnotes. But the pope did not offer any examples. 
 
 The Rev. James Bretzke, a moral theologian at Boston College, predicts the document will address larger spiritual and moral themes, such as care for God's creation and the poor who are most affected by climate change, along with calls for global cooperation to address the problem. 
 
 "The fact of climate change will be accepted and underscored," Bretzke said. "I think it would be a safe bet to suggest that the encyclical will be fairly concrete and specific and that there will likely be some specific ethical calls for action that will cause a certain amount of discomfort to a broad range of various populations — from First World manufacturers to emerging Third World economies such as China." 
 
 Francis is due to speak at the United Nations in New York in September where he may press the assembly on global warming before climate change talks begin. He has already urged negotiators to be "courageous." ||||| VATICAN CITY (AP) — There's something of a whodunit going on in the Vatican to discover who leaked Pope Francis' environment encyclical to an Italian newsweekly, deflating the release of the most anticipated and feared papal document in recent times. 
 
 Pope Francis delivers his message on the occasion of an audience with participants of Rome's diocese convention in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, June 14, 2015. Francis engaged in some self-promotion... (Associated Press) 
 
 L'Espresso magazine published the full 191 pages of "Laudato Si" (Be Praised) on its website Monday, three days before the official launch. The Vatican said it was just a draft, but most media ran with it, given that it covered many of the same points Francis and his advisers have been making in the run-up to the release. 
 
 On Tuesday, the Vatican indefinitely suspended the press credentials of L'Espresso's veteran Vatican correspondent, Sandro Magister, saying the publication had been "incorrect." 
 
 Magister told The Associated Press that his editor, not he, obtained the document and decided to publish it. 
 
 "I just wrote the introduction," Magister said in a text message, adding that he had promised the Vatican to keep quiet about the scoop. 
 
 In the draft of the encyclical, Francis says global warming is "mostly" due to human activity and the burning of fossil fuels. He calls for a radical change in behavior to save the planet for future generations and prevent the poor from suffering the worst effects of industry-induced environmental degradation. 
 
 Several Vatican commentators hypothesized that the leak was aimed at taking the punch out of Thursday's official launch of the encyclical, in which the Vatican has lined up a Catholic cardinal, an Orthodox theologian, an atheist scientist and an economist to discuss the contents. 
 
 They noted that conservatives — particularly in the U.S. — attacked the encyclical even before it was released, chiding the pope for talking science in a church document and insisting that global warming isn't a scientific reality. It would be in their interest, the argument goes, to fudge the pope's message. 
 
 Italian daily La Stampa suggested that the leak might have come from "conservatives" inside Vatican, noting that Francis' reform plans for the Vatican bureaucracy have been resisted by the more conservative old guard who would have an interest in sabotaging Francis' labor of love. 
 
 A leak, however, was to be expected, given that drafts of the document have been circulating for months and that the text had been translated into multiple languages before its official release. 
 
 Not to mention that the Vatican has had a long and storied history of leaked documents: The last big scandal in 2012 resulted in the pope's butler being put on trial for stealing his private papers and passing them off to an Italian journalist. He was convicted but was eventually pardoned by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. 
 
 In the aftermath of the "Vatileaks" scandal, the Vatican City State updated its criminal code to include severe penalties for anyone who leaks a Vatican document or publishes news from it: Up to two years in prison and a 5,000 euro ($5,600) fine. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
– Pope Francis is days away from releasing what the Guardian predicts will be "his most radical statement" yet, and he says it isn't just for Catholics. Francis will be accompanied by an atheist climate scientist and a Greek Orthodox theologian, as well as a Vatican cardinal, when he releases his long-anticipated letter on the environment on Thursday, the AP reports. The encyclical, a rare papal "teaching letter," is expected to focus on climate change, humanity's role in causing it, and its devastating and disproportionate effects on the world's poor, reports the New York Times, which notes that Francis has long been outspoken on environmental issues and told reporters earlier this year that "man has slapped nature in the face." In a recent speech seen as a preview to the encyclical, Francis made it clear that he believes climate change and the suffering of the poor is the result of capitalism and overconsumption, the Guardian reports. "Much of the world remains in poverty, despite abundant resources, while a privileged global elite controls the bulk of the world's wealth and consumes the bulk of its resources," he said. Climate scientists say since the issue has become an ideological and partisan one as much as it is a scientific one, the papal letter could do more than international negotiations this year to reduce emissions, USA Today reports. (A US conservative group claims Francis has been "misled" on the issue, and staunch Catholic Rick Santorum says he finds the church leader hard to listen to.)