Cardinal: Small changes at home can go a long way in helping the environment

THE LITTLEST CHANGES inside one small household - a faster shower, a lighter meal, a different light bulb - could ripple out into the human family across the earth.

That was the message Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told a large audience at the World Meeting of Families yesterday afternoon at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Turkson, a Ghanaian, is considered to be the public face of Pope Francis' war on global warming, and he reiterated a message the leader of the Catholic Church hopes to drive home with followers.

"What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?" Turkson asked the crowd.

Turkson also cited a simple lesson from the popular book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, including "Be kind," "All things in moderation" and "Clean up after yourself."

Those simple lessons, Turkson said, could be powerful in today's "throw-away" culture and consumerism.

"There is a naive confidence that technology can fix everything," Turkson said.

Instead, Turkson said humanity should focus on the things it can fix, the small changes each family can make on its own, and he went down a list that included taking public transportation, turning off lights and planting trees.

"Mostly, we have to show care for other living things," he said.

Turkson said the problems of climate change are most directly felt by the poor and that wouldn't change unless we accepted a "zero degrees of separation" that exists between us and every other human.

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