Media attention on World Youth Day pilgrims being encouraged to shower in costumes for modesty, highlights another issue confronting such a mass influx of participants.
“Sydney gained green event experience hosting the ‘green Olympics’. It’s a shame WYD organisers failed to plan this event as a water aware, ‘eco-pilgrimage’,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen.
“While I applaud the Pope’s in-flight statement urging the faithful to play their part in halting dangerous climate change, I really think the Catholic Church could have been a lot more proactive on environmental issues.
“Where is the plug-in 100% electric Pope-mobile powered by green electricity? Where is the guaranteed sweat-shop free, ethically produced Papal merchandise? Why aren’t there prominent strategies in place to minimise the environmental footprint of World Youth Day?
"The 125,000 international pilgrims that organisers were expecting will generate a huge amount of waste and will consume significant additional freshwater resources.
“Water saving educational information would be of great benefit to our immediate environment and equally beneficial to pilgrims returning to their homelands with an appreciation of the fragility of our environment. In their zeal to facilitate a significant influx of pilgrims there is no corresponding instruction on the environmental and social impacts of their visit.
“The former Pope John Paul II has written’ The Ecological Conversion’, an encyclical on the Earth as God's garden. It is easy and appropriate to promote the sacredness of the earth in a religious context but have the organisers made allowances for the Greenhouse emissions for the pilgrim's travels from far flung corners of the earth?
“The pursuit of the spiritual should not obviate the need to respect our environment and shorter showers should be a well publicised objective for the devout if they were truly able to respect God's earth during this environmentally high impact event.
“We can hardly use the old adage of 'Save Water Shower with a Friend' with our current visitors, but short showers could help save God's Earth,” said Mr Cohen.
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