Many critics of Pope Francis' stirring encyclical on the environment protested that he is not a scientist, which is true but beside the point. His call for a global cultural revolution to foster sound environmental stewardship is a moral framework for the climate change debate and, more broadly, a demand that technology be used to improve the human condition.

The encyclical embraces the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that adverse climate change is partially driven by human activity. But the pope deals with the societal structure that allows it to continue, noting that the most catastrophic impacts likely will be upon some of the world's poorest people.Science cannot address every dimension of every problem. The question often is not whether technology can do something, but whether it should do something. That is the dimension that Pope Francis brings to the debate, lauding the improvements that science has brought to human life while lamenting that its benefits often are restricted to the wealthiest at the expense of the poor."Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur," Francis wrote.Many conservatives believe that the pope should not have taken on the subject. GOP presidential aspirant Jeb Bush, for example, said, "I don't think we should politicize our faith" an odd comment from a leader of a party that has used faith as a cudgel relative to public policy.The encyclical is an important and intentionally timely contribution to the debate, in that it precedes a climate change global conference to be conducted in Paris later this year. And it will influence domestic policies under debate in many countries around the warming planet.By making environmental stewardship a moral prerogative, Pope Francis has stirred the consciences not just of Catholics, but of humanity.The Pottsville Republican-Herald