Most people who have commented on Laudatio Si have highlighted the links he makes between social justice and ecology. I am among those who have praised this. Others have criticised it.
This difference of opinion might lead us to ask whether the Pope is right in linking social justice, or whether there is an irreducible tension between them.
Certainly, the demands of protecting the environment can be seen to be in conflict with those of treating people justly.
Population growth does put pressure on natural resources needed for providing food, shelter, warmth and hygiene for all. But curbing population growth by imposing a one child policy or sterilisation is in conflict with reproductive freedom, and also leads to discrimination against women when people choose to abort a female foetus.
Similarly restricting the use of fossil fools, especially coal, is an important part of reducing global warming. But to stop using and exporting them would put great pressure on the industrial development of the developing world, so keeping people in poverty, and may well intensify mining and burning of coal there to the detriment of the poor whose land is degraded and taken from them.
These kinds of issues create a natural tension between advocates for the environment and advocates for social justice. They will naturally place one above the other, and minimise the force of arguments that stand against their advocacy. So when Pope Francis joins the two causes together, he should expect some scepticism.
Nevertheless, the position of the Encyclical on the question is unequivocal. Social justice and ecology are consistent with one another; we must hold them together in our attitudes and actions. Pope Francis makes this argument from personal experience in large Argentinian cities. There the poor who were caught in a society marked by great extremes of wealth and poverty are forced to live in polluted and unhealthy conditions. He has also visited poor seaside villages whose people are vulnerable to the extreme weather events associated with global warming.
But his position also comes out of his reflection on the causes of poverty and of environmental degradation. In both cases the culprit is greed. When individuals, corporations and nations pursue narrowly their own self-interest, they fail to respect the interdependence of people and of nations with one another and with the non-human world. The result is great wealth for some and penury for others, and environmental catastrophe.
Greed distracts us from the common good