Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet at times
they also shield us fromdirect contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity
of their personal experiences. For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the exciting
possibilities offered by thesemedia, adeep andmelancholic dissatisfactionwith interpersonal relations,
or aharmful sense of isolation, can also arise.
V.
GLOBAL INEQUALITY
48.
The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot
adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social
degradation. In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable
people on the planet: “Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of
all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest”.
26
For example, the depletion of fishing
reserves especiallyhurts small fishing communitieswithout themeans to replace those resources;water
pollution particularly affects the poor who cannot buy bottled water; and rises in the sea level mainly
affect impoverished coastal populations who have nowhere else to go. The impact of present
imbalances is also seen in the prematuredeath ofmanyof thepoor, in conflicts sparkedby the shortage
of resources, and in any number of other problems which are insufficiently represented on global
agendas.
27
49.
It needs to be said that, generally speaking, there is little in the way of clear awareness of
problems which especially affect the excluded. Yet they are the majority of the planet’s population,
billions of people. These days, they arementioned in international political and economic discussions,
but oneoftenhas the impression that their problems are brought up as an afterthought, aquestionwhich
gets added almost out of dutyor in a tangential way, if not treatedmerely as collateral damage. Indeed,
when all is said anddone, they frequently remain at thebottomof the pile. This is due partly to the fact
thatmanyprofessionals, opinionmakers, communicationsmedia and centres of power, being located in
affluent urban areas, are far removed from the poor, with little direct contact with their problems. They
26
BOLIVIAN BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE, Pastoral Letter on the Environment and Human Development in Bolivia
El
universo, dondeDios para la vida
(23March2012), 17.
27
Cf. GERMAN BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE, Commission for Social Issues,
Der Klimawandel: Brennpunkt globaler,
intergenerationeller und ökologischerGerechtigkeit
(September 2006), 28-30.
