“By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman, or the charlatan.”

So said US Poet Laureate Joseph Brodsky in 1991. Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si is infused with poetry that transcends the prosaic language of science and politics normally associated with treatises on the environment. Placed side-by-side with IPCC documents, it is clear that the encyclical occupies a different realm. The latest IPCC report opens thus: “Human activities are continuing to affect the Earth’s energy budget by changing the emissions and resulting atmospheric concentrations of radiatively important gases and aerosols and by changing land surface properties.” Laudato Si starts with a reminder of  the Canticle of St Francis, “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.

The heart-touching poetry of Laudato Si belies its hard message, however. This is not just another document about climate change, far from it. This is nothing less than a demand for a new relationship with the planet, one that addresses all the serious issues unfolding before us today. It baldly and directly states that our behaviour is dominated by self-interest and greed and our societies run by a system that demands constant economic growth. This self-serving attitude “ruins my relationship with my own self, with others, with God and with the earth. When all these relationships are neglected, when justice no longer dwells in the land, the Bible tells us that life itself is endangered.” This is music to my ears. Finally, here is a document that places relationship at the heart of the environmental debate.

These are not easy words for the world to hear. We are a long way down the path of development whereby the Earth is a resource to be exploited for whatever we desire. To change in the way the encyclical demands will mean a fundamental re-think of how we live. It will mean a limit to growth, a curbing of desire, a change in day to day living that requires sacrifice and, importantly, a reframing of who and what we are – one species among many on a planet that has limits. None of this is in tune with the zeitgeist. Nothing about the modern world acknowledges that we must live within earthly boundaries. Laudato Si, however, leaves the reader in no doubt. “A fragile world, entrusted by God to human care, challenges us to devise intelligent ways of directing, developing and limiting our power.” No wonder so many conservative and neoliberal opponents of environmental thinking and action have rejected this document as outside the competence of the Catholic Church: many parts of big business have a lot to lose if we take it seriously.

Imagining a world where we truly live in harmony with the planet means dismissing immediately the fuzzy, bunny-hugging images that are still prevalent in some areas of the green movement. What Laudato Si demands is not an easy option. It is no less than a life of profound self-awareness and self-imposed restriction. It will call on us all to be humble and accept sacrifice to the greater good. This may well take generations to accomplish and will be met with overpowering resistance.  But we have no choice if we are to remain a vibrant species on a living planet in right relationship with God. It remains to be seen if the faithful really do take on board the true message of Laudato Si. If we do, then we have a deeply challenging yet truly wonderful path ahead.

Mary Colwell is a producer, writer and enviromental advisor to the Catholic Church in England and Wales. She is author of John Muir: The Scotsman Who Saved America's Wild Places.

Check out the next blog in our Encyclical series:  Claire Foster-Gilbert shows that Pope Francis has provided a basis for making concern for the environment core to Christian theology

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Image by Gerald Simmons from flickr.com, available under this Creative Commons Licence