I was telling my neighbor Swamp Rabbit that scientists just sounded a new alarm about ice shelves in the Antarctic. “They’re melting a lot faster than the experts used to think, but nobody seems to care,” I said.

“Ice shelves ain’t news,” he replied. “Not until all the ice melts and the seacoasts go underwater.”

I couldn’t argue with his logic. The world is a hot mess and wars are everywhere. It should surprise no one that news about the environment takes a back seat to stories about warmongers who’d rather foul up the planet further than save it from climate change. People like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu and whatever sicko who happens to be the boss of Hamas this week.

“All them world leaders are bullshit,” Swamp Rabbit declared. “Pope Francis is the only one tells it like it is. The Catholic Church ain’t cool, but the pope is.”

I did some reading to find out what the pope is saying these days. Eight years ago he issued an encyclical — an official papal letter — calling for “a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.”

This time around, in another communique, he shared some of the same thoughts but with more urgency and pointed criticism of the climate deniers who are inching the world closer to disaster:

They bring up allegedly solid scientific data, like the fact that the planet has always had, and will have, periods of cooling and warming. They forget to mention another relevant datum: that what we are presently experiencing is an unusual acceleration of warming, at such a speed that it will take only one generation – not centuries or millennia – in order to verify it. The rise in the sea level and the melting of glaciers can be easily perceived by an individual in his or her lifetime, and probably in a few years many populations will have to move their homes because of these facts.

Francis also had harsh words for the ineffective UN climate change conferences (COP28 is the next one, in December); for oil and gas companies; and for lifestyle choices in the United States, where individuals, on the average, generate about seven times more carbon emissions that people in the poorest countries.

Swamp Rabbit criticized the pope for singling out the United States. “Them poor countries would pollute just as much as us if they had more money.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, “but that’s no reason to ignore climate change and spend all our time and energy on bread and circuses.”

Swamp Rabbit’s eyes lit up. “Speaking of which, how about them Phillies? A bunch of million-dollar bums. Worst collapse I ever seen. Think I’ll find a new team to root for next year.”