Orthodox leader calls for environmental action

October 23, 2009
By The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Standing beside the Mississippi River, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, made a plea Wednesday for more action to save the planet and stop destroying it “as if there is no tomorrow.”

“The dilemmas we are faced with are the problems created by human beings,” Bartholomew said at the opening of an environmental symposium in New Orleans. “We are consuming environmental capital and destroying its sources as if there is no tomorrow.