The pope’s attention to migration and climate change were well known, but the pope was also attentive to a number of other global issues and challenges like nuclear disarmament, tax justice, development, and the rise of autonomous (A.I.) weapons systems.

Wood’s earlier novels contain explicit social critiques, but 'Stone Yard Devotional' does its intellectual heavy lifting at an arm’s-length distance. “I wanted to write a book that doesn’t teach or explain or condescend,” she told America in an interview over Zoom in February.

Peace among nations is a necessary precondition for any solution to the climate change crisis. Instead, we have a renewed arms race and a mad dash for exhaustible natural resources.

Looming on the geopolitical horizon this week is a significant threat to the multinational campaign on climate change that emerged far from Baku, when Donald Trump became president-elect of the United States.

We have recently seen entire communities wiped off the map by wildfires fueled by ever-hotter weather. This has grave implications for tradition, family and other goods that social conservatives value.

Helene’s devastation is offering a hard lesson: No community or U.S. region can consider itself safe from the extreme weather events that global warming is seeding and supercharging.