Pope's climate change encyclical glosses over role of population growth | John Vidal

In ignoring family planning - and overlooking women's development role - the pope may have weakened his case on links between poverty and ecological crisis

It's more than 150 pages long with lots of commentary on climate, water scarcity, waste, the state of humanity, poverty, consumption, justice, morality and technology. But for all the papal encyclical's reliance on peer-reviewed science and state of the art environmental analysis, there is only one brief mention by Pope Francis of the massive population growth that has overwhelmed many countries in the last 50 years as a direct result of Catholic teaching; and there are just 11 mentions of women.

These two whopping elephants in the Basilica of St Peter throw some doubt on whether the encyclical is really a radical analysis of the state of the world intended to speak to everyone, as Francis has said he wants it to be, or is aimed at the upper echelons of a divided church in need of fresh teachings.