Is equality a foundation for global sustainability?

As the sustained media interest attests, Pope Francis's encyclical "Laudato Si" is a genuinely remarkable intervention. In exhaustive detail he identifies the two profound challenges facing our global civilization: poverty and the stability of the planet's life support system.

While they have often been treated as separate issues, the Laudato Si names the root cause: an economic system that values wealth accumulation above all else. But what he misses is that they may share a common solution: greater equality.