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Happy belated Earth Day! I hope you all got outside and enjoyed the fresh air at some point. If not, this weekend is going to be gorgeous!
Ok, now that we’re finished celebrating the Earth, let’s talk about people. You know, sometimes we take a lot of things for granted, like shelter and health. We consider those, amongst other things, to be our human rights. Not having those things is foreign to those of us living in the UK and that’s good. If we’re not spending our time thinking about how to get healthcare then it means that that need is being taken care of by the government.
Environmental campaigner Polly Higgins is calling for those rights to be extended to include environmental rights. Higgins is campaigning for ‘ecocide’, the mass destruction of ecosystems, to be included in the United Nations list of crimes against humanity.
Ecocide could potentially be used to prosecute climate change deniers who willfully distort facts about climate change in order to influence voters or political decision-making. We’re not talking about throwing your average skeptic in jail, here. This would be reserved for the truly odious person who lies about climate change and hides facts in order to change the way that governments deal with climate change.
I’m all for stopping the baddies who are purposefully duping the public. I am even more enthusiastic about prosecuting companies and governments that destroy huge swathes of the environment. What do you think? What should the definition of ecocide cover?
For more information on ecocide, visit this is ecocide. Their bit on resources-fueled conflict is particularly interesting.
