Vivienne
Westwood is right: we need a law against ecocide
The
economic and legal system rewards corporations that bulldoze,
stripmine and burn. A new law against ecocide could halt this
destruction
Charles
Eisenstein
16
January, 2014
Designer
Vivienne
Westwood expressed anguish and alarm
at the worsening state of the planet, at a press conference
yesterday. "The acceleration of death and destruction is
unimaginable," she said, "and it's happening quicker and
quicker."
Speaking
in support of the European
Citizens' Initiative to End Ecocide,
her words echo a growing sentiment that we have to do something. One
thing we can do is to enshrine the sanctity of the biosphere in law.
That
ecocide – the destruction of ecosystems – is even a concept
bespeaks a momentous change in industrial civilisation's relationship
to the planet. To kill something, like Earth, presupposes that it is
even alive in the first place. Today we are beginning to see the
planet and all its subsystems as beings deserving of life, and no
longer mere resource piles and waste dumps. As the realisation grows
that we are part of an interdependent, living planet, concepts such
as "rights of nature" and "law of ecocide" will
become common sense.
Unfortunately,
we live in an economic and legal system that contradicts that
realisation. With legal impunity and at great profit, corporations
bulldoze and cut, frack and drill, stripmine and burn, wreaking
ecocide at every turn. It is tempting to blame corporate greed for
these horrors, but what do we expect in a legal and economic system
that condones and rewards them? Besides, all of us (in industrial
society at least) are complicit. That's why we need a law of ecocide:
a concrete emblem of the growing consensus that this must stop.
In
moral terms the matter is clear, but what about economic terms? Is
ending ecocide practical? Is it affordable? The economic objection
implies, "Yes, we should stop killing the planet – but not
now. We have to wait till the economy improves and we can afford it."
Is this to say that we must accelerate our headlong depletion of
natural capital in order that, in some mythical future, we will be
rich enough to restore it? Does anyone really believe that we should
preserve a living planet only if it doesn't disrupt
business-as-usual?
The
unvarnished truth that environmentalists might not like to admit is
that a law of ecocide would hurt the economy as we know it, which
depends on an ever-growing volume of goods and services, increased
consumption so demand can keep pace with rising productivity at full
employment. Today, that requires stripping more and more minerals,
timber, fish, oil, gas, and so on from the Earth, with the inevitable
loss of habitats, species, and ultimately the health and viability of
the entire biosphere.
Changing
that is no trivial matter. What about the estimated 500,000 jobs to
be created by the ecologically devastating
Albertan tar sands exploitation?
We need to change our economic system so that employment needn't
depend on participating in the conversion of nature into product. We
will have to pay people to do things that do not generate goods and
services as we know them today – to replant forests, for example,
instead of clearcutting them; to restore wetlands instead of
developing them. Every facet of modern life contributes to ecocide;
we should expect, then, that every aspect of life will change in the
post-ecocidal era.
It
is more accurate to say that, instead of hurting the economy, a law
of ecocide would transform the economy. It is part of a transition to
an economy with less throwaway stuff, and more things made with great
care, more bikes and fewer cars, more gardens and fewer supermarkets,
more leisure and less production, more recycling and fewer landfills,
more sharing and less owning.
What
about the argument that if Europe criminalised ecocide, it would be
put at a competitive disadvantage with countries that allow it? It is
often the case that the rapid stripping of natural capital brings
high short-term profits.
How
can sustainably harvested lumber from one place compete with cheap,
clearcut lumber from another? It can't – unless the principle of
ending ecocide is also written into international trade agreements
and tariff policies. Sadly, international trade agreements under
negotiation today, such as the Transpacific Trade Partnership (TPP)
and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TPIP), threaten
to do the opposite: corporations could have ecocide laws invalidated
as barriers to trade.
We
need to reverse that trend. A European anti-ecocide law would
establish a new moral and legal basis for a global consensus to end
ecocide and preserve the planet for future generations. Even if the
law isn't enacted immediately, the initiative puts the idea on the
radar screen. Sooner or later, such a law is coming, and far-sighted
businesses that anticipate the changes it will bring will thrive in
the long run, even if that requires difficult short-term transitions.
The
European ecocide initiative has so far been signed by about 100,000
people – far short of the one million threshold required to compel
the European Commission to consider it formally. Will future
generations look back from a ruined planet and wonder why only 0.02%
of Europeans exercised their democratic rights to stop ecocide? We
can do better than that.
Charles
Eisenstein is a speaker and writer focusing on themes of civilisation
and human cultural evolution.
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