The Rights of Nature

[Lews Therin]

Hello my dear self-development colleagues, I opened this topic to see if any of you might have suggestions of topics to explore in my term paper.

I study Law, and am thinking about talking about two things in it.

The first is the idea that in most western countries every law must be interpreted in the sense of protecting human life. For example, if there is a rule that you can't step on the grass of a public university, but on the other side of the grass there is a person having a heart attack who needs help, the rule must be interpreted in as saying that you HAVE to step on the grass. You shouldn't ignore the rule or anything, you have to understand that in this case the rule actually commands you to step on the grass. And that is true for almost every rule and law, in every western country, from Germany, to Brazil to the USA. The protection of human life is the basis of everything and is to be considered implicit on very law.

(Even though in practice that may not be the case)

The second thing i want to talk about is that there are actually to western countries who are exceptions to this rule. Those are Bolivia and Equator. In this two countries, nature has right in and of itself, and must be protected not because it is necessary to human survival, but because it has the right to exist and so must be protected. (Here is a link about this laws on Equator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rights_of_Nature_in_Ecuador_-_Sumak_Kawsay#Legal_effects).

A professor casually mentioned this in class and it blew my mind, to the point my term papper is going to be about it.

I already want to explore the fact that nature is essential to human survival and that therefore in every country we tend to have laws about it. And how even though we have those in many cases nature ends up getting screwd as it can be argued for example, that since poverty is a risk to human life, deflorestation and extractivism as ways of getting money can sometimes be given priority over the protection of ecosystems.

Another case where we find problems of this sort in most countries is when, for example, river pollution is damaging the quality of life of the people around it, but not much ends up being done as sometimes it is hard to prove the link between the pollution and the illnesses affecting these people (specially when who is causing the pollution can pay doctors to say otherwise).

A different consideration i wanted to adress is the problem of considering human beings as external to nature, and not a part of it (what Wilber calls the descended grid) and how this perception of human reason as something that exists independent of the biosphere causes a shift in priority keeps us from adressing our problems.

(if we are above and beyond nature, we just have to develop as fast as we can so that one day reason and logic will be advanced enough to fix the environmental problems. Not considering that resource depletion and the subsequent fight for what is left may cause certain systemic collapses and spiral regressions that could very well make us less prone to reason and logic.)

 

I know we have some pretty smart people in here, so let your imaginations go wild, i will latter see what can and can't be used in the scope of the project.

When i finnish it, i will make sure to post it here for those interested, but it will probably that a few months yet.

[trenton]

We could have global laws designed to protect human life and the environment.  One of the biggest threats of climate change is that the rising sea levels can cause salt water to mix with fresh waters, thus intensifying the water wars.  There already are water wars starting.  Unless a global government takes climate change and water wars seriously, there will likely be many civilizations torn apart by the ensuring destruction.

One strategy goes as follows.  There should be a city government, a state government, a federal government, and a world government.  The world government would control a single military with the function of preventing corrupt leaders from starting genocides.  Similar to NATO this would allow different countries to spend less and maintain protection.

Currently, the government of the United States is responsible for many human rights violations because the President is the commander and chief of the most powerful military in history.  This leads assassinations of military and political leaders around the world, demonstrating that this is too much power for one man to hold.  If our laws were designed to protect human life, then these war crimes would be punished more severely or prevented entirely by making the federal government less powerful.

When many different countries pitch in to form a global military, they can save money and resources by preventing arms races.  These extra resources can be put toward environmental protection to prevent water wars.  In this way human rights and nature rights can't be separated because millions could die if we don't protect nature.  This needs to be weighed against the short term loss of life from not destroying nature.

If humans were separate from the biosphere, then when the empire blows up the earth with a death laser, humans should be left alive in the void of space.

As for poverty being a threat to human life, you could make the case of punishing white collar crimes more severely.  This allows the rich to make 500 million dollars and only lose 100 million dollars in law suits.  This money is obtained from people who are less wealthy, creating a threat to human life by putting people at a greater risk of poverty.  Raising the minimum wage more consistently would also address this thread to human life.

I hope this helps.  Good luck with the paper.

[DocWatts]

The illusion of separation between humans and the natural world is a systemic problem, one of whose root causes stems from the worldwide economic system not factoring ecological costs in to the costs of Production.

Instead matters that are of existential importance to mankind as a living organism on this planet (Climate Change, the acidification of the Oceans, etc) are treated as 'externalities', and a perverse incentive arises for individuals and groups to gain short term profits at the expense of long term human survival.

Obviously this sort of system can't last forever, the question is will humans make changes to this system on our terms, or will changes be forced upon us by an ecological crash that threatens human existence. Let's hope and work for the former, as the latter entails widespread suffering.

Whatever economic system ends up eclipsing Capitalism will as a matter of necessity need to have Ecological as a central pillar, in order to have any sort of longevity.

Edited May 17, 2021 by DocWatts