Scam Watch Educational Awareness-Duty to Care About Earth’s

1. Scam Watch Educational Awareness We Have a Duty to Care About Earth’s Right to Life

2. What does the premise “do no harm” mean? How would a law against ecocide impact current international environmental law? It would radically reframe how we approach environmental destruction. A law against ecocide stems from a fundamentally different point of view than current law and regulations. It is a deontological [meaning: the study of the nature of duty point of view. Now a deontological perspective starts from the premise that we have a duty of care to the earth. We have an obligation, and from that idea flows a golden rule, a sacred rule, which is where this principle of do no harm comes into being. We have a legal duty to care for the earth. Within existing environmental law, we haven’t established that duty of care. It doesn’t exist. This law is really about shifting our vision and our understanding away from a very silo, narrow view. We look at issues on a single thread of direct cause and effect. We fail to examine the impact of our actions in their entirety. For example we say, wow, we need more heat or we need more energy so let’s cut down more forests and burn more trees because it allows us to then go in and extract more fossil fuels. If you examine these actions through the lens of “this is what is good for us now” then it is okay because there is an immediate benefit, but if you look at it from a wider context of how these actions impact us as a whole or over time, you start to see things from a different perspective.

3. So a deontological perspective comes from a very different place. It is a fundamental turning around from where we are now and saying, okay, let’s start from a completely different premise here. It’s saying let’s start from the first duty that we have, which is to do no harm. Where does that take us then? If it’s really “do no harm,” then we have to start from the premise of saying we criminalize mass damage and destruction to the earth. We draw a line in the sand, and say we’re not going to do that anymore.

4. You’re alluding to the idea of system’s theory. In terms of industry best practices and scales of economies being completely transformed, the law of ecocide marks a fundamental paradigm shift on par with a post-industrial age. How does this idea work within the framework of nature and law? This is really about living by the laws of nature. System’s theory is really what nature does. It’s about holistic integration where biodiversity can really flourish. When you start to take a wide view, you begin to recognize the interconnectedness and the interdependency of all of life. It no longer makes sense to destroy vast tracks of territory so some community elsewhere can benefit. You begin to see that kind of system just doesn’t add up because the more you do it, the more problems you create. Instead, if we start using systems that have a benign impact or actually have a positive impact then you are engaging with how we actually become part of the system rather than just taking from a system. We become far more integrated. We are part of the whole. The shift away from a human-centric way of thinking to a far more ecological way of thinking is essential.

5. How does this idea of ecocide apply to the concept of the Anthropocene age? What’s so interesting is that we now have the knowledge. The writing is on the wall. In fact, the reason why we have planetary negotiations is because we recognize that humanity is contributing, in a major way, to the destruction of the earth. So there is a kind of wake up call aspect here, where the law is very often playing catch up with civilization. It is also about a fundamental shift in understanding as well as a shift in our consciousness. It’s a kind of wake up call that is calling upon us to take care of the earth, and of course, it has legal implications in the form of a legal duty of care. We have a duty of care. Life is not just about: we take and we take and the ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality. But in fact we [have to] expand our concern from the here, the me, and the now, to one that is relational not just to myself and other human beings, but also to my relationship to the earth itself. I begin to now ask what can I do for the earth? I put myself in a trustee, stewardship position, rather than ownership position, which has largely predominated, especially in the last 200 years, since the industrial revolution. Its been very much owner dictated. And now it’s very much about moving away from that paradigm, that way of thinking, being and doing and the laws that we have around that. A lot of our laws no longer serve living life itself. http://storify.com/ZurichBlunte/scam-watch-educational-awareness-duty-to-care-abou