As some one fluent in Portuguese and having traveled extensively in Brazil, including the Amazon, I have strong opinions and deep knowledge of this situation. As a Midwesterner i was born and raised in an area of vast crop monoculture entirely denuded of the Eastern Woodlands and all of it's native plants and animals.
I think Bolsonaro should go to jail, because his political ties have been largely with militias for a long time. So this latest crime is bad but considering the source international outrage toward Brazil's political class on both the left and right has been so slow in coming I don't see it as something to consider sincere on it's face. All the world's large companies have done business with all the bad guys in Brazil, and offered precious little support to the good guys there, So i think there's some validity to criticism of the international response from the angle of "What took you so long?"
Back to the Eastern Woodlands of North America. They're largely destroyed but we have enough ledft to use as seed and the science of ecological restoration has advanced to the point that we could regrow them in about sixty years. Do we want that? If so why not? And where is the sincerity here if we wont restore our own continent? Because we're rich enough to do it and our ecologists are ready willing and able. so why not make ourselves the role model we don't see down in brazil? All we'd have to do is tax the rich a bit, BINGO.
32
Such a dumb idea. We cannot dictate what Brazil does in their own country. We have tried (wars) and those have not worked out after WWII. We also had a period of colonialism and that is no longer looked upon in a favorable light.
There really is no end to what "people who think they know best" will tell others to do to further their agenda.
Nobody likes what is going on there, but there is no fix.
8
It's really kind of crass to criticize Brazil for mismanaging their rainforest. It's wrong but America doesn't have a leg to stand on. People forget, Reagan's Congress deregulated the sale of US timber form the Pacific Northwest to Japan, relieving them of any responsibility to replant the trees and causing massive erosion that wiped out some of the best crab beds in the nation. Until then it was illegal to simply sell timber rights on public lands. Who was mismanaging then? The forests up north today are a wasteland.
23
Let's reforest the US. Somehow it is okay for us to clear cut our land but no one else is allowed to.
21
How about all of the First-World countries contributing to a fund to pay to the Brazilian government in exchange for putting out the fires, not lighting any more, and restoring over time what has already been burned?
11
Note the uber-white condescension here: eco-crimes are committed only by Third World people of color. And while Nordic messianic types wax loud over the sins of colored nations, Norway (next door) (like brownface Canada) keeps pumping at warp speed. Not a word about China's extermination policy against Uighurs, Putin's annexation of Crimea, etc--real crimes against real people here. But hanging judges for Banana Republics? And, as usual, the Hague will expect the Marines to go in and arrest the culprits. Blood will flow--but for the right cause, why not?
4
You want to save the rain forest? Want to end global warming? Want to end immigration and refugee problems?
Lower the population. Everything that threatens our world is based on the fact that we have 7,732,000,000 people living on a planet designed to comfortably hold the 1.5 to 2 billion Ehrlich recommended in 1968.
Solve that problem and the rest will follow.
10
It would be wonderful. Just for practice, and because it would have similar benefits, if less dramatic [until the shooting starts] - let us eliminate welfare ranching in the western US and get livestock off of public lands. More carbon sequestration, less methane pooting, less soil disturbance, restored watersheds, and so much more. And already documented, with recovery proven and demonstrated time and time again, in the University Labs and on the ground. It's worked so well everywhere it has been seriously tried, including on the large ranch that I managed for 37 years. But, don't go out to Battle Mountain, NV, and advocate this. You think the barrios of Brazil are dangerous?
10
It's a tragedy and travesty of untold proportions but its one thing to recognize how egregious, destructive and immoral it is and another thing to contemplate where is there any power centralized power to punish the perpetrators. And although they deserve punishment it's not going to bring back your lost loved one after they've been killed. A metaphor for the situation. Considering the degree of environmental deterioration that has occurred for decades Trump at China's "pedal to the metal " has highly accelerated the vortex of negative energy that is the tearing up book planet and government. The loved one, in this case the forest, lost an arm and two legs. How that will ultimately accelerate the already powerful negative vortex of ecological balance has yet to happen. But it will. So not only are we dealing with the loss of the concept and application of democracy but there is seemingly a close association of that concept to the concept of ecology. I have a feeling Greenland and Iceland may have very temperate climate soon.
2
Mr. Bolsonaro's quote or complaint that the indigenous populations " ...don't speak our language." He has that backwards,, he does not speak their language. They have priority.
Aside from that, I find the entire article and its premise of 'protecting the Amazon',, incredibly, astoundingly, hypocritical.
Michigan had one of the great forests of the entire planet. With the exception of a few square miles,,, every last tree was cut down. Newfoundland originally was covered, every square meter, with a forest so dense you could not walk through. Every tree was cut. Many areas have been so many times cut over, they grow rocks only now. Redwoods of the west coast,, only those in parks still exist, red cedar, white cedar,, cut to the point or extreme price rises over the last 5 years. Every inch of Ohio was forested, most every US East coast state was forest covered. We cut every tree. England cut every oak tree in the British Isles for ship building.
Yes, absolutely,, save the Amazon. Put your money where your mouth is and buy land, and then protect it from poachers.
Pass laws that encourage, promote, the planting of trees, here, where you live. Incentivize the establishment of huge International parks (pay for the land) in the remaining forests of the planet. Plant the Sahara and sub-Sahara with forests.
There are no clean hands that hold the high ground. It is not 'they',, it is 'we'.
20
A sign at the climate rallies: "the wrong Amazon is burning".
A penny per product, Mr. Bezos?
6
Mother Nature needs to be reminded as well!!!!
1
1) Ecocide certainly is a crime against humanity. But even if you limit to Amazon sized crimes (Indonesia and various generation of cronies also fit that bill) you have the problem of enforcement.
That require somebody, presumably the U.S. or China, to go kill the ecociders, who will not give up their pursuit of planetary destruction just to please the Hague. President Trump is cool with ecocide. China won't punish any country which licks Xi Jinping's boots or takes its bribes.
Everybody's favorite "green" country, Costa Rica. doesn't have an army and, moreover, two of its legislators, heedless of the nation's reputation, have proposed authorizing "open pit" ore mining. A "Mouse That Roared" scenario won't hunt. .
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Right now the best we can do is pitilessly expose the chicanery behind ecocide in the Amazon and Southeast Asia. And don't feel quilty about doing it, as some here advise.
2
Last summer a two hour drive from me the Camp Fire incinerated the town of Paradise California.
Two summers ago unusually large fires were spotted by Satellites burning on Greenland just 40 miles from the ice sheet, dumping black carbon on 7.3 meters of sea level rise equivalent of ice, darkening it which increases heat retention and melt rate.
Mark Lynas wrote a book titled Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet in which he described six scenarios of what our future might be like at a rise in temperature of 1 through 6 degrees C above preindustrial temperature.
He noted that at a rise of 3 degrees C, a temperature we're quickly losing the ability to avoid, the Amazon Rainforest might burn and that conflagration would add enough CO2 to the atmosphere to push us well into a 4 degree world which would be a slate wiper for humanity.
8
The issue of ecocide accountability is the "tragedy of the commons" writ large, whereby "what belongs to everyone belongs to no one (accountable)"; the commons are ultimately degraded by boundless exploitation.
By writ large, I mean we are talking about the oceans and the earth's atmosphere now, hardly less. The only custodian large enough to protect them from irreversible harm is science, and a global following to adhere to its prognoses.
Good luck with that, you say. Granted, yet we must at least begin by exposing and countering those who seek to undermine science, often for short-term profits.
3
If the U.S. cared, we would organize a planting of a million U.S. public land acres with trees to mitigate. The US cleared our forests 2 hundred years ago and we have massive ranching and farming now. We have made national agricultural income for those 200 years and now we can afford to plant trees here, or maybe just stop U.S. clear-cutting and subsidize the loggers to be fair. The US has put out a lot of the CO2 and still does, we should look to ourselves for solutions. Alternatively, we should pay make the ultra rich fossil fuel barons pay Brazil to keep rainforests to fix some of the problems they have created.
6
How many species have we allready destroyed in the name of progress? Persistent numbers say we have decimated 60% of all mammals since 1970. We are losing swathes of insects and birds every year.
Oxygenwise the Amazon is more of a zero-sum game, and nowhere near the "Lungs of the Earth" that some will have us believe. So why go off the handle now, when most of the possible damage is well on its way towards the end?
In some decades there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans. The microplastic will have invaded everyplace from Everest to the deepest places in the oceans. Plastic bags on the ocean floor at 30 000 feet down is on camera.
Probably we should talk to our industries and trades, before blaming it all on the poor farmers and the criminal sawmills in the Amazon. There is enough on our own plates.
3
It is a crime against humanity, so the question is how do you enforce the consequences.
A carbon pollution tax and carbon removal dividend is the direct way to price its cause and effect.
For example:
Blackstone pays for the destruction of Amazon rainforest to plant soybeans that American farmers have piling up spoiling due to Trump's tariffs.
When Blackstone must pay in perpetuity for the loss of carbon-removing Amazon rainforest at the rate of $75 per ton of carbon, plus the cost of tons of carbon emitted during the destruction of rainforest, such a project would never be economically viable.
A global carbon tax would charge all companies and countries for sources of carbon emission (internalize cost of production), and pay dividends to all companies and countries that remove carbon from the atmosphere at the same rate.
The redistribution of carbon pollution taxes and carbon removal dividends amongst counties would be related to public projects and public lands.
The redistribution of carbon pollution taxes and carbon removal dividends amongst private enterprise would be encompassed likewise.
The same concept should be applied to taxing pollution of the oceans and paying dividends at the same rate to those public and private efforts to clean the oceans.
Planet Earth is beautiful and rare, and if there are no mechanisms in place to protect it, all humanity and other sentient beings will suffer for the benefit of unstable, pathological individuals.
52
@David Parsons
We need visionaries, and not just one head honcho, but an eclectic, highly awake and aware panel of citizens to represent and govern. The current system of govt is destroying our world, and has been since the industrial revolution. You interested?
9
The United Nations is divided into two sections with only one, The Security Council, with the authority to actually take action, including military, against other countries.
If the six permanent members chose to inter-nationalize the Amazon Forest area, it could do so and have the military and moral weight of the nations of the world behind such an action. Yet, in practice, other arias such as emission of greenhouse gases must be included in a comprehensive program that requires sacrifices of all the countries in the world.
While this was not anticipatedl during the post WWII creation of this entity, it's rules provide for taking such action.
16
@Call Me Al. No, there’s no chance of military action by anyone on the Security Council. Do you honestly think Rusdia and China would approve that?
4
Don't forget about the criminals dumping trash into the oceans!
If only the settlers had blended in with the original people instead of slaughtering them. Their spirituality of revering Nature would have nipped all this before it turned into the Earth destroying monster it has become.
Jesus was sold out for some silver. Nature has been sold out for some silver. All the best this world has to offer us has been betrayed for money.
Climate deniers should be given a one way trip to Venus.
Leave the Earth, and the people who care for their Mother Earth, alone !
28
Instead of buying Greenland, we should buy the Amazon rain forest to improve the planet's ability to process carbon dioxide.
1
International law has no teeth. Its all voluntary, and too easy to opt in and out when convenient.
4
we need to save the Amazon. And the elephant. And the royingha, listing them last for emphasis. And the list goes on (e.g. freeing tibet). Just criminalizing stuff doesn't cut it.
2
Dictators, politicians, corporations any business or individual should face prison time and fines for desecrating our planet.
This is something that eco-activists have been demanding for decades. Until the rest of the planets inhabitants get on board with the few fighting the good fight it will remain the same or in the case of Trump makes matters unimaginably worse.
3
No, it isn't.
Can we make all those self-promoting "activists" go away (and earn honest livings doing something useful)?
4
Easy answer to the rhetorical question:
No...not until you clean up your own environmental travesty.
Look in the mirror, fix yourself, and then go out and HELP others...leave the past where it belongs and look forward.
3
This crime against humanity is largely funded by American corporations like "Blackstone" to invest in soybean profits.
4
@Al M. Since when is Blackstone into farming?
1
Yes yes lets start wars by passing laws that make Country leaders criminals over environment . How about China and India, there leaders are environmental criminals as much as any other.
1
On September 3, Homero Aridjis published an article in The World Post calling for Bolsonaro to be tried for the crime of genocide by the International Criminal Court. He wrote, "During a speech I gave at Yale Law School in 1992, I argued that we need an International Court of the Environment — “a tribunal for the prosecution of ecocides, whether they are [perpetrated by] countries, economic entities or individuals.” As the Amazon dwindles before our eyes, if such a court existed today, Bolsonaro would be brought before it as a criminal.
However, in the absence of an international environmental court, he should be brought before the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands on charges of genocide. France, for example, could refer Bolsonaro’s war on Brazil’s indigenous citizens, whose lives and livelihoods are in jeopardy, to the ICC prosecutor, who would take it from there. The process is thorough, detailed and would take years, but the initial referral could be made expeditiously and would shine a spotlight on ongoing threats of genocide, applying pressure now and ultimately setting a cautionary precedent for other heads of government who see themselves as sovereigns of the Amazon region."
The article is available at
https://www.berggruen.org/the-worldpost/articles/we-need-a-planetary-ethic-for-the-amazon/
2
Add Donald J. Trump to the indictment.
6
Seriously? And how exactly would those laws be enforced? If we're talking about crimes against nature in the same context of crimes against humanity than the US would be the equivalent of the Nazis. And how exactly and who would reign the US in when that still can't happen today. Feel good policies are really groovy and all but ultimately meaningless in any practical sense. What good is being able to charge someone with a crime after the atrocity has already been committed?
3
It's nice to know colonialism is alive & well. A couple of thoughts:
1) Never give an order you KNOW won't be obeyed, it makes you look like a fool. And Brazil WON'T obey an order from the developed world on this no way, no how!
2) Assuming you could get such a law passed (and I doubt it) who is going to send in the troops to enforce it? The UN yeah right it has NO capability to fight what would be a hot war. And most of the countries that could? Aren't going to, It's a fantasy.
and by the way declaring do has we say nit has we do! Is colonialism. You may not like it, I may not like but Brazil is a sovereign country. And it does not have to answer to others calling for it to make sacrifices. It's always easy to call for OTHERS to make sacrifices but not make any sacrifices yourself isn't it? I would find this a whole lot less hypocritical if the ones calling for Brazil to sacrifice weren't doing it from upper middle class comfort.
3
I am married to a Brazilian and this is exactly why they are very nationalist about the Brazilian Amazon.
1
2000 years ago Europe was densely forested. Fly over in a plane now and all you see is farms, roads, cities. The eastern seaboard of the US was heavily forested just a few hundred years ago. Not anymore. Now Brazil wants to get on the gravy train too and make a few dineros by cutting down their jungles. And why not? They have the same rights as everybody else.
We have decided we want 8,000,000,000 people worldwide and we want to grow by 1,000,000,000 more people every decade. And we need one third of the earth's surface for farms to feed everybody. Liberals and environmentalists don't like to talk about this but it is a basic fact. So, yes, trees and all the cute little animals that live in them have to get out of the way. Humans first. That's progress.
4
If we roll back pollution standards for vehicles in America, then accuse Brazil of a crime for harming the environment, America looks even stupider than it does already.
3
If we can, we better hurry up.
Should read "Crime against Nature" - don't worry human, that includes you.
1
Trump Republicans, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil: all live and will die by their psychopathic "Donner Party Economics".
All are fighting against any limitarianism, any sense that the nation-state's time is over, and that we are all going to have to drop our walls and work together with international ecocide laws
based on "first, do no harm"...
The new economy is going to have to be about healing the sick patient: our living earth.
We need an international "Earth Corps"... and to get to work on remediation.
2
Mr. Londono has either missed a fundamental point or his editors with The Times decided to remove key text from his essay. Much like the US West during a hot, dry summer, fires emerge on a regular basis in the Amazon. The records that I have access to indicate that the land consumed in wildfires IS ACTUALLY LESS IN 2019 than it was earlier in this century.
Moreover, the Amazon basin IS NOT limited to just Brazil. There are wildfires burning in Peru and elsewhere in South America.
The bottom line is that The Times HAS AN OBLIGATION to print THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH, not the propaganda that often supports the agenda of a certain US political party.
2
No.
1
Yes.
1
Are we prepared to do anything about the near total deforestation of Western Europe for lumber, and the near complete deforestation of the region from the Appalachians to the Mississippi Rive for farmland. Should the penalties differ?
1
As important as the Amazon is, I think we do wrong to focus so much energy and political will on it. The temperate rain forests of North America, and elsewhere, are equally essential. We must protect them all.
4
Do not world leaders and peoples realize that destroying the lush forests of the Amazon—what are in essence the "lungs of humanitry", given the rejuvenating effects they have on the Earth's oxygen supply and climate—so that greedy or desperate farmers can ludicrously turn them into cattle ranching will ultimately hasten humanity's? Why cannot the UN Security Council uphold the 2005 principle of "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P, what was used in the case of Libya in 2011) allowing for forceful intervention and temporary rescinding of sovereignty principle in cases of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity? Base on what we know, Brazil may already be in violation of the latter two conditions and thus the world has the right to intervene to save the forests and its native peoples and other living species. Instead of dropping bombs, however, as they did in Libya, they’ll be dropping H2O. And how difficult would it be to arrest or scare off a rag tag criminal element who is setting fire to the forests? What we need to realize is that once those magical forests are gone, it will take centuries for the region to be reforested to their present condition, while the destruction of species are virtually irreversible. Saving the Amazon is as important as the overall call to prevent climate change. The UN must thus seriously consider upholding the R2P principle and save the forest from further destruction.
1
Put pressure on Bolsonaro from all directions — massive economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and, if it becomes necessary, the symbolic placement of impressive (European, needless to say) naval hardware in international waters off the coasts of Sao Paolo? The alternative, if Bolsonaro has is way, will eventually be suffering and mass death on a worldwide scale. The longer sensible citizens of the world wait, the worse, and more intractable, the problem will become.
1
The biggest crime is the use of palm oil. Indonesia is now one of the biggest CO2 producers from the burning of forests for palm oil plantations for "Bio fuel" production. The thick layers of peat under the burned trees also burn producing huge additional CO2 emissions. The damage from palm oil pro production is worse than from the Amazon fires!
Bio-fuel production is a disaster! Banning Palm oil importation would produce huge benefits in reduced CO2 emissions and help save orangutans and other endangered species!
3
I just read on the BBC that climate change is speeding up. The 5 year period, 2014-2019 is the warmest on record. Co2 has hit 415ppm, the highest in a million years. Co2 emissions are 20% higher in the last 5 years than in the previous 5. Glacial melting is accelerating as is sea level rise. We and this planet are in a world of hurt. The time for PC, 1/2 measures is probably past. As a country we should be making every effort to discourage population growth and eliminating CO2 emissions at every level, even if they are economically harmful. We should not be trading with any country that isn't doing the same and helping any country to accomplish the same ends. The effort in WW2 comes to mind, except this may be even more serious. The really discouraging thing is that no one on any side of the political spectrum is even talking about what we really need to do.
4
While the calls for boycotting Brazil and Brazilian products is understandable, it's probably counter productive.
If you can afford it, take an eco tour in the Amazon. Spend money in ways the promote preservation. If you can, donate to the WWF who have active partnerships on the ground in the Amazon protecting the forest.
Make the forest more valuable alive than dead. That is the only long term solution.
3
@Will. That’s all been happening for decades. In any case, it’s far too slow a process. The forces that seek to profit from destruction of the rainforest are not likely to stop because of tourist dollars and NGO action. Brazil isn’t Costa Rica.
2
I’m glad to see that criminalizing the destruction of the environment has an historical precedent. Humans, because we live short lives, are unable to transcend the generational barriers to witnesses the destruction we cause in the future through our decisions now. So laws need to be created that have a chance to survive multiple generations. These laws would have to be global, since a global society will eventually have to emerge if we are to deal with the immense catastrophes facing our small home in space. But to assure that these laws are considered by all party nations, the global society would have to evaluate the value of the Amazon and then pay for its preservation. Farmers would be justly paid to steward the carbon sink and preserve these earthly lungs that help support all life.
Once the value is accepted and paid for, those who ignore the costs to life would be brought to court. It seems hard to image such a global society. The ancients were aware of what selfishness and greed were capable of. They watched there verdant forests decimated. In one myth the king Erysichthon cuts down a tree precious to Demeter. No one defied the king, they did his work. But he was cursed and later in a ravenous hunger he consumed himself. That is the end game.
1
The only viable long term solution is the pay Brazil to maintain its forests. The Amazon is a benefit to the entire planet. Humanity must join forces to protect it. Brazil is not a wealthy country. Unless all of us are ready to pay forest maintenance (I sure am!), it will be exploited for other sources of revenue.
That is just flat out reality.
3
If I were a Brazilian hearing complaints from the northern hemisphere about forest management, I would respond;
"Restore half, or even a quarter of the forest you turned into farmland and other uses in the 18th and 19th centuries, and then you can preach to us about how to manage our forests."
It is said that at one time a squirrel could go from the west bank of the Hudson to the east bank of the Mississippi without touching the ground.
Make forest destruction a crime? Sure, and let's make the law retro-active to 1700.
75
@Ralph Averill
The difference between then and now is twofold: 1) humans now have the knowledge of the harm from environmental destruction that people didn't have in the past; and 2) the sum total of environmental destruction has reached a turning point.
45
@Sara Gaarde
Since we understand so much better now, are we not behooved by all that is decent to ameliorate the damage resulting from the ignorance of our forebears? Perhaps if there were official, large-scale re-forestation programs operating in Europe and North America, we would be a little less hypocritical preaching to our southern brothers and sisiters.
We're at the tipping point now, but the ball got rolling two centuries ago. And it wasn't Brazilians.
15
@Ralph Averill
Sounds right, except for the fact that vast tracts of land in the northeastern U.S. have gone back to forest, especially in areas where poor, rocky soil made growing crops impractical.
13
Great read. I agree that with the effects ravaging the world worsening every month, that the great young people who are so dedicated to not being wiped out by the greedy stupidity of these men, who should be charged as criminal abusers of our precarious environment, will see to it that it happens sooner than later. Everyone else should do all they can to join with them. It is beyond a travesty that this could have been started at least 20 years ago, had another election not been robbed.
16
The developed world has exploited natural resources for economic advantage at a cost to the environment for centuries, and continues to do so. The way to save the Amazon is to make it economically advantageous for the people of Brazil. Until then, why would they stop?
24
Because our ecosystems are all interconnected, what happens in the Amazon affects everyone on Earth. Moving forward, as part of international relations, internal policies that have an adverse affect on the other nations are a subject of interest to all nations. But we would be in a stronger position to push for internationally desirable rules if we were to consider our own impact on the environment first.
25
Every country needs to contribute to the planet’s global health. All will pay economically. Can we ask Brazil to give up wealth for its populace when we aren’t willing to do the same? How about Americans giving up luxurious lifestyles, like fast or oversized gasoline-powered cars, fast foods (especially hamburgers), oversized and wasteful food portions and consumerism in general. In America, we need to do a lot more than we are doing before we can ask another country to dial back on polluting our planet.
27
It's a thought, but this article sounds like the Amazon is the only place this is happening. It's not even the worst place.
4
Yes, make destruction of the Amazon rain forest a crime against humanity. Around the world, power grabs of land and resources escalate and unfailingly mean taking land from indigenous and poor people by any means necessary. In the U.S. TODAY, Southern whites continue to rob black farmers of their land (cover story, The Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 2019). While Native Americans struggle in poverty on their poor reservations. The once noble Sioux are persecuted on the Pine Ridge reservation by the South Dakota government that negated their votes in the last election because the rural Natives don't have house addresses! There's no end to it and the United Nations must recognize this overt thievery in the Amazon and act.
Yes, but first let’s roll back the auto emissions standards in the U.S.
1
why are they butchering the Amazon? Bc there is a huge demand for meat, so are you not putting the cart before the ox?
It's not just a crime against "humanity", it's a crime against the entire planet. 'Bout time.
1
The problem with making it a crime against humanity is that the next thing is that the US military will invade and occupy the Amazon basin.... in the interests of humanitarian values, of course.
3
The people of the countries in which lies the Amazon support using it as they want. So what will make them stop burning it down? The Court in The Hague? Laws unenforced are not legitimate. Someone has to enforce the judgments.
2
I have two complaints about the idea of making environmental destruction a crime against humanity. One, that if it could be done, it wouldn't change behavior at all, it merely would increase the number of instances in which the law was openly flouted, which would make the law look helpless and useless and despised. Two, that calling environmental destruction a crime against humanity improperly and inaccurately raises humans above other forms of life.
3
@Stephen Merritt
"above other forms"? "inaccurately"? Can a dolphin reason -- say to argue for or against climate danger? If so, it would tell you “Relax, God is in control of the climate”. That is what it knows; so in that regard it is a higher form of intelligence than what you claim as yours.
The crime against humanity, is the claim that God is not in control. Simply, man has become confused; as spiritual influences have always been preparing human souls for eternal separation. Postures such as Gods gifts, e.g., fossil fuels, fertilizers, are being cast as bad for man.
Ecclesiastes 11
The Uncertainties of Life
1 Send your grain across the seas,
and in time, profits will flow back to you.
4 Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant.
If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.
5 Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.
Why not develop economic developmental credits administered through the World Bank or some other global financial institution to countries who put combating pollution first, and take economic hits because of it, instead of rewarding polluters. There should also be economic consequences for bad industrial practices - and war. Supplying arms to countries, as we do, should be a major problem, leading to a bad economic rating and loss of financial backing.
What is needed is a balanced program of compensation to Brazilians for refraining from exploiting their natural resources and "luxury" taxes on meat and fossil fuels et cetera worldwide.
Also: see immediately below.
2
I find it very interesting that among the comments there is a great popularity for paying Brazil’s property owners not to burn up the rain forest but no compensation for the average citizen for refraining meat or car use or other consumption of fossil fuels. If a monetary reward is functional for Brazil, why not a similar reward for the general population to encourage the new habits that the general population might gain in cutting down those encourage global warming? Direct payments would be almost impossible but the government could easily subsidize transit to encourage bus and train use instead of gasoline autos which might lower the price of that travel or even eliminate it. Subsidies could also work for vegetable substitutes for meat and elimination of subsidies for oil production. Of course Trump would prevent that but if the Democrats suggested that this kind of economic reward were available if Trump were voted out it might be an encouragement for people to vote Democratic. It’s an unlikely idea but I find it interesting.
3
No need for rhetorical overkill. Just apply all the energy and determination devoted to marching around holding signs and chanting to instead organizing an international boycott against exports from Brazil, especially those produced on land cleared by destroying rainforest.
The impact of burning the Amazon to the point of no return is gigantic, approaching the scale -at least for most of the lifetimes of most of us- of a "green new deal" in the USA.
This is not a symbolic issue like the Keystone extension.
Where are the so-called climate activists, when there is a chance to really make a sizable difference to global carbon and the long term climate?
5
If we intend to ask Brazil to refrain from developing the Amazon, for the sake of the health and survival of the human race, then we have to be prepared to pay. We cannot demand that a country hold back on generating economic growth and uplift its people, for free - while countries of the western hemisphere and Asia who are more developed are free to cut forests and pollute to their hearts' content for the sake of profit. Compensation always has to be part of that discussion. We are very quick to trun our backs on hurricane-caused disasters in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Florida; deplore the worsening floodings in Texas, the Carolinas, and in Banglasdesh.... But we don't want to talk about paying for the broken glass.
26
The destruction of the Rain forest didn't begin with Bolsonaro. I wonder how many of those who criticize Brazil have ever been there. It's a vast country and most of the population live in poverty. The illegal loggers are also armed to the teeth with weapons many of which originate in the United States - one of the consequences of the completely uncontrolled small arms market there. They will happily shoot anybody who gets in their way. The forest is also vast, making surveillance difficult and expensive while Brazil has trouble finding the money to feed, house and educate its own people. Instead of threatening them with punishment why not offer them help?
4
My idea is to hold the Brazilian people collectively responsible.
So a boycott of all things Brazilian (so what do they produce except supermodels, anyway?), but a refusal to play against their 'famous' soccer teams, In brief, I'm proposing to ban Brazil from international competition.
As well, individual Brazilians should be refused visas to play in foreign leagues.
Only if we are willing to pay them for leaving the Amazon forests planted and for protecting them. Why should we be able to create unlimited greenhouse gases while they sit on "the lungs of the world" and not be able to make a dime???
2
Don't need to create a crime of ecocide. Just add the Amazon rain forest to the list of natural resources (e.g. the Colorado River) for which personhood is being sought so that lawsuits may be brought in the name of the resource itself.
6
Sure, why not. Nobody is going to be held responsible for this either.
We must and to do nothing all the world leaders and supporters of them who did not attempt to arrest those criminals are an accessory. Just like Trump bringing back coal use and continuing carelessly to use it and drill for more toxic oil he and the whole GOP leadership need to be charged for crimes against humanity. Not long ago Pope Francis said to an oil man meeting if you harm the environment you harm humanity. This will keep happening by bad men like Trump and the Brazilian leader.
We better charge them fast before they flea the scene with their money.
How fortunate for Jair Bolsanaro, that Trump was so friendly to him at their, hush hush meeting in March at the Whitehouse (What did they discuss?...I never saw any reporting on it.). Then Trump proceeds to mess up trade contracts between midwestern farmers and China this summer, creating a huge opportunity for South American soy producers to step in and take those multi-year contracts (& they did). With deft timing, Bolsanaro takes any threat of prosecution away from the Brazilian farming and mining sector. And voila, fires are set all over the Amazon, even in lands protected for indigenous tribes by prior legal arrangements. Now farming can expand to boost production for those new contracts with China. What's next?...the Tump towers project in Rio gets miraculously revived ??
3
Yes! Brilliant. Don't forget to include the youth activists!
Since the Trans-Amazonia was cut through the heart of Amazonia 50 years ago more and more of the Amazon rainforests disappears every year.
Already the coastal rainforests are no more. More than half of Brazil's rainforests are already gone.
Brazilians are determined to "develop" Amazonian rainforests into oblivion.
1
Glad to donate to Stop Ecocide. I wanted to do something, in addition to writing to my legislators, who are currently doing nothing helpful. Make this an international crime, and lock up the offenders!
2
What a good idea. Let's adopt it in the near future.
1
The following countries have laws against ecocide. Interestingly enough, most are not high up on the level of what would be considered democracies or part of the "Western World":
Georgia 1999
Armenia 2003
Ukraine 2001
Belarus 1999
Ecuador 2008 (Constitutional), and 2014 (Criminal Code)
Kazakhstan 1997
Kyrgyzstan 1997
Republic of Moldova 2002
Russian Federation 1996
Tajikistan 1998
Uzbekistan 1994
Vietnam 1990
Before going to the Hague and the UN (this has been brought to the UN), why not suggest that more countries first legislate against ecocide, e.g. US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany etc. etc. etc.
3
Only by destroying national sovereignty.
The myth of Citizen of the World taken to its illogical extreme.
4
Surely American obstruction of action against climate change - from Kyoto on down - is a crime against humanity.
3
First, we’d need to make hypocrisy a crime against Humanity, so that the world’s biggest polluters/environment destroyers didn’t start going around telling the other countries what to do.
1
It pains me to see the destruction of the Amazon but hoping that the solution oi this problem will come by declaring it a crime against humanity is willful thinking. Many things have to happen and the world will have to come to an agreement to start penalizing the countries that destroy the environment we all share. But who is going to lead? the USA?
Could we also declare a crime against humanity the excessive emission of greenhouse gases? I'm sure the USA would not agree to this. Here are some number to keep in mind:
Metric tons of CO2 emitted per country per year per person:
USA: 15
Brazil: 2
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html
1
I agree with the concept but think it is impossible to implement while we continue to elect destructive leaders like trump and bolsonaro.
1
Make destroying the environment a crime.
The history of the United States "Manifest Destiny" is the biggest crime against humanity in yet. Who are we to judge, the industrialized West has destroyed the natural world already.
It is crucial that anyone concerned about the climate crisis understands the crisis that is unflolding in the Amazon. It was almost 50 years ago that Prime Minister Olaf Palme called to outlaw ecocide, and since then, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has only continued to accelerate. Indiginous people, who have been the best protectors of the forests, are being systematically murdered, and the whole functioning, life sustaining system of the Amazonian rainforest is being destroyed to the point of collapse. This catasrophe is profoundly affecting the entire planet, and every day we are losing ground against this war against humanity. Brazil elected a criminal who is carrying out exactly what he said he would do. Brazilians angrily defend their “sovereignty,” but they are not going to be able to deal with the consequences of trying to convert the Amazonian forests into unsustainable, industrial export for short term profit.
2
Jair Bolsonaro is an illiberal autocrat, but these Amazon fires were started by impoverished mestizo farmers trying to clear land in order to plant crops so they can eek out a subsistence living from the jungle. They have been doing it for years. Only now the world has noticed? Are you going to try each one of them in the Hague for crimes against humanity? Good luck with that. Let's choose our battles more carefully.
2
@Larry That is what we were told in the 1960's. It is more complicated today. There are large corporations involved in the expansion of agriculture in the Amazon today: JBS - meat production (known for corruption in Brazil). Soy companies: ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Co. The best information source I have found so far is AmazonWatch.org
https://amazonwatch.org/news/2019/0425-complicity-in-destruction-2
Also, market forces (over population & the growing taste for beef world-wide) are drivers. Here's a quote from the linked report: "...as China's demand for Brazilian soy surges due to a trade war between the United States and China, it could drive further ecological catastrophe: 13 million hectares (50,000 square miles) in the Amazon and Cerrado could ultimately be cleared to meet this additional demand."
While Trump's handling of negotiations with China worsen the trade war and literally destroy midwestern farmer's ability to cope and stay in business, his awesome "skill" is also driving more destruction in the Amazon. Don't let anyone fool you. The number of fires and the area burned is much greater this year. In the first 6 months of 2019, by Brazil's own measurements there was a 39% increase over the same period in 2018. Then Bolsonaro fired the head of the environmental agency that was tracking the burns.
We should choose our battles alright. If we just let go of this one we're letting go of the Planet.
2
Brilliant! Wish the UN would pass this!
Imagine an international court that recognizes the rights of the atmosphere to sue big oil companies for dumping the byproduct of their profit making enterprise into their world without compensation or remedy. Magnify that by the rights of the great coral reef over car manufacturers, the North American prairie over agribusiness, the tuna fishery over the state of Japan. If standing to sue waits till ecocide is evident, it will be too late. The list of grievances and damages done to the world are greater than the combined GDP of all countries for all time. But, hey, we're just living with what we have. Don't tell me I have to care about what it means for anyone else, much less the future children of unknown others.
At some point, social leadership will have to recognize that survival is at stake over economic expansion. The laws of nature will Trump the laws and institutions of nations at some point no matter what we think. That is not generations away as some may think on their way to their local football franchise coliseum.
This is a good idea. People who wield their power to destroy the environment and thus cause a wave of genocide via pollution and toxicity deserve to be imprisoned. However, such trials take many years...and thus occur after the damage has already been done. We need action on the ground now to stop the damage and perhaps international law that can act much more quickly. I am all for the trials at the Hague of people like Bolsanaro, the Koch brother(s) and the fracking industry as a whole but their acts of treason toward the environment and, consequently, toward the world population must be stopped immediately because we have already run out of time.
15
Believe me, I would be happy to see eco-killers at the ICC charged with crimes against humanity (and all life); the burning of the Amazon is such a transgression.
However, and I can see the argument in this country as well, requiring the maintenance of the Amazon rain forest is necessary but will trample on rights of countries that include the rain forest in their territories. The example of the oceans as a common good was put forth, but even in that example there is a 12-mile territorial fringe around the edges of the oceans that belongs to the country whose shore it is. What one country does to ravage its shoreline and waters migrates elsewhere. It seems that Brazil will claim its sovereignty over the Amazon forest inside its borders. Its damage to the rest of us (migrating effects) is two-fold and devastating: 1) release of CO2 that will circle the globe with temperature-warming effects and 2) elimination of CO2 scrubbing effect of the trees in the rainforest.
I don't know how the rainforest can be wrested away from individual countries and managed as an international trust but it seems that is what must happen to save it. I would also like an update as to whether the fires are still raging.
A lot of people seem to argue that since we didn't do anything to prevent people from destroying the climate in the past (when no one knew what we were doing), we can't start doing it now, because that just wouldn't be fair. But the past can't be changed, and our only hope to maintain a livable world is to make big, costly changes now. There must be compensation of the average people of Brazil and means to coerce the powerful. That must include both Brazilians and international investors in order for any measures to succeed, since the rich and powerful will always see more profit to be made from destroying the environment than preserving it. Not every country in the Amazon region experiences the levels of destruction that are going on in Brazil. The biggest difference so far is the degree of wide-scale, industrial agriculture in Brazil that is being developed with international investments in order to grow meat for the developed north and soybeans for China. It is no coincidence that the current crisis in Brazil and Indonesia and other places with tropical forests is occurring at a time when low tax rates mean there is plenty of idle money for investment and Trump's trade war is disrupting the soybean markets so American producers no longer supply China. So the burning of the Amazon is already a political problem with roots in US policy. If we do nothing to stop the destruction, will we admit the millions from low lying areas like Bangaladesh or Micronesia?
7
I fear we have no idea of the amount of money, power, and corruption that motivates the destruction of natural resources for the sake of profit. While the idea of crimes against humanity for ecocide is stellar, we also need to reckon with the complex web of greed capitalists who elect the leaders who are more visible. To make up my own statistic -- for every million environmentalists, there is one billionaire able to effectively offset their efforts.
9
Nothing is more anathema to Republicans that a world government of governments to maintain and enforce standards of conduct by governments.
13
The only way this works is to make it economically viable to countries like Brazil. That means other countries, especially those who produce the most greenhouse gasses must contribute, eg pay the most.
10
@RichardL
Agree 100%! It’s sadly ironic that the generation that held the first Earth Day has so completely turned from all aspects of ecological living.
5
Let's start by making recreational driving a crime. Every long weekend is jam packed with 500 miles of roads filled with cars, people driving for hours in exchange for a little fun at the beach and the like.
The tolls on the roads should be turned up a 100 fold, and then people should be required to file driving returns (just like tax returns) to claim back refunds for genuine driving needs. Anyone up for it?
Let's start taxing meat at 200%. One calorie from meat should cost a 100 times what it costs from plants. Anyone up for it?
Propane barbecue tanks should start getting charged at a 1000% tax rate. Make the tank cost a 100 dollars, not 15 dollars. Up for it?
Let us start charging whole house cooling systems at 10 times the cost of electricity. Either cool your immediate room, or pay 10 times the cost in electricity. Same for heating. Up for it?
It's easy to point out the problems when it's not our problem.
7
@max. You’re pointing out things that aren’t a problem. Our carbon emissions are below 1992 levels. How about if you start by not using the Internet.
4
@Jackson For the United States, during the period from 1990 to 2014 (see Figure 1):
Emissions of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, increased by 9 percent.
2
@Jackson
Just because our levels are below 1992 doesn't absolve us if we the said levels are 5 times that of the average humanity. Exoneration will get us no where.
The kids are standing up and it is time that the adults give up the pretenses.
6
The world has been free riding on the climate and environmental benefits of tropical forests for eons. We will have to develop compensation mechanisms to preserve these forests. It's a classic case of externalities and public goods. It's time we got serious and paid up.
11
The developed nations are on the wrong side of global environmental justice relative to the people of the Amazon. We want pristine jungles from which to discover the next cure for cancer, and we have become accustomed to the oxygen the rain forest produces, but we don't pay for these things to be maintained. If we want the Amazon, and every other sensitive habitat preserved, the global community needs to pay the indigenous peoples to protect the resource, not to penalize them if they use it to feed their families. As to the leaders of those nations, the "foreign aid" bribe is likely needed.
If we want the resource, we pay for it.
30
I believe classifying environmental destruction as ecocide is long overdue. Our own history has been despicable. That same history has witnessed some hopeful precedents in setting aside land for preservation. Past history should not prevent us from addressing current perpetrators of environmental destruction. Unfortunately, some of the biggest perpetrators come from powerful countries against whom prosecution would not be possible -- China, the United States, Russia. Brazil should be firmly included, as the column suggests. Though it would be largely symbolic, criminalizing environmental destruction by political or business leaders -- and their lieutenants -- would plant the seeds for cultural change. Change culture, and the laws eventually catch up.
13
How about charging the farmers and developers who actually started the Amazon fires first then we can talk about charging others who may or may not be culpable.
7
@Michael You first have to get rid of leaders like Bolsonaro and trump. They approve these activities and encourage them.
3
We need to rethink all kinds of harm to the environment and how we can hold individuals and corporations accountable so that this mentality that the planet is ours to plunder and ruin is no longer the prevailing one and there are penalties for behaving that way.
5
I am all for saving the Amazon, the Alaska wilderness and areas all over the globe that have been destroyed. My only question is, why only now? The destruction of the Amazon has been going on for decades. Who remembers Chico Mendes, who was killed trying to preserve the Amazon? How many more activists - some reports say over 700 nameless people - were killed in the past trying to save the Amazon without a murmur of outrage from the world? The president of Brazil may not care about what happens to the Amazon, but he is only one man in a country where laws mean nothing. Whoever wants to save the Amazon needs to go after the real people who is destroying it, the ones that are there cutting down trees, setting fire to the land, taking land by force - and their bosses. Brazil has environmental laws, plenty of them, but like many other laws, there is no enforcement especially when it comes to the wealthy and the powerful. So, don´t drag Bolsonaro to the Hague, it won´t do any good. Whoever is outraged about the Amazon, get out of your chair, turn off your computer and go to the Amazon and stop what is happening there. That is what is going to take to save the forest.
10
Can we make forcing states to increase their pollution levels via federal fiat a crime against humanity? Because that is exactly what Trump is doing to CA and other states by forcing them to accept more pollution as emissions keep rising.
19
If people in developed countries who use most of the energy want other lesser developed countries to preserve their rain forests then people in the developed countries must pay the lesser developed countries for the preservation.
24
@david Exactly. We can not ask Brazil to stop deforestation without compensation. All countries would chip in on the cost. Something could be worked out.
6
@david
Plus give them assistance in moving to clean energy sources.
@mother of two
Plus sell them all of the soybeans that China doesn't buy.
We all have an important interest in the climate of the planet, and in the pollution we breathe in our common atmosphere.
Therefore, we all have a common interest in the really big questions touching on climate change and the air we breathe.
This applies to the Amazon. It also applied to Chernobyl and Fukushima dumping radiation into our lives. It also applies to massive burning of coal in China, in India, and elsewhere.
However, there is a big qualification to that. We settled it in 1648 at Westphalia, ending a very long series of especially ugly European wars that had left some significant areas of Europe near depopulated from the sheer barbarity of the fighting. It is said that every water well within several days' ride of Berlin was poisoned, and the entire region near uninhabitable. These things were not lightly settled.
The settlement created the system of independent states. That is important to peace.
So what right do we have to say that how Brazil manages its own land is crime against all of us, allowing us to tell them how we require them to govern their country?
Consider, if we said we had a right to tell China it can't build coal power plants. Or India. Or if we had a right to order other nations to shut down their nuclear power stations.
Consider if those other countries tried to tell the US how we must govern our country, in order to comply with their concerns.
Like Bolsonaro or not (I don't) we can only offer incentives. We can only offer help.
13
@Mark Thomason
But it's now 2019. If history is the only qualification for progress--or lack thereof--then why don't we just adopt the Code of Hammurabi? You know, "An eye for an eye" and all of that. It predates 1648 by a couple of thousand years.
As you point out, we can not force other countries to stop polluting. But we can, as you say, offer incentives and assistance. The US can not act alone on this matter; it is going to take global cooperation. The role of the US can and should be as leader in ameliorating climate change. The rest of the world is waiting for us to act.
It's so easy to become fatalistic about climate change. But WE created the mess and WE are the only ones that can clean it up. We have to try, there is too much at stake.
5
@JJ -- "But WE created the mess and WE are the only ones that can clean it up."
I agree.
This isn't about "history." It is about attempting to impose our government on other countries.
We wouldn't let anyone do that to us. They certainly should, given our abandonment of the climate accord and our climate actions, our abandonment of the Gulf nuclear deal in favor of likely war, and our two decades of aggressive war crimes.
We wouldn't dare do it to many other offenders just as bad, like China and India.
Hence, my suggestion that what we do to clean it up is provide incentives and help. We might start by not importing all that Amazon beef that is produced by destroying the rainforest.
2
There is a lot of double standard in the debate about Amazon, or animals about to extinct. European countries seem a lot more chilled when it comes to their animals and countries. Much of its nature is destroyed, bent to economical needs or poisoned for maximum harvest. it doesn‘t make much sense to point to elephant or giraffe, when myriads of birds are disappearing in your backyard. Nobody in the west wants to have the Amazon destroyed but we are ok with a construction boom that destroys former meadows, and we don‘t even care for green roofs. I‘d like to see a real effort for green areas in Europe first.
11
@Nicola. I totally agree with you, BUT I don't think we have time. Here in the UK, we have [another] great argument about HS2 [a new high-speed train line] which will bulldoze through much land and even ancient woodlands, which were until very recently, being cut down despite the case for HS2 being under a rethink. We certainly cannot blame others for doing what we have already done.
On the other hand, destroying the Amazon will be genocide as you are killing those indigenous tribes that live there who are not living the greedy western lifestyle and therefore cannot be responsible for the Earth's present state.
Huge Companies love to be Global; is it not time that we all work together in Global fine detail to settle this? Population control is the subject that no one will agree on but as bi-peds have now become an infestation. This is perhaps the elephant in the room.
We have spent the last 40 years rearranging the deckchairs and now the Planet is 'listing'. Did you know this ship has no lifeboats?
Perhaps we should make Climate Change denying illegal? That could do no harm.
1
It isn't hyperbole to say that those responsible for climate destruction are mass murderers. Fossil-fuel executives, governments, politicians, and corporations may not have set out destroy the planet, but we’ve known since at least the mid-70s that their actions or inactions are warming the climate, and that the effects are catastrophically multiplied and accelerated when the causes are allowed to continue.
Presently, the best parallels for holding those criminally responsible in peacetime are the Nuremburg Trials and the IG Farben Trials, which established precedents in international law that “crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced.”
Plenty of countries have crimes against humanity statutes, so a trial wouldn’t necessarily have to happen under the ICC umbrella. Exxon, for example, has operations all over the world, so Rex Tillerson and ExxonMobil Corp. could theoretically be tried in any country that has such statutes on the books, or is a party to the Rome Statute.
Beginning such a process would be monumental and couldn’t be launched without intense, unremitting, international public pressure. Until then, the most pressing work right now is to decarbonize the global economy.
18
@BB
A true beacon of light to our North…
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-45.9/
Assume you feel the same way about producing oil from tar sands...
And the concomitant flaring that looks so artfully bright from seven miles high…
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/flaring-key-to-oilfield-emissions
Trump should face that charge, for force-feeding the sale of over-polluting cars in 13 states that have chosen to adhere to superior and more responsible emissions standards.
57
a crime against humanity?
It is more than just humanity that is suffering. Innocent plants and animals are suffering. It's destroying the world as we know it. However, it is not just the Amazon. We in the United States have cleared away most of our forests.
104
@esp SPOT ON!
3
The US became wealthy by exploiting its fossil fuel resources and creating farmland, putting a lot of carbon in the atmosphere that has brought the global temperature to this point.
In fact, since 1850 the US has emitted almost twice as much CO2 as has China, almost 8 times that of India, and 27 times more than Brazil, according to data (through 2017) from the World Resources Institute. And Americans today emit more per capita than any of these countries.
Any developing country naturally wants to develop its resources, feed its people and attain an affluent lifestyle. We have no ethical right to hold them back when we (and Europe) weren't held back and as we trashed the atmosphere thus far.
If the world wants the Amazon to stay as it is, it should somehow compensate Brazil.
42
@David Appell
Perhaps it is worthwhile to keep in mind that whether the wealthy land owners in Brazil become richer or poorer by destruction of their oxygen supply or not, death does not discriminate on the basis of wealth.
8
@David Appell This is such a tired and irrelevant argument. We committed near genocide against our native peoples, so other countries should have that opportunity too. We ruined our forests and aquifers, so they should as well.
We can't undo the horrific acts of our past, but we can learn from those mistakes. The earth is at a tipping point. The time of mindless and ruthless exploitation is at an end. It's time we adopted renewable and sustainable practices - or the genocide will be of the entire human race - and countless species besides.
7
@David Appell
I think putting the Amazon forest into an international trust may be the only way to protect the forest and the countries that comprise the Amazon rainforest deserve to be compensated.
I don't think it is useful to excoriate the US or other countries that were early to industrialize in the mid-19th c.; the real understanding of what it means is only about 50 years old. A more productive approach is to help 2- and 3-world countries ramp up development using clean energy as we ourselves phase out fossil fuels. No one in any country can responsibly assert that it is their turn to belch poisons--we all must retool and quickly.
5
It is rather fascinating that the current performances in human civilization are viewed through morality or theology or legality. If an automobile has four flat tires it simply cannot be accepted as a functional machine. One would be somewhat peculiar in describing the car as immoral or illegal. Our current planet is a vastly complex machine integrating complexities of a nature wherein destruction of all sorts of components can easily create conditions where life itself cannot further exist. Current human social and economic behavior is rapidly, in many directions, moving toward this final catastrophe and the efforts to stop that are obviously insufficient, Whithin a decade or so the opportunity to change that will be lost. This is not a matter of good or bad, it is a matter of incompetence.
24
The immorality comes into play when the few and wealthy cause the misery of the many, especially all the destruction of non-human lives. To use your car analogy, the tires did not become flat on their own, humans punctured them. That is the crime.
2
Thank you. Our air and water are necessities. Governments have turned into profit seeking corporations. Nine/eleven has made the unimaginable imaginable. Look at China on a bad day; they already have cut five years off of their life expectancy because of coal polluted air. We have to be tougher and not roll back our hard earned protections. In China you can die from lung cancer even though you never smoked a cigarette in you life. Let not let money making cloud our judgement.
14
@Jeff Stockwell
Let's also not kid ourselves that what is created in China stays in China. That air moves on air currents, warming the atmosphere as it goes. Just as radiation from the Fukishima reactor explosion is being detected in US west coast fish, China's pollution gets here as well. We are one ecosystem, not bound by national borders.
1
We desperately need an international accord – analogous to those we already have for war crimes and crimes against humanity – to identify, prosecute, and punish CRIMES AGAINST NATURE. In our world, the human impacts on the environment have grown so large that they are already having global impacts on the atmosphere, oceans, climate, and the health (indeed survival) of humans and all of our fellow passengers on Planet Earth. We cannot stand by and let a few enrich themselves by spewing pollution, dumping their wastes into the air we all breathe, the water we all drink, the climates we all inhabit. Such piracy is criminal, manifestly – but such offenses are not merely crimes against humanity. They are crimes against nature, they are crimes against the future.
Whether it be Saddam setting Kuwaiti oil fields aflame, or Bolsonaro encouraging illegal clearing of the Amazon, or Trump single-handedly sabotaging global efforts to safeguard global climate and biological diversity, all of those actions are immoral, and cry out to heaven for punishment for justice's sake.
28
Of course we can't. This is the reasoning. The sort of ecological destruction being done to the Amazon is something that was done long ago to Europe and North America. The present ecology of those continents is a new one that has evolved after the removal of the natural forest cover of those places and the industrial way of life is only possible in the wake of doing that. When you characterize the destruction of the Amazon that way, you are in effect saying "We in the industrial world are living well for having consumed the ancient ecology and we are living a very high life on that basis, Now you in the developing world can't do the same because we took out the maximum to have our nice urban industrial life. i.e. We ate all the cakes and scones. Now you can't have any for yourself because you will ruin the kitchen after what we did. Not equitable or fair. We have to find another way of distributing these costs. If the industrial world wants Brazil to forgo that kind of industrialization to keep things nice for us, we should have to pay them something in compensation.
11
@Bill H BUT we must be so careful that the cash is not ‘diverted’ as is usually the case. How do we raise these funds? The wealthy will lobby; the poorer will scream injustice [while continuing to purchase imported cheap useless tat that has no purpose other than to fill the coffers of developing countries and choke landfill sites/oceans etc.] Is it the Consumer we westerners have all become that must be changed? We need to think this out with great care but is it time we reconsidered the ever thirstful quest for Economic Growth ?- it no longer makes any sense.
5
Of course we can, and the sooner the better. But as a previous poster pointed out, positive reinforcement works better -- pay them to save it. It's not one or the other; it's everything we (and others!) can do.
6
@Pajama Sam. This solution is not unlike asking the rich to pay more in taxes to prevent those they have underpaid for years from revolting into social unrest. No, no, no. They maintain police forces and military to do that for them. More in taxes to circulate the wealth or prevent the earth from being too hot to live in! You are joking, right? Asking for intelligence instead of selfishness?
The farmers and ranchers are burning down the Amazon forest because you asked them to. You asked them to by buying beef. The worlds ravenous appetite for meat, but especially beef requires more and more land to graze cattle and to grow soybeans and other feed. If you don’t want to see the “lungs of the world” going up in smoke, then stop asking that they be burned it with your purchases. If your addiction to meat is so strong that you will sacrifice the future of the planet to satisfy it, then at least own up to that fact and admit you really don’t care more about the environment than you do your own desires and pleasures.
90
@James Felder That's a great point, people should just stop eating meat for the environment and their own health but many people don't realize that much of the meat raised from Brazil is used for the pet food industry.
Cats and dogs eat a lot of meat that humans buy them and feed them, especially in the US.
10
There is food for pets made with insect-based protein now, I believe made by a Dutch company. But you are right, a lot of meat, including theat of fish, is going to pets.
7
@James Felder Excuse me, I didn't ask for this. I'm a vegetarian. Let blame the people actually responsible, meat eaters and corrupt Capitalists like Bolsonaro and the people who let him get away with this, like some other world leaders.
9
Pay them not to burn it. This will require a carbon tax, but so be it. If we want Brazil, Indonesia, and elsewhere to forego economic opportunity, then we have to compensate them. Making burning rainforests a crime is the wrong approach and merely sets developed nations against aspiring nations.
77
@Alan Engel
Although I agree that this might be effective, I wonder that all human values can be allocated in terms of money. The saddest development throughout human history and especially at present is, to me, that money is rated above the essential values of basic human social decency and survival of life on the planet. That is the crux of our failures.
8
@Alan Engel Making burning rainforest a crime is racist at its core. The countries who caused the problem in the first place while reaping profit would be penalizing those to aspire to the same living standard.
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In parallel with the article's suggestions, the US must establish more-efficient legal mechanisms to "piece the corporate shield" and hold individual decision-makers and implementers within corporations personally responsible for environmental destruction resulting from their actions.
All too often, environmental crimes are just items on the balance sheet - if the benefit is greater than the fine, corporations have every incentive to destroy what they will. Or, of course, they can just go bankrupt, and the perps just wave their last paychecks at the creditors coming after the defunct corp.
Conservatives believe, centrally, in responsibility. Well, OK, then!
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How about we all agree to pay Brazil for exporting oxygen and importing carbon dioxide?
And let's hire their farmers to plant trees.
And let's hire their miners to police the borders of the forest.
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@Barnaby Wild That is a very neat solution. We just have to work out if your plan could be compromised. Guess it is all down to the who supervises it,
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@Barnaby, YES! I have been thinking ever since this started, the rich countries must have known there was a huge temptation to use this land profitably. We have all pretty much destroyed our own forests for profit, so it seems hypocritical to expect better from them. We need to pay them to work to protect and improve the vast rainforest.
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@Barnaby Wild
Yes! Splendid idea! This really could work. Could also be done between states. People like you give me hope.
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We could not make anything a crime against humanity because there is no system of government over nations. Nations are in a state of anarchy with respect to each other.
This is troublesome when there are global problems.
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