As regular readers of Secondhand Smoke know, I am very concerned about the growing anti-humanism permeating enviromental advocacy. It started, perhaps, with deep ecology–but is spreading now to the misanthropic ”rights of nature”–including I just found out, in Pittsburgh!–and the equally anti human exceptionalism campaign to make “ecocide” an international felony deemed as heinous as genocide. So, I decided to make that issue my last column of the year.
First, I describe the issue and give examples of language purporting to establish ”rights” for nature, including for “Mother Earth” (draft global warming treaty) and the goddess Pachamama (in Ecuador’s constitution). I then describe the game that is afoot. From “Beware the ‘Rights of Nature’,” in the Daily Caller:
Rights of Mother Earth!? Pachamama? Sounds disturbingly like the proposed legal establishment of a neo earth religion to me. Metaphysics aside, think about the adverse impact that granting rights to nature would have on human thriving. Pond scum and pollywogs are part of nature. So are stink bugs, grass, poison ivy, pigeons and all other flora, fauna and indeed, if applied literally, so too are mountains, rivers and other inanimate natural objects. If these individual and collective aspects of the natural world have the “right” to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate,” it could stop most development and exploitation of natural resources in their tracks — which, of course, is precisely the point.
One way this great thwarting would play out would be lawsuits brought by elements of nature–really radical environmentalist lawyers–to force judges to decide when human development and “nature” came into conflict–which to some degree happens any time we do anything. This all has a deeply anti-property ownership tinge:
Talk about a full employment guarantee for lawyers! Imagine the courtroom backlog that would be created if “nature” could sue every time enterprising humans wanted to act enterprisingly with their own property. Indeed, imagine trying to obtain a liability insurance policy. Good luck with that! But then, nature rights would prevent us from truly owning property. We would become, at best, mere trustees for all of the life forms on the particular tracts of land that we no longer truly owned.
I also get into the ecocide issue, and conclude:
Radical environmental misanthropy is on the march. Its activists are well-funded and ideologically committed. The time has come to stop rolling our eyes at the seeming insanity of the proposals and take the threat of granting rights to Mother Earth seriously. The future of human prosperity and thriving could well depend on it.
Time to end the “it can’t happen here” complacency. I intend to continue pounding this drum at every available opportunity.
December 31st, 2011 | 11:46 am
Do you remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska?
An Anchorage jury awarded $287 million for actual damages and $5 billion for punitive damages.
The punitive damages amount was equal to a single year’s profit by Exxon at that time.
Exxon appealed the ruling, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the original judge, Russel Holland, to reduce the punitive damages.
On December 6, 2002, the judge announced that he had reduced the damages to $4 billion, which he concluded was justified by the facts of the case and was not grossly excessive.
Exxon appealed again and the case returned to court to be considered in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling in a similar case, which caused Judge Holland to increase the punitive damages to $4.5 billion, plus interest.
After more appeals, and oral arguments heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on January 27, 2006, the damages award was cut to $2.5 billion on December 22, 2006.
Exxon appealed again.
On May 23, 2007, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied ExxonMobil’s request for a third hearing and let stand its ruling that Exxon owes $2.5 billion in punitive damages.
Exxon then appealed to the Supreme Court.
On February 27, 2008, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for 90 minutes.
Justice Samuel Alito, who at the time, owned between $100,000 and $250,000 in Exxon stock, removed himself from the case.
In a decision issued June 25, 2008, Justice David Souter issued the judgment of the court, vacating the $2.5 billion award and remanding the case back to a lower court, finding that the damages were excessive with respect to maritime common law.
Incidentally, Exxon’s actions were deemed “worse than negligent but less than malicious.”
The judgment limits punitive damages to the compensatory damages, which for this case were calculated as $507.5 million.
Some lawmakers, such as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, have decried the ruling as “another in a line of cases where this Supreme Court has misconstrued congressional intent to benefit large corporations.”
December 31st, 2011 | 1:39 pm
Do you remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska?
Your argument might work if there were no other possible solution to the problem you describe.
Since this is not the case (there are in fact many possible/potential solutions which are much more reasonable than simply granting environmentalists the right to veto any human activity they disapprove of), your argument is nothing more than a particularly lame example of the either-or fallacy (also known as the “false dilemma”).
Harryhammer Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 10:25 am
@Blake,
Between 2004 and 2007, the profits of the six supermajors totaled $494.8 billion.
Let me know when they lose a case.
January 1st, 2012 | 8:40 am
I am not sure how the exxon case relates to Mr Smiths post. Without getting into an analysis of the substance of the case, it is interesting that Justice Breyer and Jusyice Souter sided with Exxon. They are not typically seen as being in the pockets of big corporations. Ironically, both Justices Thomas and Scalia wrote separate concurrences stating that they still did not believe that the constitution limits punitive damages, but they recognized that the have lost that issue in prior decisions. Following the court’s precedents, with which they disageed, they voted with the majority in this case.
Harryhammer Reply:
January 1st, 2012 at 5:05 pm
@pauld,
As I said:
The Exxon Valdez case was “another in a line of cases where this Supreme Court has misconstrued congressional intent to benefit large corporations.”
Large corporations don’t need your help.
Large corporations are giant emotionless entities that could care less about doing anything to protect and improve society.
In a litany of cases the Supreme Court overturned positive, progressive, and proactive legislation designed to do just that.
Ask Mr. Smith.
I’m sure he can explain it to you better than I can.
January 1st, 2012 | 11:52 am
The future of human prosperity and thriving depends on a prosperpous and thriving ecosystem throughout the world. Humans cannot live in a world with only money and technology.
We live in a finite world and therefore we cannot depend on unlimited economic growth. We must at some point develop a steady state economy, in order that all live may thrive and propser.
Why not now?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 1st, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Because it will harm human beings tremendously, leading to poverty, misery, and despair. Tar sands can be remediated. It isn’t choice between killing everything and ecocide. Good grief.
Harryhammer Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 10:51 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
That’s baloney.
I can tell that you know very little about pipelines and the oil and gas business.
It’s basically:
Did a hole, bury a pipe and collect heaps of cash for 100 years while creating very few jobs.
As of December 2006, ExxonMobil ranked first among the super majors measured by market capitalization, cash flow, revenues and profits.
ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP combined have over a trillion dollars in revenue and only 293,200 employees.
The most profitable company in the history of the earth has only 83,600 employees.
They don’t even crack the top 100 list in terms of number of employees.
See if you can find them on this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers
January 1st, 2012 | 2:39 pm
Why not now?
Because your solution isn’t a solution, it’s just a transfer of power.
If you want to fix the problem, you have to do more than just say “hey, give me and mine unlimited power to decide how the rest of you should behave!” (notice this weird offer does not even offer any guarantees that the problem will be fixed – the only thing that is guaranteed via your “solution” is that environmentalists will gain power to tell the rest of us what we can and can’t do, while the rest of us will lose power and be subject to the whim and will of the environmentalists. Note further that the actual behavior and lifestyle of said environmentalists don’t exactly instill trust – too many are themselves conspicuously “do as I say, not as I do”…)
If you want to solve the problem, you have to do it the hard way: by actually coming up with a solution, and then running it through the various analyses to determine whether it is likely to work and whether it will cause unintended consequences. Then, once you’ve developed a solution, you have to persuade the voters.
But let’s face it: our government is misspending its capital badly, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to vote *me* unlimited power to decide which budget items should get paid or not, right? So what makes you think I’m gonna vote *you* that kind of power over environmental resources? They’re not your resources, and by the way those of us who live in rural areas really don’t like the way those of you who live in concrete jungles want to appropriate *our* lands just because they’re the only decent lands left. If you care so much about the environment, why don’t you fix up that concrete wasteland you’ve over-exploited before lecturing the rest of us on what *we* should live without and how *we* should treat *our* property? Speaking of trashing vs. taking good care of nature, why don’t you urban enviro-crusaders fix up your own back yard before you worry about mine?
January 1st, 2012 | 2:41 pm
Harry,
a particularly lame example
This was gratuitous and rude. I’m sorry for calling your argument “lame”. I had formed a prior opinion based on other arguments you’d made, and I reacted against that, instead of responding only to the argument you actually made.
I’m sorry for that.
Harryhammer Reply:
January 2nd, 2012 at 10:59 am
@Blake,
No problem.
I forgive you.
January 1st, 2012 | 3:42 pm
@Michael A. Lewis, I couldn’t disagree more with your 2nd point. For all intensive purposes we do live on an infinite planet. Everything that this planet started out with is still here in one form or another (minus a few tons of space equipment and a few Kg of uranium). All of it is here, the stones from the stone age, copper from the copper age, all the gold, everything. A steady state economy now makes no sence there are billions of people on this planet without access to clean drinking water, sanitation, electricity, should they stay at a steady state? Forcing millions to be poor to save Mother Earth is immoral and should be criminal.
If Mother Earth has rights, wouldn’t she also have responsibilities? Could I sue her if one of her trees falls on my house? More work for lawyers.
Harryhammer Reply:
January 2nd, 2012 at 10:50 am
@hyperzombie,
Newsflash:
Global warming comes with a big price tag for every country in the world.
The 80 percent reduction in U.S. emissions needed to stop climate change may not come cheaply, but the cost of failing to act will be much greater.
New research shows that if present trends continue, the total cost of global warming will be as high as 3.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Four global warming impacts alone — hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy costs, and water costs — will come with a price tag of 1.8 percent of U.S. GDP, or almost $1.9 trillion annually (in today’s dollars) by 2100.
We know how to avert most of these damages through strong action to reduce the emissions that cause global warming. But the longer we wait, the more painful — and expensive — the consequences will be.
Hans Rosling is clearly a smart man, as anyone who has ever studied statistics must know.
Aside from being an accomplished and well respected scientist and educator, he’s a genuine good guy doing good work to help poor people.
Check out these stats:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
Harryhammer Reply:
January 2nd, 2012 at 10:54 am
@hyperzombie,
Here’s another one of Hans Rosling’s award winning lectures about new insights on poverty:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html
January 2nd, 2012 | 12:17 pm
This is one of those issues where a certain minority of people want to pass coercive laws to make other citizens, companies and nations do what they think is right– because changing culture through persuasion is too messy and time-consuming. They would rather go straight to the taking-away-of-rights.
Fascists do this.
January 7th, 2012 | 10:36 pm
Thank you for the update. I wrote about the genesis of this in Resisting the Green Dragon, and am glad for this update.
Harryhammer Reply:
January 8th, 2012 at 10:22 am
@James Wanliss,
How many lobbyists do you have working for you?
How many think tanks do you direct?
How many lawyers do you have on the patrol?
When was the last time you changed a policy?
Do you care about the science at all?
Newsflash:
The founder of the Extreme Ice Survey, the most wide-ranging photographic study of glaciers ever conducted. He will speak in Ketchum on Jan. 19, as part of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts Lecture Series and in conjunction with The Center’s current multidisciplinary project, Thin Ice: Journeys in Polar Regions.
Once a climate change skeptic, Balog is convinced that humankind’s actions are dangerously accelerating climate change — “the evidence is in the ice,” he said. “Shrinking glaciers are the canary in the global coal mine. They are the most visible, tangible manifestations of climate change on the planet today.”
Balog believes people connect more easily with imagery than with purely scientific statistics. “Real-world visual evidence has a unique ability to convey the reality and immediacy of global warming, as well as the otherworldly beauty of ice-cloaked landscapes.”
National Geographic has produced both a book, “Extreme Ice Now,” and a PBS NOVA program on the Extreme Ice Survey, and Balog has been interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air. He has presented findings to the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change and to members of Congress.
Green Dragon:
Give your head a shake.
There is no Green Dragon, there’s only a black one.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact