> Nor are ecosystems [composed of people]. Isn't that definition exactly the problem? An ecologist would disagree of course, but how curious that every other s

> Nor are ecosystems [composed of people]. Isn't that definition exactly the problem? An ecologist would disagree of course, but how curious that every other species is considered part of the ecosystem, but we are not! We're subject to all the same ecological laws. The humanity vs. nature separateness is of course entirely invented. But it's built into our very language: consider the other-ing effect of the term "environment" for instance. > All of this legal wrangling over river personhood is an attempt to avoid having to show that effect. You have it flipped around. The legal wrangling is almost entirely on the part of polluters seeking to avoid accountability (to great success, I might add). It helps that the 'environmental regulations' are written by the polluting industries themselves. They use poorly characterized mass flows through the environment (there's that word again) and pollution etiologies (often "poorly characterized" because the company covered up its toxicity research, eg PCBs) like a cryptocurrency tumbler, laundering away their own liability for poisoning their neighbors. It's unconscionable.