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> The draft defines ecocide as "unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-

> The draft defines ecocide as "unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts." Sounds good, until you consider that people will want to use this as a wedge to declare driving cars, eating meat, heating your homes etc to be crimes against humanity. Having billions of people around has a substantial likelihood of wide spread, long term damage to the environment. We should collectively work to mitigate this, while preserving our quality or life and rights to happiness etc. This declaration doesn't help that, it just provides silly cover for a political agenda.

carapace 5y ago
Yeah, I'm an eco-fanatic and this seems unproductive to me. The first thought I had was "Do cars count?" as they seem to fit the description. FWIW, I think the most useful political-economic thing to do would be to attempt to measure and account for "ecosystem services" both on the degradation/cost and improvement/benefit sides of the balance sheet.
- cryptoz 5y ago
  Are cars really driven by individuals who amount to "reckless disregard for the damage which would clearly be excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated"? I honestly don't even think it's close. Cars have such enormous benefits that I do not think it is "clear" as it would have to be to fit the definition. Something close would be Exxon lying about climate change, or VW cheating emissions tests to produce high-pollution cars at scale without punishment, etc. Not individual drivers. I think that's pretty clear in the definition. Edit: I'm an eco-fanatic and this seems productive to me.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    > Are cars really driven by individuals who amount to "reckless disregard for the damage which would clearly be excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated"? Depends on the timeframe you choose to measure the social and economic benefits and costs.
  - carapace 5y ago
    More Americans have died from auto collisions than in all the wars we've fought to date. That plus the effects of poisonous exhaust and vulcanized rubber eroding from tires seems to me to be "reckless disregard". > Cars have such enormous benefits... Contrast with alcohol-fueled trains.
deleted 5y ago
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lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Sounds good, until you consider that people will want to use this as a wedge to declare driving cars, Surely one cannot disagree that designing neighborhoods and quality of life around personal car usage is the number one culprit for pollution.
- balozi 5y ago
  It won't stop at neighborhood design or car usage tho. Like everything else today this will be one more weapon that can be wielded by power-hungry ideological tribes.
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  Yes one can, because it is not.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Moving mass further distances requires more energy. Personal cars enable, and require, living further away from each other. Hence personal cars lead to consuming more energy. The further away people live from each other causes knock on effects for energy usage for all of the mass moved for living. Where is the flaw?
    - slowmovintarget 5y ago
      Power generation in power plants that burn fossil fuels is the number one polluter. That's the flaw.
      - shawnb576 5y ago
        And to replace that with clean energy is that much harder with energy intensive dispersed communities. Cities are far more energy and resource efficient. It’s more than cars and energy, its water, sewer, transit, land use, ecological impact, all the things that don’t scale well. Yes decentralized power can mitigate a lot of that but planning communities to be low energy is a more scalable solution.
elihu 5y ago
The text includes this: > "Wanton" means with reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated; Which seems to give a free pass to developed countries to just keep doing what they're doing as long as it's not outside the norms of what developed countries think is acceptable. I'm not sure that it should: I mean banning driving isn't workable, but at this point burning fossil fuels for transportation is an economic choice. Giving up on fossil fuels doesn't mean giving up on cars, it means embarking on a slow and expensive transition to better cars.
deleted 5y ago
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lmilcin 5y ago
I think the key is "unlawful or wanton". So no, driving cars, eating meat or heating homes are not suddenly going to be considered ecocide. But not taking care of your laws to try to minimize waste products of driving cars or heating homes might be.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  The Stop Ecocide Foundation, one of the groups cited in the article, explicitly points to industrial livestock farming as an example of ecocide. (https://www.stopecocide.earth/what-is-ecocide https://www.stopecocide.earth/what-is-ecocide)
  - filoeleven 5y ago
    …under the category of deforestation. You left that part out. Also, eating meat does not equate to relying on factory farming.
- AdamJacobMuller 5y ago
  I disagree. Sure, nobody is going to come out and ban driving/meat/heating. But, do you REALLY need that pickup truck which has a V8 and gets 13MPG? Isn't that wanton disregard for the environment? Do you REALLY need to eat red meat 7 days a week? Shouldn't you substitute with 1 day a week of chicken and another vegeterian, you'll be healthier too! Do you REALLY need your house heated to 72F in the winter and 70F cooled in the summer? At least we should enforce to make the thermostats networked so we can control peak demand! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... To be very clear, I don't draw any parallels to what's happening here to be a holocaust-level thing. I do think it's A) a very slippery slope of giving control over what I fundamentally believe should be personal decisions over to a controlling central authority and B) I really like that poem. The fact is, my definition of wanton may differ from yours, especially across cities and states and nations and continents and that's OK. You make your choices, I'll make mine.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
pvaldes 5y ago
Spreading deliberately a crop plague or a disease as an act of war against another country International smuggling of endangered species as one of the main sources of income for organized crime. Creating a chain of wildfires for profit to hit the economy, so people is turned against their government. Having imbecile presidents that think that destroying decades of scientific work or taking bath masses in the middle of a pandemic, is really funny. Chasing massively in Malta all European migratory birds that Europe is trying to protect with lots of effort (but is failing because somebody needs to fix his tiny complex p*s bragging about how much protected eagles, goose and birds can kill in a day). THIS is the type of cases that ecocide cover and THIS is why is so important to have something like that ASAP.
fractallyte 5y ago
> crimes against humanity I think you missed the point. It's all about crimes against 'Nature'.

carapace 5y ago

Yeah, I'm an eco-fanatic and this seems unproductive to me. The first thought I had was "Do cars count?" as they seem to fit the description. FWIW, I think the most useful political-economic thing to do would be to attempt to measure and account for "ecosystem services" both on the degradation/cost and improvement/benefit sides of the balance sheet.

cryptoz 5y ago
Are cars really driven by individuals who amount to "reckless disregard for the damage which would clearly be excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated"? I honestly don't even think it's close. Cars have such enormous benefits that I do not think it is "clear" as it would have to be to fit the definition. Something close would be Exxon lying about climate change, or VW cheating emissions tests to produce high-pollution cars at scale without punishment, etc. Not individual drivers. I think that's pretty clear in the definition. Edit: I'm an eco-fanatic and this seems productive to me.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > Are cars really driven by individuals who amount to "reckless disregard for the damage which would clearly be excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated"? Depends on the timeframe you choose to measure the social and economic benefits and costs.
- carapace 5y ago
  More Americans have died from auto collisions than in all the wars we've fought to date. That plus the effects of poisonous exhaust and vulcanized rubber eroding from tires seems to me to be "reckless disregard". > Cars have such enormous benefits... Contrast with alcohol-fueled trains.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lotsofpulp 5y ago

> Sounds good, until you consider that people will want to use this as a wedge to declare driving cars, Surely one cannot disagree that designing neighborhoods and quality of life around personal car usage is the number one culprit for pollution.

balozi 5y ago
It won't stop at neighborhood design or car usage tho. Like everything else today this will be one more weapon that can be wielded by power-hungry ideological tribes.
slowmovintarget 5y ago
Yes one can, because it is not.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Moving mass further distances requires more energy. Personal cars enable, and require, living further away from each other. Hence personal cars lead to consuming more energy. The further away people live from each other causes knock on effects for energy usage for all of the mass moved for living. Where is the flaw?
  - slowmovintarget 5y ago
    Power generation in power plants that burn fossil fuels is the number one polluter. That's the flaw.
    - shawnb576 5y ago
      And to replace that with clean energy is that much harder with energy intensive dispersed communities. Cities are far more energy and resource efficient. It’s more than cars and energy, its water, sewer, transit, land use, ecological impact, all the things that don’t scale well. Yes decentralized power can mitigate a lot of that but planning communities to be low energy is a more scalable solution.

elihu 5y ago

The text includes this: > "Wanton" means with reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated; Which seems to give a free pass to developed countries to just keep doing what they're doing as long as it's not outside the norms of what developed countries think is acceptable. I'm not sure that it should: I mean banning driving isn't workable, but at this point burning fossil fuels for transportation is an economic choice. Giving up on fossil fuels doesn't mean giving up on cars, it means embarking on a slow and expensive transition to better cars.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lmilcin 5y ago

I think the key is "unlawful or wanton". So no, driving cars, eating meat or heating homes are not suddenly going to be considered ecocide. But not taking care of your laws to try to minimize waste products of driving cars or heating homes might be.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
The Stop Ecocide Foundation, one of the groups cited in the article, explicitly points to industrial livestock farming as an example of ecocide. (https://www.stopecocide.earth/what-is-ecocide https://www.stopecocide.earth/what-is-ecocide)
- filoeleven 5y ago
  …under the category of deforestation. You left that part out. Also, eating meat does not equate to relying on factory farming.
AdamJacobMuller 5y ago
I disagree. Sure, nobody is going to come out and ban driving/meat/heating. But, do you REALLY need that pickup truck which has a V8 and gets 13MPG? Isn't that wanton disregard for the environment? Do you REALLY need to eat red meat 7 days a week? Shouldn't you substitute with 1 day a week of chicken and another vegeterian, you'll be healthier too! Do you REALLY need your house heated to 72F in the winter and 70F cooled in the summer? At least we should enforce to make the thermostats networked so we can control peak demand! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... To be very clear, I don't draw any parallels to what's happening here to be a holocaust-level thing. I do think it's A) a very slippery slope of giving control over what I fundamentally believe should be personal decisions over to a controlling central authority and B) I really like that poem. The fact is, my definition of wanton may differ from yours, especially across cities and states and nations and continents and that's OK. You make your choices, I'll make mine.
- lmilcin 5y ago

pvaldes 5y ago

Spreading deliberately a crop plague or a disease as an act of war against another country International smuggling of endangered species as one of the main sources of income for organized crime. Creating a chain of wildfires for profit to hit the economy, so people is turned against their government. Having imbecile presidents that think that destroying decades of scientific work or taking bath masses in the middle of a pandemic, is really funny. Chasing massively in Malta all European migratory birds that Europe is trying to protect with lots of effort (but is failing because somebody needs to fix his tiny complex p*s bragging about how much protected eagles, goose and birds can kill in a day). THIS is the type of cases that ecocide cover and THIS is why is so important to have something like that ASAP.

fractallyte 5y ago

> crimes against humanity I think you missed the point. It's all about crimes against 'Nature'.