mother nature

After fruitless and protracted negotiations between the Human Social Justice Union and Mother Nature, U.N. mediator Hoo R.U. Kiddun has booked off. His decision came after the HSJU reps and Mother Nature failed to hammer out a deal in the latest of enumerable all-night bargaining sessions. “The parties are just too far apart”, Kiddun remarked, “To come to an agreement, there has to be some give and take on both sides, but it seems that for 250 years Union members have been doing all the taking and Management refuses to continue giving.”

Social Justice Negotiators Fail to Gain Concessions from Mother Nature

CBCnews.ca November 16, 2016

After fruitless and protracted negotiations between the Human Social Justice Union and Mother Nature, U.N. mediator Hoo R.U. Kiddun has booked off. His decision came after the HSJU reps and Mother Nature failed to hammer out a deal in the latest of enumerable all-night bargaining sessions. “The parties are just too far apart”, Kiddun remarked, “To come to an agreement, there has to be some give and take on both sides, but it seems that for 250 years Union members have been doing all the taking and Management refuses to continue giving.”

After humanity had reduced the global wildlife population by 40% since the first Earth Day in 1970, and raised global temperatures by 1.03 C since 1750 when the industrial revolution began, Mother Nature has threatened to lay off 7.5 billion people unless the Union agrees to major reductions in wages and benefits, including medical, dental, and vision care, and carbon emissions. In fact, it appears that human civilization itself is on the chopping block, but apparently the Union is cool with that as long as the social safety net remains intact.

The Union in fact, for its part, refuses to believe Nature’s claim that there are no more cookies in the cookie jar, or at least, not enough to satisfy the growing appetites of a rapidly growing union membership. “Let her show us the books---what is she hiding?”, asked chief negotiator J. Simon. “She is sitting on a cornucopia of natural capital while crying poor. If indeed there isn’t enough to go around, she should call on us for help before wielding the axe. There is a lot of intellectual capital on our side of the table---all she has to do is plug into it. We are ideas people and there are no limits to our ingenuity.” When questioned about whether boundless human ingenuity will be able to resurrect the millions of species that his members have extinguished, Mr. Simon refused comment---or place a bet.

But Kiddun reported that Mother Nature is intransigent, and refuses to move on any of its demands for voluntary cutbacks, or modify its biophysical laws. Her chief negotiator, I. Asimov, said that the Union could demand anything it wanted. “It can demand that every human being has a right to have his or her basic needs satisfied. It can demand that everyone has a right to access the bathroom in their apartment at any time day they want to—free of charge. They even can put it in the Union Constitution. But our problem is that we can only provide one bathroom and there are 7.5 billion tenants in the apartment. “

One Union negotiator, Bernie Sandpaper, rejected Asimov’s contention as absurd. “As a socialist”, Sandpaper said, “ I have to believe that if resources are fairly and equally distributed, there is enough to go around. All tenants in our national apartment can have free and universal access to quality bathroom care if we tax the rich and double our national debt to $38 trillion. Moreover, we can accommodate any and all the tenants from other apartments in the building who aspire to move to ours.”

Green HSJU negotiator Jill Stoner concurred. “All we need to do is reduce our footprint, move over and squeeze tighter for more and more incoming migrants ad infinitum. Migrants have rights too, and their rights and needs trump ours--no pun intended.” Another outgoing member of the team, Billary Winer, added, “We need to build bridges, not walls. Instead turning people away, we need to extend the table…ours is a vision of inclusivity, not exclusivity.” Ms. Winer is even rumored to have told a banker she wants to allow uninhibited traffic between all apartment suites, even to the point of tearing down bearing walls. “I want man-servants who will cook and clean for substandard wages,” a leaked email had her saying, “and if deplorables lose their jobs I am going to call them racists.”

Upon receipt of her comment, Asimov was reported to have said that Winer could extend the table all she wants, but there is not enough food in the kitchen to feed all the diners she wants to invite, nor enough energy to run the ovens or the stoves. “And we anticipate that energy costs will skyrocket to the point that customers are going to go home hungry……I expect fights to break out”, he added.
“Some may even burn down the restaurant.”

Kiddun, reflecting upon the impasse, sadly concluded that the fundamental problem was that the Social Justice negotiators just can ‘t rap their heads around the reality of scarcity. “And they don’t acknowledge that there are limits to growth….

“Once more”, Kiddun continued, “their Green wing doesn’t understand that it doesn’t make any sense for their union members to cut their consumption in half, only to turn around and double the number of members.” “They can argue until they are blue in the face, but Mother Nature won’t give. She doesn’t care about per capitas. Per capita energy consumption, per capita waste, or per capita carbon emissions. She only cares about TOTAL energy consumption, waste and C02 emissions. In other words, the number of members times their average consumption ….

“What we have here is a failure to communicate…. Mother Nature’s books are open, but the Union just doesn’t seem willing to read them …..

“I suspect that their brains just don’t do reality. They can’t cope with it. Reality is so ugly that denial is an essential coping mechanism. It is a part of their nature. They can deal with the short term, but aren’t interested in the long term”, Kiddun remarked, “They are neurologically f***ed.”

The consensus among seasoned observers is that massive layoffs are now inevitable.

Tim Murray
CBC Bullschiesse News
November 17, 2016.

You may think that “austerity” is a hoax. A conspiracy of bankers and CEOs and neo-liberals to rob of us our rightful entitlements. But you obviously haven’t heard the news. This is not the 1930s. This austerity is not contrived. This austerity is for real. This austerity is geologically, not ideologically rooted. There is not enough real wealth to go around.

Mother Nature and Mankind: A Communication Breakdown

The relationship that counts

Perhaps you forgot about me.
No wonder. Your history books seem to dwell on tyrants and dictators and megalomaniacs and the
terrible things they do.

Yet I can do terrible things too. Especially when I am taken for granted or abused.

I know. I never commanded an army or ruled a nation.
I never sent 13 million people to the gas chambers or starved and murdered six million Ukrainians.
I never firebombed Hamburg, Dresden or Tokyo, nor dropped two atomic bombs.
I never raped Nanking or slaughtered a third of Cambodia’s population.
I never conducted a war of ethnic cleansing nor destroyed a culture and enslaved the survivors.

I never committed any of these atrocities. Yet I am the most merciless and indifferent mass murderer in
history. I am Mother Nature. And I really think we need to talk about our relationship.

Not the relationship you have with other people. Not about whether people treat each other with
enough respect or fairness or empathy. Not about whether they distribute the wealth equitably. No,
this is about our relationship, the relationship between you and me, nature and humankind.

You speak of coercion. Of “coercive” birth control measures, forced abortions, punitive laws, of mass
imprisonment and the violation of reproductive freedom. Of force, compulsion, duress, oppression,
harassment, intimidation, threats, arm-twisting and pressure by people against people.

But none of this matches my power of persuasion. I am talking about environmental coercion.

You can be constrained by many things in life.
You can be constrained by arthritic pain, and prevented from training for a marathon.
Or constrained by your budget from doing a lot of travelling or eating out.
Or constrained by your girth from fitting into the suit you wore to the prom.

Environmental coercion - the most oppressive kind

But environmental constraints brought on by overpopulation can be more confining than anything else.
They can confine you to a small urban apartment because overpopulation has driven up the cost of
shelter. They can force you remain indoors because of smog alerts. They can restrict your movement,
and your options because overpopulation has created a labour glut and your wages have been driven
down by competition. . They can reduce your per capita share of vital resources like clean water and
affordable food. Environmental coercion can make your life miserable. More miserable than the most
autocratic and unjust of governments.

You may think that “austerity” is a hoax. A conspiracy of bankers and CEOs and neo-liberals to rob of us
our rightful entitlements. But you obviously haven’t heard the news. This is not the 1930s. This austerity
is not contrived. This austerity is for real. This austerity is geologically, not ideologically rooted. There is
not enough real wealth to go around.

Go ahead and change the tax code, reform the monetary system and let the big banks fail. Make the
rich pay their share. But do you think your Occupy movement can persuade me to yield more how-
hanging fruit? Do you think that “justice”, “fairness”, and “equity” will suffice to make up for our non-
renewable resource short falls?

In just 13 years, Canadian governments will have to find $93 billion just to fund their unfunded
liabilities---the promises they have made to Canadian citizens to pay out their pensions and satisfy their
health care needs. All of this in addition to running other government programs and finding money to
repair the infrastructure that is crumbling all around us. Newsflash: the money can’t be found by
“taxing the rich”. Corporate taxes would need to double and even then, even if there was no capital
flight to kinder tax climates, even if total tax revenue increased, it would be a temporary fix. In the
United States, for example, if the income of every citizen making over $200,000 per year was
confiscated, it would provide only enough revenue to run the federal government for just 193 days.

Continuing economic growth - necessary, but not possible

The only way out is continued economic growth. Growth at robust rates. It is only through continued
economic growth that your social safety net can be maintained and your cities and bridges and physical
assets can be replaced or repaired. One problem. I haven’t got enough affordably accessible natural
non-renewable resources to fuel this growth. Especially when emerging economies like China and India
are demanding more and more from me. Something must give. Commodity prices will skyrocket.
Economic recoveries will be killed in their tracks. Conflict will ensue. Please don’t unleash a nuclear,
chemical and/or biological war upon me. I have taken enough abuse already.

Surely you can see this all coming. Surely you can see that the numbers don’t add up. I can’t continue to
meet your growing demands. More efficient technology will not bail you out. Just ask Mr. Jevons. And
be honest--- renewable energy alternatives cannot be scaled up anywhere near the level you require.
All you need is a calculator and an enema for your delusional optimism.

But you won’t do the math. And you think your agenda trumps mine. Sorry, but didn’t you know, I own
you. You are on a leash. You and your short-lived economic infidelities. Do you think I didn’t know? Do
you think I didn’t notice that your mind was not on me and my needs?

I gave you space and now you need more?

You tell me you need “space”. But I gave you a world of space, and what did you do with it? You filled it
up with 7 billion people---- 5 billion of whom are determined to live like the other two billion do!

You tell me that universal and free access to health care, a decent pension and education is your “right”.
But as Isaac Asimov observed, if you have 20 people sharing an apartment with two bathrooms, your
“right” to guaranteed and timely access to a bathroom is necessarily limited. You can make all the
speeches you want. You can run for the Democrats and make it a campaign platform if you like, or make
“Freedom of the Bathroom” a Constitutional right, but without more bathrooms or fewer people in the
apartment, that right is meaningless. As meaningless as the promise of sustainable Obamacare.

I suggest that you seek counselling. Since I won’t provide you with the means to add more bathrooms, I
suggest that you try reducing the number of people who share the apartment. Things can’t go on like
this. I am calling a taxi and packing my bags. You just won’t listen, and never have. I am tired of your
roving eye, your insatiable appetite and lust for more, and your lack of attentiveness. I deserve better
than this---and I know that I can go it alone. You need me, but I don’t need you.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand our relationship. You have the roles reversed. I am not your
servant. I have only so much to give, and you’ve already blown half the dowry. So don’t come crying to
me for more.

And frankly dear, I really don’t give a damn about your “rights”.

Sincerely,
Mother Nature

Spokesperson—Tim Murray
November 15, 2012

"(There is) a fatal bias of the publishing world toward optimism. It is a bias that is commercially rewarding because it panders to our cultural and neurological need for false hope. The problem is, while optimism may be a good coping strategy on a personal level, it could be a calamitous approach for humanity to take on a collective level. If the crises we face are as challenging as the science indicates, we need first to fully understand how challenging they really are, as opposed to what we are comfortable with acknowledging. In other words, we need realism, not optimism. Before there can be a ‘call to action’, we have to understand the scope and nature of the problem we want to solve." Tim Murray

"To be truly radical is to make hope possible,
rather than despair convincing. "
Raymond Henry Williams

(Slogan for Mike Nickerson's "The Sustainability Project", Lanark, Ontario)

Is there any better summation of the environmental "justice" coalition than this? Need there be any further question about why "progressive" publishers like New Society Publishers and Clarity Press demand manuscripts that end with a happy ending---even if it contradicts the logic of the evidence presented by the author? Their mission is not to seek the truth, but offer hope that through activism "we" can "make a difference". This is the prevailing ethic in Sierra Disney World, the island of flakes, the community where I live.(Slogan, "Make a wish upon a star...."). The attitude here is, "If you can't offer a solution, then shut up". Every problem MUST have a solution. No wonder "Solutions" is such a popular website. To say that there is no solution, no "fix" for industrial civilization is tantamount to treason. I am letting the side down by undermining morale. I am the Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw of Greendom, preaching defeatism. The possibility that the facts agree with me is irrelevant. It is The Cause which is important.

I would make the same point that Steve Kurtz made. "I do not believe that fantasizing is a solution except in one's mind. The hundreds of people I've encountered in 25 years of population-environment are not doing nothing if they debunk false hopes and strategies. They are also doing something if they soldier on with politically correct, but non-effective career paths: they are wasting time and energy and money. If there were no expanding problem, they might be out of a job."

The most disturbing possibility that emerges from the recent spate of doomsday books with absurdly happy endings is that authors may even be customizing their conclusions to fit the requirements of publishers rather than fit the reality of our predicament. A case in point would be Dale Pfeiffer’s article, “Eating Fossil Fuels, which formed the basis of a subsequent book of the same title published by New Society Publishers.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

Pfeiffer’s concluding remarks offer a reason why NSP published his book. NSP, like other “progressive” publishers, see their mandate as one that endeavours to offer “inspiration for the daily struggle” and hope that through activism, people can find solutions cooperatively.
Pfeiffer says: “I am by nature positive and optimistic. In spite of this article, I continue to believe that we can find a positive solution to the multiple crises bearing down upon us. Though this article may provoke a flood of hate mail, it is simply a factual report of data and the obvious conclusions that follow from it.” This statement is inherently contradictory. His belief that “we can find a positive solution to the multiple crises bearing down upon us” is not an “obvious conclusion” that would follow from his “factual report of data”. As Pfeiffer concedes, it is a conclusion made “in spite of this article.”

I make this point not to be critical of Pfeiffer---a brilliant mind who has written a great many outstanding essays in addition to the one referred to---but to illustrate what I think is the fatal bias of the publishing world toward optimism. It is a bias that is commercially rewarding because it panders to our cultural and neurological need for false hope. The problem is, while optimism may be a good coping strategy on a personal level, it could be a calamitous approach for humanity to take on a collective level. If the crises we face are as challenging as the science indicates, we need first to fully understand how challenging they really are, as opposed to what we are comfortable with acknowledging. In other words, we need realism, not optimism. Before there can be a ‘call to action’, we have to understand the scope and nature of the problem we want to solve. Or do mass demonstrations and Occupy protests address geological constraints? What set of demands can we present to Mother Nature that would persuade her to yield more low-hanging fruit?

What progressives don't get is that by definition, being 'radical' ---as opposed to being 'militant', 'committed', 'passionate' or 'progressive'----is to be determined to find the "root" cause of our predicament. If it is found there are no solutions to address the root cause, then anyone who shies away from this conclusion is not being 'radical', but being in denial. Attacking the symptoms and manifestations of the root cause because of an unwillingness or inability to address it can only be regarded as displacement behaviour, 'busy work' to assuage anxiety. But that essentially is what "environmentalism" today is all about. Polishing the wooden furniture while the house is burning down. Dashing around trying to put out brush fires while ignoring the major conflagration. "OK, maybe you can't save the world but you feel good about yourself". Anything to banish all the guilt we must feel for being white, privileged and greedy. Sin, guilt and expiation---it was the successful Christian formula for millennia, and so it makes sense that it should work for Christianity's heir apparent, the new secular religion of environmentalism.

Here's a newsflash for true believers and anyone else who works exclusively from their right brain:

Nature doesn't care about our emotional state, and objective reality is not a function of my "mood". Optimism and pessimism are not material to the issue of overshoot. "Morale" has no impact on EROIs. Just as religion has no place in a science class, the Human Potential Movement has no place in ecological analysis. The "you-can-do-anything-if-you-put-your-mind-to-it" philosophy has no relevance to our problem. Nevertheless, it seems that the environmental movement is being guided by the shibboleths of Wayne Dyer ("The Sky is the Limit") rather than the insights of William Catton.

One wonders how Dyer's "lifestyle coaching" could help people deal with the collapse or incineration of industrial civilization. I know, that mushroom cloud could be "perceived" differently. A mass die-off from starvation, disease and conflict doesn't have to be my reality if I can focus inward. Reality can be anything we perceive it to be. Ad nauseam. It is amazing that Self-Help gurus have made so much money for so many years preaching this bullshit. But then, look at Greenpeace and the Sierra Club or Nature Conservancy. There is big money to be had in promising false hope and salvation. The trick is to tell people (and corporate donors) what they would like to hear. Soothing lies.

Perhaps I do have at least one 'solution'. I have a scheme to generate money for a book publishing house that would print the unwelcome truth. I would set up a "progressive" publishing house to rival all others called "Dis-Connect Press" ("Connecting all the dots except the last one"), whereby steady-staters, volunteer family planning-only advocates, "Eco-socialists", Hartmannite feminists, and environmentalists could publish books that end on a note of idiot optimism ( “Yes there is a 14 foot gash on the starboard side, yes the pumps can't keep up with the incoming water, yes the ship will go down in two hours, BUT there is hope if we....”) . Since the market for false hope is insatiable, I would expect that sales would be brisk, and the money would roll in. With that money, "Reality Press" would be up and running......Its slogan? "Reality is socially unacceptable and the truth seldom politically correct".

Tim Murray
March17, 2012 ( Happy Potato Famine day!)

It seems that we are under the impression that Mother Nature will award us points for effort. If we do our best and try living less unsustainably, she will forgive us our sins and let us stay in the game because, well, surely she realizes that we are something special---and should get special treatment. But the truth is, this lady is not for turning. She is one 'hard-ass', a referee that cannot be swayed by our histrionics or our pleading. We have got to understand that she has her own schedule, and will not hold up the train for us.

Mother Nature's Press Release on Earth Day

In the wake of an announcement by Transition Towns College in Pennsylvania to hold a workshop about an "Energy Descent Action Plan" that would outline a model for developing strong sustainable communities and strong local economies less reliant on fossil fuels, Mother Nature issued a press release today announcing her Energy Descent Action Plan, which was apparently formulated without public participation.

Stakeholders take note

Despite her declaration that this plan is non-negotiable, she nevertheless invites all stakeholders to present their amendments and counter-proposals at the upcoming General Meeting on Earth day---if that is what makes people feel good about themselves. But she warned that she will not be attending the meeting---- explaining that she is disinterested in our input, doesn't give a damn about prospects for survival, and doesn't accept our credentials as an exceptional species deserving of special consideration.

Mother Nature outrages Eco-Socialists

As could be predicated, the announcement was met with incredulity and outrage. Eco-socialists complained that her plan was unnecessary, fascist and Malthusian. There was no need for energy descent because there is enough energy to go around, if only the rich were made to pay and share the wealth. Dump capitalism and this phoney energy crisis would be unmasked for what it is, a capitalist plot. Monbiotists argued that the plan was scapegoating the poor for the sins of the rich, and if Canadians stopped hogging energy and learned to freeze in the dark for 5 months a year, then there would be no energy shortage. Feminists from Hampshire college joined in on the swarming, claiming that Mother Nature was blaming women for climate change and peak oil, and if only women were "empowered", they wouldn't demand so many natural non-renewable resources. Finally, human rights advocates demanded that the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, gays, lesbians and transgendered 'people of colour' be exempted from her austerity measures. Apparently, however, these entreaties and demands fell on deaf ears.

When she was told that we are trying our best to live more sustainably or rather, less unsustainably, and that we are determined to build resilient, self-sufficient communities, she appeared unmoved. Sounding like Vince Lombardi, she is reported to have said that "Either you make the cut, or you don't. Living within your resource budget is not everything. It is the ONLY thing."

That statement did not go down well with identity groups. "We won’t accept these cuts !", they exclaimed. "Billions of innocent people will die.... our species may even go extinct. "

It was at that point that, reportedly, Mother Nature shrugged her shoulders and replied, "What the (expletive) do I care?"

It is rumoured that another wave of "Occupy" demonstrations will be planned, modelled on the one that took place on Easter Island in the 17th century, when protesters demanded an end to income disparity and debt slavery as a solution to restore old growth forests. (No mention was made of overpopulation however, because it was thought to be a red herring employed by the rich to blame the poor for their own excess, besides, if women had been empowered, they would have chosen to give birth to fewer loggers.)

Humans vs Mother Nature (again)

It now appears that we are at an impasse. We have bargained in good faith. We have tried to meet Mother Nature half-way, and moderated our demands in the hope that our sacrifices would provoke reciprocal concessions. But Mother Nature doesn't seem to understand that successful negotiations involve give-and-take. We have agreed to cut our consumption of natural capital in half and slow our use of natural resources that cannot be replenished. But we are obviously dealing with an intractable opponent.

Nonetheless, we must remain confident that by our resolute solidarity and determination to secure special treatment, we will convince her to give way. Either that, or thanks to human ingenuity, we will come up with alternatives. After all, we always have before, haven't we?

Now repeat after me, "The People, United, Will Never be Defeated...The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated.....The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated.....etc. etc."

Tim Murray
November 7, 2011

Mother Nature doesn't give a crap about our moral imperatives. She doesn’t care if people we judge to be worthy (the poor, the persecuted, the people of colour, the handicapped, the fashionably oppressed) should be lifted on to our lifeboat, only if it is overloaded. And whether the passengers live together without class barriers or in feudal subjugation is of no concern to nature either. The laws of physics trump the laws of any Holy Text, ethical system or left-wing manifesto. If we want to survive, we will have to play by nature's rules, not ours.

It is amazing what Mother Nature doesn’t care about.

Her house rules are impartially enforced, indifferent to our protestations. And they were not designed with us in mind.

Her biophysical laws cannot be repealed by a democratic parliament or be subject to the whims of human autocrats.

She doesn’t care about our political arrangements. Or about how we treat the passengers in our lifeboat. Only that we have overloaded it.

Left and right dichotomies are irrelevant to her concerns. Mother Nature takes no notice of our class structure. We can run our vessel like a slave ship or we can eliminate all class and racial barriers on board. But whether we choose to be organized by socio-economic caste or egalitarian harmony we will remain accountable to her demands. No matter. Her ship’s manifest only records two facts. The number of passengers and where they are situated. If those of lesser means, in the name of justice, are permitted to shift to our side of the boat, she will capsize it without mercy.

Mother Nature is not a humanitarian. She does not accept Mother Theresa’s credentials. Judeo-Christian ethics and the rhetoric of the antique civil rights movement make no impression on her. Human rights, women’s rights, the rights of the disabled or the rights of the poor and the dispossessed are of little interest to her. Our petition to rescue drowning swimmers who are victimized by persecution, war or ecological disaster will not be received with sympathy.

Mother Nature does not make fine distinctions between legal and illegal, skilled or unskilled immigrants. She can’t distinguish immigrants from refugees, legitimate from illegitimate asylum-seekers, white from black or European from Asian or Hispanic migrants, or those who climb aboard via the airport from those who enter through the maternity ward. All human passengers have footprints whatever their origin, and no category of humanity earns an exemption from her law of Carrying Capacity. Some believe that Mother Nature can be fooled or appeased by technical improvements that grow a phantom capacity, but that capacity only enables the addition of more passengers. No technological con job can win us a permanent reprieve from her determination to adjust the number of passengers to the limited capacity of our boat.

Mother Nature might be characterized as a callous bitch, but she is more like a stubbornly neutral umpire. Scream at her with outrage, if you will, but when the Ump says we’re out, we’re out. By all means, quote from your Holy Text, but she will remain unmoved. The Bible, the Koran, The Wealth of Nations and Das Kapital will fall on deaf ears. If there are too many passengers and not enough to go around, her ruling will be upheld.

Passionate, defiant, compliant, passive, devout or agnostic, we have no bargaining power with Mother Nature. We need her, but she doesn’t need us. We either get with her program, or we don’t get anywhere.

It is amazing what Mother Nature doesn’t care about.

Tim Murray
April 24, 2010

[image from Sheila Newman & wikipedia] ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2009) — "The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released photos from the first large-scale census of jaguars in the Amazon region of Ecuador—one of the most biologically rich regions on the planet.
The ongoing census, which began in 2007, is working to establish baseline population numbers as oil exploration and subsequent development puts growing pressure on wildlife in Ecuador's Yasuni National Park and adjacent Waorani Ethnic Reserve. Together, these two protected areas make up some 6,500 square miles (16,800 square kilometers) of wilderness."

Mother Nature recognised at law

In September 2008 Ecuador became the first country in the world to declare constitutional rights to nature, thus codifying a new system of environmental protection. Original Article source.

Reflecting the beliefs and traditions of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, the constitution declares that nature “has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” This right, the constitution states, “is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people that depend on the natural systems.”

Nature not just an object for economic appropriation

The new constitution redefines people’s relationship with nature by asserting that nature is not just an object to be appropriated and exploited by people, but is rather a rights-bearing entity that should be treated with parity under the law.

Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Environmental Legal Defense Fund, worked closely over the past year with members of Ecuador’s constitutional assembly on drafting legally enforceable Rights of Nature, which mark a watershed in the trajectory of environmental law.

Ecuador’s leadership on this issue may have a global domino effect. Margil says that her organization is busy fielding calls from interested countries, such as Nepal, which is currently writing its first constitution.

Flawed by failure to mandate indigenous community consultation

For all of the hope and tangible progress the Rights of Nature articles in Ecuador’s constitution represent, however, there are shortcomings and contradictions with the laws and the political reality on the ground. A fundamental flaw in the constitution also exists due to Correa’s refusal to include a clause mandating free, prior, and informed consent by communities for development project that would affect their local ecosystems.

“I expect them [the multinational extractive industries] to fight it,” says Margil. “Their bread and butter is based on being able to treat countries and ecosystems like cheap hotels. Multinational corporations are dependent on ravaging the planet in order to increase their bottom line.”

Mining treats countries and ecosystems like cheap hotels

Investigation of Texaco [Caltex in Australia] oil-exploration in the Amazon.

The new Mining Law, introduced by Ecuador’s own President Rafael Correa and backed by Canadian companies, which hold the majority of mining concessions in Ecuador, is a testament to Margil’s forecast. The Mining Law would allow for large-scale, open pit metal mining in pristine Andean highlands and Amazon rainforest. Major nationwide demonstrations are being held in protest, with groups accusing Correa of inviting social and environmental disaster by selling out to mining interests.

Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag, who has been a tireless defender of the environment against transnational mining companies, says that while the new constitution looks good on paper, “in practice governments like Correa’s will argue that funding his political project, which will bring ‘well being and relieve poverty,’ overrules the rights of nature.”

Yet even as Ecuadoran President Correa embraces the extractive economic model of development, the inclusion of the rights of nature in a national constitution sets inspiring and revolutionary precedent. If history is any indicator, Ecuadorians will successfully fight for the Rights of Nature, with or without their president.

U.S. Media: Update by Cyril Mychalejko

When Ecuadorians drafted and passed a new constitution, which gave nature inalienable rights, the US media largely ignored this historic development. In the case of the Los Angeles Times, one of the few mainstream outlets to cover the story, the newspaper’s editorial board trivialized the development (“Putting Nature in Ecuador’s Constitution,” September 2, 2008) by suggesting it sounded “like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council” and that it seemed “crazy.”

“As ecological systems around the world collapse, we need to fundamentally change our relationship with nature. This requires changes in both law and culture, and ultimately our behavior as part of nature,” said Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Defense Fund, who is disappointed in how the US media largely ignored the story.

In Ecuador, at the time of the constitutional vote, the optimism over how the “Rights of Nature” clauses would translate into policy was guarded.
“As exciting as these developments are, it was also inevitable that the people in power would, and will, find ways to circumvent, undermine, and ignore those rights,” said Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag.

Multi-national mining companies dangerously influence national laws

According to Zorrilla, a major disappointment has been President Rafael Correa’s new mining law.

“The law takes rights-to-nature loopholes and widens them so that giant dirt movers could easily drive through them,” said Zorrilla, who has been working with communities of Ecuador’s Intag region to resist mining and promote sustainable development. “To mention a couple of examples, the law does not prohibit large-scale mining in habitats harboring endangered species, nor the dumping of heavy metals in rivers and streams.”
See also,"Ecuador Rising"..

Indigenous leaders file law-suit

Indigenous leaders responded by filing a lawsuit before Ecuador’s Constitutional Court in March 2009, seeking to overturn the mining law, which they believe is unconstitutional. Article 1 of the “Rights of Nature” clauses states: “Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.”

Regardless of the ongoing struggles to ensure that the true meaning and scope of the constitution is upheld, Dr. Mario Melo, a lawyer specializing in Environmental Law and Human Rights and an advisor to Fundación Pachamama-Ecuador, believes that the nature clauses which reflect the traditions of indigenous peoples could offer a path to an ecologically sustainable future.

Rights to nature = progress

“I consider that the recognition of the ‘Rights to Nature’ as a progress on a global scale and one that deserves to be globally broadcast and commented on as a contribution from Ecuador towards the search of new ways of facing the environmental crisis due to climate change.”

The struggles of Ecuadorian social movements and the Ecuadorian government to uphold the “Rights of Nature” and to create a new development model that places human beings as interdependent parts of nature, rather than dominant exploiters of nature, is something we should continue to monitor and learn from.

Source:
Upside Down World, September 25, 2008
Title: “Ecuador’s Constitution Gives Rights to Nature”
Author: Cyril Mychalejko
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Student Researcher: Chelsea Davis
Faculty Evaluator: Elaine Wellin, PhD
Sonoma State University