ye gads! the greens were right after all.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: CK
From: CK
GUARDIAN, 4 MAY 2010
From floating plastic islands and orbiting space junk to mountaintop removal and deep-sea mining, the worldwide destruction of ecosystems is worse now than at any other time. The UK environmental lawyer Polly Higgins is advocating a new law at the UN that would recognise 'ecocide' as the fifth 'crime against peace'. Here is a selection of 10 examples of damage and loss that could be taken to the international criminal court should ecocide become a crime.
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1 – Alberta tar sands
Referred to as the most damaging project on the planet. According to Greenpeace, emissions from tar sands extraction could grow to between 127 and 140m tonnes by 2020, exceeding the current emissions of Austria, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark. If proposed expansion proceeds, it will result in the loss of vast tracts of boreal forest and peat bogs of a territory the size of England
2 – The North Pacific gyre
A swirling island of 100m tonnes of plastic bits and bottle tops, spins clockwise from Hawaii to Japan. Also known as the Pacific trash vortex, it is estimated to be the size of Texas. This picture shows a laysan albatross (Diomedea immutabilis) giving a bottle cap to its chick
3 – The Niger delta
Fifty years of oil extraction in the Niger delta has scarred the Niger delta. Oil companies operated here for decades with very little environmental supervision and the delta, notoriously beset by conflict and poverty, has been steadily pushed towards ecological disaster. Villagers struggle to live off land and water poisoned by years of oil spills, and crops fail under the acid rain caused by gas flares
4 – The Dongria Kondh
Members of the Dongria Kondh tribe gather on top of the Niyamgiri mountain, which they worship as their living god, to protest against plans by Vedanta Resources to mine bauxite from that mountain. The mine will destroy the forests on which the Dongria Kondh depend and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of other Kondh tribal people living in the area. Vedanta denies allegations that the planned mine would violate the rights of thousands of people
5 – Mountaintop removal
Aerial of mountaintop removal coal mining site in West Virginia. Mountaintop mining involves a highly destructive practice of blasting through hundreds of feet of mountaintop to get at thin but valuable seams of coal
6 – Linfen, China
The most polluted city on earth. Located at the heart of a 12-mile industrial belt of iron foundries, smelting plants and cement factories, fed by the 50m tonnes of coal mined every year, unregulated because of rapid development
7 – Toxic dumping by Chevron Texaco in Ecuador
Chevron, formerly Texaco, is alleged to have dumped billions of gallons of crude oil and toxic waste waters into the Amazonian jungle over two decades. This oily pond is at the oil production site of Guanta, near the city of Lago Agrio. Ecuador's recent bill of rights for nature has changed the legal status of nature from being simply property to being a right-bearing entity. Campaigners hope this will stop similar ecological disasters from happening again
8 – The Amazon
The razing of the Amazonian rainforest, a key stabiliser of the global climate system, by logging, mining, crop planting and beef production. Almost 60% of the region's forests could be wiped out or severely damaged by 2030
9 – Space junk
From spent rockets to defunct satellites, the millions of pieces of orbital debris have reached a critical level. A computer-generated image released by the European Space Agency shows an approximation of 12,000 fragments in orbit around the Earth
10 – Deep-sea mining
The emerging underwater mineral extraction industry is sounding alarm bells among marine biologists, environmental scientists and campaigners such as Polly Higgins, who predict that mining for gold, silver and copper on the seabed will be the next great ecological disaster. The fragile marine ecosystem of the sea floor is a frontier that we know very little about
2 comments:
For the last 100 years the west is responsible for 95 of ecocide.
They have to address that before going to UN or anywhere else.
They simply cannot. Given their Christian background.
As Indians we need to get back to our traditional Hindu wisdom. Begin with low consumption. Apply traditional systems and knowledge.
We have no other choice.
But I do hate the moaning and groaning over something he himself unleashed. Does he even realize that?!!
Agree with Vijay. There is no reason for us to fall in line behind the Western leftists who try to moralize about the virtues of saving the environment in order to make a fast buck. BTW, it is still snowing in the northern parts of the US and it is already May.
We should definitely behave in a responsible manner, but we should not make the mistake of devious White leftists set the agenda and use their fictitious claims to rob others.
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