sandhill crane families foraging in a field
Photo by J. Harrington
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We've seen and read a little about granting legal rights to rivers. As an alternative, perhaps we should consider making ecocide and related behavior a crime against humanity. Several major fossil fuel companies have known the implications of using their product for many decades and withheld that information, putting humanity at risk of a severely diminished existence. It seems increasingly clear that our international institutions aren't sufficiently robust to promptly limit the actions of one nation, such as Brazil or Australia, that threaten the health and prosperity of many others. It will be interesting to see what happens at the upcoming G7 meeting that begins tomorrow.
Remember in the old time Western movies and tv series how the "town folks" were at the mercy of the rowdy bad guys until a good guy with a fast gun bought law and order to town. Well, these days the world needs to tell nations and corporations to "check their GHGs when they come into town," or something like that. If the world as we know it has become too much like Dodge City, Kansas in "Gunsmoke," who's going to be Marshal Dillon? Or would the movie "High Noon" better fit our current situations?
One reason we believe that much stronger international regulations and enforcement are required can be found in the fact that the United States, since at least 1972, has been relying on farmers' voluntary behavior to limit pollution from agricultural runoff. A news story this morning tells us that "MPCA reports show need for dramatic reduction in soil entering rivers." As noted in those reports,
Unfortunately, not enough of us think or act like the poet W.S. Merwin, who noted that:While none of the area watersheds or Minnesota River meets standards in a variety or areas, the Clean Water Act does not generally allow for regulatory action against “nonpoint souce” pollution, which includes runoff and erosion. “Point source” pollutants — typically things like a pipe coming out of a factory or a city’s wastewater treatment plant — are regulated.But states are required to develop programs to manage nonpoint source pollution and meet standards if they want to get certain federal funding.
On the last day of the worldRemember, if we all behaved better we wouldn't need the highway patrol to enforce speed limits. We're more like the mother and father in the following poem.
I would want to plant a tree
– W.S. Merwin
Native Trees
By W. S. Merwin
Neither my father nor my mother knewthe names of the treeswhere I was bornwhat is thatI asked and myfather and mother did nothear they did not look where I pointedsurfaces of furniture heldthe attention of their fingersand across the room they could watchwalls they had forgottenwhere there were no questionsno voices and no shadeWere there treeswhere they were childrenwhere I had not beenI askedwere there trees in those placeswhere my father and my mother were bornand in that time didmy father and my mother see themand when they said yes it meantthey did not rememberWhat were they I asked what were theybut both my father and my mothersaid they never knew
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Please be kind to each other while you can.
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