Mother Earth Rights

This week the United Nations General Assembly discussed international standards that grant nature equal rights to humans. Similar protocols have been adopted by over a dozen U.S. municipalities, as well as Bolivia and Ecuador. Renowned environmentalists Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva join us. Says Shiva, “Most civilizations of the world, for most of human history, have seen the world in terms of relatedness and connection,” says Shiva. “And if there’s one thing the rights of Mother Earth is waking us to, is: we are all connected.

Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization. Barlow is also co-founder of the Blue Planet Project and chair of the board of Food and Water Watch. She is the author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.

Vandana Shiva, world-renowned environmental leader, feminist and thinker from India, author of many books, including Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development.

AMY GOODMAN: As the world celebrates Earth Day, Bolivia is about to pass the world’s first law that grants nature equal rights with humans. The Bolivian delegation to the United Nations urged the global body to adopt a similar law during this week’s Harmony with Nature conference.

DAVID CHOQUEHUANCA: [translated] The United Nations is revolutionizing the way we look at our planet. At the moment, various issues are being receded in the United Nations, and we have begun to discuss the idea of declaring an official International Day of Mother Earth. And we will also soon be discussing what are the rights of Mother Earth. Read more…

Quite simply, human-centered governance systems are not working and we need new economic, development and environmental policies.

(Maude Barlow) We all know that the earth and all upon it face a growing crisis. Global climate change is rapidly advancing, melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing freak and increasingly wild storms, and displacing untold millions from rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban slums. Almost every human victim lives in the global South, in communities not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. The atmosphere has already warmed up almost a full degree in the last several decades and a new Canadian study reports that we may be on course to add another 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. Read more…

Climate Change:

●      To limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5° C, carbon emissions must be limited to 420 gigatons (Gt) between 2010 y 2050. This quantity is known as the “carbon budget” that countries cannot exceed if they wish to remain below a certain temperature. Read more…

This will serve as an introduction to the Gaia hypothesis; It is a review (published in 1989) of James Lovelock’s The Ages of Gaia

What is the hypothesis of Gaia? Stated simply, the idea is that we may have discovered a living being bigger, more ancient, and more complex than anything from our wildest dreams. That being, called Gaia, is the Earth. Read more…

(Christine Lepisto) James Lovelock, the scientist who put forth the Gaia Theory, has told the BBC it is too late for us to save the planet. According to Gaia Theory, the entire earth is a single organism, connected and interactive. Only just over a month ago, Lovelock called for authoritarian intervention while questioning whether humans are clever enough to respond correctly to the complexities of global warming. Read more…

(Ecojustice) Environmental protection is the civil rights issue of this generation.  Rights are a reflection of what matters most to a society, and at this point in history, few things pose a greater risk to the health and well-being of individuals and communities as the health of our planet.

Recognition of environmental rights is a global phenomenon. From Argentina to Zambia governments are stepping forward to recognize some form of a right to a healthy environment in national constitutions. International bodies, regional authorities and local municipalities all over the planet are declaring rights to clean air, clean water and uncontaminated land. Read more…

(Deepak Shrivastava) Many think of our planet, the Earth, as simply a complex assembly of elements that we consider inorganic lifeless elements. It’s interesting then that such a lifeless entity can and does support life isn’t it? Life is more that the sum total of all the “inorganic” and “organic” chemical reactions that many scientists think that it is. There is a definite consciousness that we all are part of and we all experience daily whether we choose to be aware of it or not. We have our own consciousness i.e. the thoughts that run through our minds about our lives. We are also part of the consciousness of the other people we know. Additionally we are a part of the consciousness of the rest of humanity living and dead. Going further we are part of the consciousness of “Mother Earth”. Read more…

(Xinhua) The surface of the glaciers at the Real Mountain Range in the Andes has been reduced by 24 percent, about 84 square km, from 1987 to 2004 due to climate change, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reported Monday. Read more…

(Oxfam.org.uk) “Bolivia is a country particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In July 2009, a team of Oxfam researchers travelled to three areas of Bolivia (Trinidad in Beni, the Cochabamba valleys and Khapi under Mount Illimani, in La Paz) to take a snapshot of how poor families are experiencing the changing climate, and how they are adapting to it. Poor women and men throughout Bolivia are already experiencing the consequences of climate change, but in most cases are ill-equipped to adapt to the present and future impacts. Read more…

(Brendan Mackey) The essential contribution of the Earth Charter is in promoting a global moral community based on shared values and principles for a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world. Because it is grounded so strongly in the ecological integrity concept, the Earth Charter ethic requires an unprecedented planetary scale of moral reflection. Integrity implies a wholeness that is nurturing and necessary for human well-being. Read more…