NEWS: Mother Earth v. United States

I think I'm going to have to actually agree with Skankzor on this one (I've been lurking the CE boards for some time and I never thought I'd say that). No country has a perfect bi-product free way of producing and our contribution to pollution is simply relevant to the amount that we produce. I don't think this is a very productive or sensible case. We should be focusing on fixing the problem, wherever it may lie, as opposed to trying to make an example of someone.

From the top of the thread:

Are you just being argumentative?

You've lost me, adam. Your comment was that "problems aren't solved by throwing blame around." In return, I (yes) argued that this comment does not, in any way, apply to the thread topic. Over and out.

I'm not. I'm telling you that this a civil, not criminal, matter. Do you not understand the difference?

I'm about to go get in my car and turn the engine on.

I'll await the subpoena.

I'm guessing this is a rhetorical question.

If you're unclear as the malleable properties of the word "crime" you should brush up with both an Oxford and a Webster (consulting only one is a criminal offense, in my mind).

WIllful destruction of the environment is a crime in my book. Whether or not it's a crime in the lawbooks means nothing to me, nor does it mean anything to groups like, let us say. . . EarthFirst, who have a tendency to punish criminal offenders.

Question:

Is it a crime for the United States to invade Iraq? Depends on to whom you pose the question, now doesn't it?

Back to the topic at hand. I take it, Troglodyte and Adam, that you think this case is groundless?



[Edited on Aug 27, 2005 by sixtenblue]

A new kind of case that serves no purpose at all.

Here's an actual one.

You and I are communicating using computers powered by electricity, most likely generated using pollution-causing fossil fuels.

Are you and I committing the crime of wilfully damaging the environment by having this discussion?

You forgot the monitor, keyboard, and mouse all made from plastic, a petroleum product, the nylon carpet on the floor, also a petroleum product, and the energy it took to make all that runny crude oil into a shiny new computer, the enerygy used to fuse the sand used to make the silicon chips that make-up the actual "computer", and the diesel fuel used in both the ships and the trucks that got it to the store where it was purchased.

When you're done adding all those charges to the indictment, we can get started on all those bicycle riders....steel don't come easy, but it makes aluminium production look like cold fusion.

Great post!

edited because i posted in the wrong thread... im sorry

[Edited on Aug 28, 2005 by hellfaerie]

Wil the laws of thermodynamics be rescinded at some point?

Anyway, you remember when everyone was getting all bent out of shape about smoking in bars and restaurants. There was this whole beat-up over "polluting my lungs" versus "infringing my right to enjoy a habit in a private space", with blames and moral accusations being thrown in all sorts of directions.

As I tried to explain at the times, to me it was a relatively simple "reciprocal harm" issue. Whoever prevails infringes upon the enjoyment the other group can receive. Smokers who want to smoke while they drink on the premises of a privately owned business will be harmed if they are prevented from doing so, while nonsmokers who want to enjoy socialising and drinking in a smoke-free environment will be harmed if smoking inside continues.

The answer is some sort of regulation that balances the harms and benefits felt by both groups. All the finger-pointing and blame-naming isn't a particularly helpful approach to resolving this.

Seems to me a similar thing applies here. We're talking the balance of harms based on not having pollution versus not having electricity.

A lawsuit MAY, and I stress may, be a way to find a balance here. Decades ago, Ronald Coase argued that "liability rules" as set by civil deciions in courts could act like property rights in terms of internalising externalities of one sort or another. But there's a lot of ifs and buts here.

The other thing that strikes me is how discriminatory this is. It applies exclusively to (say) electricity generation in the developing world, which means increasing costs of electricity production there. Why is that an equitable means of addressing global warming? It would be like a court in the US ruling that agricultural exports from a third wolrd country must be sold anywhere in the world at a higher price than the same products exported from the US and other rich countries.

That's, like, weird, man.

That isn't what I said, and I even later attempted to clarify my position in case it had been unclear.

Much like this part of the thread, the case itself is a huge waste of time. Determining who caused a problem is not a prerequisite to fixing that problem.

It took me forever to find it but here it is.

I need to correct this.

From the story:

What they're saying is US standards should apply elsewhere. In poorer countries with projects backed by US money in particular.

I'm still wary of this. It seems dubious to me to argue that US wage rates should apply in poorer countries, because on balance they'll be hurt by higher wages since companies won't invest there.

Similarly, it's not clear to me that the standards applying in the West ought to rightfully apply in poorer countries.

Hmmmmm.

No, it wasn't.

I'm not, and I know how you're using the word, but it's a bad idea to use it in anything but its literal, most common use in a discussion about legal challenges without explaining exactly what you mean.

You compared it to someone stabbing a child which is plainly a crime in the common use of the word, suggesting that you think it's a crime in the same sense.

You've been reading too much Edward Abbey.

Individuals taking upon themselves to decide what's a crime and who needs to be "punished." That's a great idea.

Yes. Do you think it has merit because pollution fits your personal definition of "crime"?

I find it pretty funny that this was the "awful link of the day" on somethingawful.com

This is tiring for all of us. However. . .

1. Of course you understood my meaning. The term "crime" is not limited to, nor is it predominantly used, in a purely legal context. In fact, "crime" in it's legal context, is quite interchangeable with "wrong." Hammurabi and others simply encoded society's wrongs, calling them 'crimes' in the process. Arguing that my introduction of the term in this popular context is somehow misguided is entirely daft. As S5 pointed out, while this particular wrong may or may not yet be a crime, most types of societal "wrongs" are eventually criminalzed--pollution will eventually be considered a crime. It's cases like this that get the process started.

It is interesting to further note that the U.S. justice system has a safety valve that allows for reshaping of the crime/wrong relationship wthen a jury finds that a crime is no longer or never was a wrong: the rarely invoked jury's right vote its conscience.

2, Too much Edward Abbey? That's a dismissive statement as empty as your argument.

3. Re: Individuals deciding what is a crime and what is not: You certainly wouldn't have been much of a fan of the gents who overthrew the Brits. Does seem as though they did a bit of this themselves, You certainly must not approve of the illegal slave rebellions in the United States. . .and who the hell were those damned Injuns to break the laws and try to reclaim their land? Same goes for those rotten bastard Jews who broke all those curfew laws in the 1930s and 40s! Hell, if one must shake off an oppressor, one must do it by the book! Give me break . . . while EarthFirst seems like a bunch of radicals currently (and didn't the others?), even those with iron blinders will see, in this lifetime, most likely in the next three decades, that what they fight for, by legal means or no, is critical to the well-being of all who inhabit this planet.

4. If you dont think willful and massive pollution is a crime, that's fine. That's your opinion. That's what this thread is all about.

5. Am I using a keyboard, computer and mouse? You betcha! Am I fully aware that, as a citizen of the U.S., my ecological footprint is bigger than it ought to be? Absolutely. Am I a criminal because of this? In many ways, yes. However, I do my damndest to not only reduce my consumption via many, many, many methods, but I also do my best to alert others how they can do better as well as learn from others how I can improve. The link mentioned above where the writer basically throws his hands up in the air and says, "I'm too fucking lazy to do anything" is, more or less, a link to the thoughts of a man who has given up trying, who has given up caring. I haven't and I hope I never do. Are we all hypcrites? RESOUNDING YES. Do I have to throw in the towel because I am a hypocrite? RESOUNDING NO.

I'm not sure what you mean.

I probably haven't made myself clear enough.

I don't analyse these things as right-versus-wrong (or "crimes against the environment". That doesn't make sense to me. There's simply a balance of benefits and harms that needs to be weighed up. Both as an aggregate balance, and in terms of who receives the benefits and bears the cost of the harms.

What we're talking about is imposing first world environmental standards on first-world-supported development projects, the benefits of which accrue to the poorer people of the world. There's a case to be made for making those countries get their own environmental restrictions into place as their pace of development quickens (and hence their average incomes grow) but there is no basis to assume that this legal process will get the amount of tightening or its timing right.

Here's what the Environmental Economics blog had to say on it:

Link.