Tag: international law
Posted on Sat May 28, 2011 at 05:58:04 PM EST
Tags: global warming, international law (all tags)
I'm interested in whether the Micronesian States' claims about Transboundary Environmental Impact might provide one more way to bring public awareness and (dare one hope?) pressure to bear on the global warming crisis.
Yeah, I know. Very few persons in U.S. government seem to pay much attention to law or justice these days - especially international law. Still, one can dream. The environmental effects of global warming are evident right now in the U.S., causing immense human and economic destruction. And the carbon emissions right here in the U.S. are causing even more destruction to other nations. Any of the lawyers reading this blog have a thought how accountability might be attached?
And do any of the artists reading this have a complementary thought: We need another version of Al Gore's film, this time with fewer charts and more dramatic juxtaposition and dot-connecting.
A Micronesian island nation is quite literally being eroded to nothingness by tides. Same with an island community in northern Alaska. Worst drought in who knows how long in China. Same with the U.S. Southwest - worse than the "Dust Bowl." Countless numbers of persons die in Pakistan because of flooding. The U.S. is struck by the worst tornadoes in memory.
And it's not just carbon emissions. Nuclear reactors in the Ukraine and in Japan destroy themselves, and the results affect food and radiation all around the planet.
Morally, you have the right to swing your fist as much as you want. But that right ends at the tip of my nose. You have a right to throw stones. But that right ends when one of those stones hits my wife, even if you threw it from across the border separating your yard from mine.
It's one planet. Whatever any of us does affects all of us. (No, I won't quote Donne's sermon, though I can't help thinking about it.)
