Yes, yes, my bad; I’m late for Earth Day, but here, via Religion Dispatches, is a piece that discusses the ‘rights’ of the Earth, the eco-system and, well, just about everything. Yes, it’s an absurd premise, and one for which the writer clearly has some sympathy, but this extract from the new (2008) Ecuadorian constitution is still worth noting:
Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain itself and regenerate its own vital cycles, structure, functions, and its evolutionary processes. Any person, people, community, or nationality, may demand the observance of the rights of the natural environment before public bodies.
This somewhat sinister drivel presumably partly reflects the influence of the work of Bolivia’s somewhat sinister president Morales, the man who, in 2009, was declared by the president of the United Nations General Assembly, one Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, to be a “World Hero of Mother Earth”.
Doctor Who didn’t get the call, apparently
Sort of stands as a slap in the face to anyone suggesting eco-politics is just science. Interesting find, thank you.