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What if We Gave Nature Legal Rights?
The act of granting personhood to a natural feature challenges us to do more of the same elsewhere. It also shows the absurdity of our conventional view of corporate power. That is, why is it that we are so willing to grant personhood to large corporate organizations, but so reluctant to grant the same status to the very land that sustains our life
... See moreFrank Forencich • The Art is Long: Big Health and the New Warrior Activist
Attempts to confer legal rights of personhood to Lake Erie were struck down by the courts, while laws that bestow on corporations the rights of people continue unchallenged. And there’s a reason: it’s easier to scoop the heart out of a mountain when it’s a resource than when it’s a living relative.
Raj Patel • Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice
Naturally, cynics will object that “rivers as people” designations will only lead us to a perilous slippery slope of habitat-inclusive thinking. Just imagine the chaos: If we grant rights to rivers and forests and lakes, this will simply open the floodgates to, well, treating habitat with respect and dignity.
Frank Forencich • The Art is Long: Big Health and the New Warrior Activist
Moving from an understanding of organizations and institutions as nothing but mental constructs has led to the exploration of the nature of the various forms they have taken, particularly the for-profit corporations. They have become so ubiquitous, so much a part of us from the moment of birth, that we accept them with as little thought as the air ... See more
Dee Hock • CORPORATIONS: THE SOCIALIZATION OF COST AND CAPITALIZATION OF GAIN
sari added
a river’s right to flow with clean, cool water is not something we should just aim to protect; rather, we should aim to empower the river with its own tools and resources so that, in a way, it can protect it self
A New Order of Regenerative Kinship
This suggests a general operating principle similar to the Leopoldian land ethic, often summarized as “what’s good is what’s good for the land.” In our current situation, the phrase can be usefully reworded as “what’s good is what’s good for the biosphere.” In light of that principle, many efficiencies are quickly seen to be profoundly destructive,
... See moreKim Stanley Robinson • The Ministry for the Future: A Novel
Keely Adler and added