The Law and Ecocide
The way laws get changed is case by case. My own legal theory for The Blued Trees Symphony was based on a re-examination of the definition of ownership. Polly Higgins and I both established precedents not in case law but in mock trials, which also have validity. There has been a steady effort since Arthur Galston first coined the term ecocide in 1970 to establish accountability through the court system. Case law is routinely established by establishing the logic of the theory from multiple points of view. So, for example, Earth rights, Childrens rights, personhood for rivers are all parallel tracks to protection of the environment and accountability for transgression alongside ecocide as in effect a war crime. The problem in achieving that accountability has been two-fold:
1. Shifting public opinion to recognize the scale of the threat, primarily an educational process (which as we all know is slow). This was the Act Up strategy
2. Judicial rulings. That is why t. focused on appointing judges.
The former problem has been muddied by profound financial investments in disinformation campaigns over fossil fuels and climate change, such as emanate in a deluge from Exxon Mobil. The latter is also money-related in the deep pocket campaigns to undermine democracy. Jane Mayer just published a piece in The New Yorker about the power and reach of a few extremely wealthy individuals to destroy democracy by legal rulings on the electoral process in this country. Heather Cox Richardson did a piece August 7, comparing what is happening in the US now to the battle strategies that broke the confederate armies during the civil war. She concluded with the famous quote, “Damn the torpedos. Full speed ahead.”
I have been very taken by the “Act Up” strategy of all actions all the time. But I am very sobered by the scale of money driven resistance. SANZ has been focused for a few months on developing coalitions in advance of COP26 but I’m uncertain what our path forward can be, though t I am certain it must be strategic. When we first established the ecoart listserv and in creating the “Ecoart in Action,” book, my motivation was always strategic.
Recently, Michael Mann (hockey stick graph) stated his greatest fear is the imminent (2-3 years) collapse of civilization itself, in which case, education will be a moot point. I took time to complete my own book this past year on trigger point theory & ecocide as a work memoir. It would come out next summer, before the 2022 elections here. I don’t need to belabor what a drop in the ocean that might be against the tsunami of dark money. Needless to say, if the US falls, a lot more dominoes will as well. The night of the 2016 election, I was in Suzi Gablik’s home and as the writing grew bold on the wall. As I left, Suzi asked me, “what do we do now?” That quote opens and closes the chapter in my book about The Blued Trees Symphony. I recently restarted my website blog. The first new post is titled, Are Fascism and Conspiracy Theories Symptoms of Climate Change?
What I was taught by Herbert Marcuse in the late sixties from his classes and my conversations with him, was that effective strategy emerges from correct analysis. I have spent my entire life as an artist trying to divine the analysis which would determine the strategy. It was my greatest hope for this list serve, that together, group think might get us there. I don’t think it has gotten us closer. But if Mann is correct, we have run out of time. The problem, for example with coalition building, is human. There are competing interests, egos, sexism, etc etc in the way and people simply don’t give ground.
So, coming back to Suzi, “what do we do now” … I guess I only know how to do what I’ve always done: talk, write, listen, read, act, reach out, make art… apply my premises for trigger point theory … and always always be transparent about and open in that process.