Climate Crimes Must Be Brought Justice - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

All general discussion about politics that doesn't belong in any of the other forums.

Moderator: PoFo Political Circus Mods

#15069796
The Courier wrote:Climate crimes must be brought to justice

Climate denial has increased the risk of catastrophic global change. Should international criminal law be used against those who promote this dangerous trend? Economic and political leaders can no longer pretend it is business as usual. Whether they actively induce environmental harm or just ignore the existential threat against the survival of the human species, states and corporations must be held accountable for their actions or inaction regarding climate change.

Catriona McKinnon

have proposed that international criminal law should be expanded to include a new criminal offence that I call postericide(link is external). It is committed by intentional or reckless conduct fit to bring about the extinction of humanity. Postericide is committed when humanity is put at risk of extinction by conduct performed either with the intention of making humanity go extinct, or with the knowledge that the conduct is fit to have this effect. When a person knows that their conduct will impose an impermissible risk on another and acts anyway, they are reckless. It is in the domain of reckless conduct, making climate change worse, that we should look for postericidal conduct.

No one person’s emissions are fit to bring about human extinction as a result of climate impacts – the many private jets and oil wells they own can do so, however. But individual people in their roles as political and corporate leaders can exert extensive control over how much worse climate change becomes as a result of their executive action. A country’s president can withdraw an entire state from a global agreement on mitigation; a Chief Executive Officer can authorize the withholding of information about the progress and impacts of climate change because it threatens the corporation’s bottom line.

Individuals often have control over conduct they do not perform themselves – for example, by giving direct orders to subordinates, or by virtue of the special relationship in which they stand to others whose conduct causes harm. This means that we can assign vicarious liability to individuals of power, authority and influence within groups that, as collectives, worsen climate change in ways fit to make humanity go extinct. Just as international criminal law holds military leaders to account for genocide committed by their troops, it should hold political and economic leaders to account for postericide committed under their authority. These leaders should go to trial at the ICC and be held to account at the bar of the human community’s fundamental shared values.

Who should be prosecuted for postericide? We could start by examining the established international network of well-funded organizations devoted to organized climate denial(link is external) (For more on this subject, read "Text-mining the signals of climate change doubt", in the journal Global Environmental Change, Volume 36, January 2016). The epicentre of this activity is in the United States. A set of Conservative think-tanks has deliberately deceived the public and policymakers about the realities of climate change. Their ideologically-driven climate denial has been heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry; which include, for example, Koch Industries and ExxonMobil. This climate denial has had a significant impact on public opinion and has impeded legislation to tackle climate change.

Vicarious criminal liability

Should Rex Tillerson [the former CEO of ExxonMobil, who also served as US Secretary of State from February 2017 to March 2018] Charles Koch and David Koch [the owners of Koch Industries] be tried for the crime of postericide at the ICC? Their vicarious criminal liability would be generated by their authorization of multiple acts of climate denial by others, without which early aggressive political action on climate change would have been more likely.

Climate denial has seriously impeded aggressive mitigation efforts that could have averted our present climate emergency. It has magnified the risk that humanity locks in to catastrophic global climate change. The people in positions of authority in states, or industrial groups whose lies have put us and our descendants in peril, should be held accountable. The damage that climate deniers do is heinous, and they have no excuses. The time has come to prosecute them for postericide.



Catriona McKinnon
Professor of Political Theory at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, Catriona McKinnon has published numerous articles and books on climate justice, and on toleration and liberal political ideals. She is currently completing a monograph defending postericide (Endangering Humanity: An International Crime), writing an introductory book on climate justice, and researching the ethical questions raised by geoengineering.


Admin Notes:

When you submit an OP entirely composed of an article you are quoting from somewhere else you should:

a) Use the [quote] tags in order to clearly show that you are actually quoting an article.
b) Use the exact title of the article you are actually quoting.
#15069799
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) based in Paris, France. Its declared purpose is to contribute to promoting international collaboration in education, sciences, and culture in order to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the United Nations Charter.
#15069804
UNESCO did not call for anything.

UNESCO simply reported the proposal of Ms. McKinnon in their periodical.

And no one is calling for all climate denialists to be tried. Only those who have significantly influenced the debate enough to slow down responses to such a degree that people have been hurt.

If we accept this proposal, it would probably be only those people who can be tied to actual harm to others. People who are simply being wrong on the internet would be ignored.
#15069814
late wrote:Sivad, that's not your source.

So tell us your real source, if you have the guts. Besides, we could all use a good laugh.


What in the retarded fuck are you on about? If you doubt that the UNESCO Courier published that piece then you can just click the link and confirm it for yourself.
#15069820
Pants-of-dog wrote:UNESCO did not call for anything.

UNESCO simply reported the proposal of Ms. McKinnon in their periodical.


:knife: UNESCO wasn't "simply reporting the proposal", it published the full proposal.



And no one is calling for all climate denialists to be tried. Only those who have significantly influenced the debate enough to slow down responses to such a degree that people have been hurt.


So they are calling for "climate denialists" to be tried, you just completely contradicted yourself. :knife: I don't think I've ever seen a more explicit instance of doublethink, you should get like an award for that. An Orwell award, sort of like the darwin awards, we'll call them the Wellies. :lol:

If we accept this proposal, it would probably be only those people who can be tied to actual harm to others. People who are simply being wrong on the internet would be ignored.


It will start with the most prominent skeptics but it'll turn into mass gulaging within a matter of days. Go boil some other frog, this one knows your game.
#15069822
Sivad wrote::knife: UNESCO wasn't "simply reporting the proposal", it published the full proposal.


Yes, it published the proposal in its periodical.

And it did not come up with or necessarily support the proposal.

So they are calling for "climate denialists" to be tried, you just completely contradicted yourself. :knife: I don't think I've ever seen a more explicit instance of doublethink, you should get like an award for that. An Orwell award, sort of like the darwin awards, we'll call them the Wellies. :lol:



It will start with the most prominent skeptics but it'll turn into mass gulaging within a matter of days. Go boil some other frog, this one knows your game.


Your fears and insults are not an argument.
#15069830
If there is a chain of evidence and causality between the actions of a fossil fuel company or denier and actual harm caused to someone, and it can also be shown that the company or denier had a reasonable chance of knowing their actions would cause harm, why should they not be held accountable?
#15069835
Sivad wrote:
What in the retarded fuck are you on about? If you doubt that the UNESCO Courier published that piece then you can just click the link and confirm it for yourself.



Where did you find out about it?

Only a bleeding heart liberal would read the Courier. You don't seem the type.

Breitbart? 4Chan? Fox?
#15069838
Pants-of-dog wrote:
If there is a chain of evidence and causality between the actions of a fossil fuel company or denier and actual harm caused to someone, and it can also be shown that the company or denier had a reasonable chance of knowing their actions would cause harm, why should they not be held accountable?



While I don't have a problem with that, it's not what we really need.

One approach would be to give limited rights to non-human species and ecosystems. Another would be a Carbon Tax. The UN could get a lot of medicine to poor people with that kind of dough.
#15069841
Wulfschilde wrote:finally the chinese, indians etc. will be brought to justice for polluting teh planet

just kidding this is going nowhere fast
At least for China's case, coronavirus is doing the job.
#15069842
late wrote:Where did you find out about it?

Only a bleeding heart liberal would read the Courier. You don't seem the type.

Breitbart? 4Chan? Fox?


I have never been on 4chan ever, I have only read maybe 30 brietbart articles in my entire life(that's probably a high estimate), and FOX news is no different than every other mainstream media outlet. But I didn't get it from any of those sources and why in the hell would it possibly matter how I came by the article?
#15069843
Finally a true gulaging I get fully behind. Get all those kill the planet so I can do short term profit and the children and future generations can all go extinct. It is all about me.

Get all the sociopaths together in the gulag and watch their selfish psychology kill each other off...non cooperation the antidote for selfish people.

Ay @Sivad too many conspiracy theories you got going there chico! :lol: :lol: :D ;)

Isn't oil and electricity bought and sold like ev[…]

@Potemkin I heard this song in the Plaza Grande […]

Russia-Ukraine War 2022

The "Russian empire" story line is inve[…]

I (still) have a dream

Even with those millions though. I will not be ab[…]