Growth without prosperity

(c) Criminonymous

Leading you into the long weekend, I am delighted to host another piece of political poetry from Criminonymous. If you prefer your "shotgun duels over fossil fuels" on paper as I do, read on.

A never ending focus on these manmade lines

Designed for our safety, but designed to confine

Does any of this actually mean anything?

Does having dual nationality prepare me for more eventualities?

What is beyond our control does not enlighten the person

I’m a no-name global citizen with a purpose

And understandably, while I focus on my love and on my family

I still elevate wider humanity, see

That’s what matters to me

Progress as a process requires harnessing our energy

We’ve had growth without prosperity

And now we have neither

Disappeared in the ether

Take a step back and find Mother Earth needs a breather

You think it’s easy to please her

But her beauty is intrinsically bound to deceive you

Into thinking she’s unlimited, clearly she’s exhibited

The signs that she can take no more of these derivatives

Unlimited subsidies will be beyond prohibited

When people realise all of the damage they cause

A series of flaws

A flaming ball of wreckage like the track at Le Mans

But the problem with the debate is not the intransigence

It’s that so many issues are at the same resonance

Irrespective of anything, oil isn’t infinite

We can’t keep forever increasing our own use of it

Soon so expensive that it will only be available

To tax exiles in St Lucia and those in Monaco

The conflation of climate change with other things we know

Ensures our response to other issues is also slow

But that’s not what is best for me or you

I don’t want to wait until there’s shotgun duels over fossil fuels

Although some would say it’s already started

With ever-more dangerous tools

While a minority monopolise the writing of rules

And my heart goes out to all of those affected who are fatherless

Those in Fallujah, cancerous and powerless

The person in jail who made one mistake last year

The whistleblower executed in oil-rich Nigeria

The millions of families who have been foreclosed illegally

It’s all crime in the way that it speaks to me

Believe me, when you come to pick your battles

Energy and food security alone will be a handful

But we also need political stability

Replace profit maximisation with relaxation and common decency

In the future, we will take back our liberties

You may doubt me, but it’s as simple as that

Everything we’ve lost, we will recover tit-for-tat

My delivery may be poor, but the words still have meaning

Read them back to yourself if you don’t think that you believe me

If global warming is only happening in our minds

Then how come in the Arctic you’ve found new places to mine?

(c) Criminonymous

Ecocide sentencing event: tar sands

According to Eradicating Ecocide, ecocide is the damage, destruction and loss of ecosystems. At present, nobody is held accountable under international law for the destruction, wilful or not, of the Earth's ecosystems.

Concerned at this continuing degradation, Polly Higgins, a barrister and international environmental lawyer, advocates that the international justice system should hold individuals to account for the damage that they do. A minor amendment to the Rome Statute could see ecocide become the fifth crime against peace.

In September 2011, the UK Supreme Court in London staged a mock trial (embedded above) to assess the viability of ecocide. With eminent barristers, Michael Mansfield QC and Chris Parker QC acting for the Prosecution and Defence respectively, two fictional CEOs were charged with the destruction of wildlife and the surrounding habitat, following an oil spill which could have been averted. A jury found both defendants guilty of crimes against the Earth.

Sentencing of both defendants took place at the end of March. Click on the video below to find out how justice might apply in future cases of ecocide.