Climate Crisis and Ecocide

The Climate Crisis and Ecocide

Today’s climate patterns heighten food insecurity, displacement, infectious diseases, water scarcity, poverty and inequality, and violence.

The climate crisis is a force multiplier of conflict.

Image courtesy of CristianIS is unmodified and licensed under Pixabay.

The world is in our hands. The time to act is now. 

Ecocide

Ecocide: destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action; to kill one’s home.

 

1962-71: The US sprayed 20 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, defoliating the jungle and causing diseases and birth defects in 3 million people.

1976-96: 1.89 million barrels of oil spilled in the Niger Delta in 4,835 separate incidents, leaving a toxic wasteland with no means to grow crops.

1986: Radiation from the Chernobyl explosion caused agricultural destruction, cancer, and birth defects across Europe.

2023: Russia caused ecocide in Ukraine with the Kakhovka dam’s collapse. Flooding wiped out lives, villages, farmland, and polluted the water supply.

Ongoing: Deforestation in the Amazon threatens Indigenous cultures and destroys habitats, water cycles, land, and lives.

 

What constitutes ecocide?

and other practices of long-term environmental destruction.

Ecocide and the Law

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The International Criminal Court defines 4 crimes in global human rights law:

  • genocide
  • crimes against humanity
  • war crimes
  • aggression

Legal scholars and environmental advocates propose crime 5: ecocide.

Examples of Ecocide Crimes:

  1. Offenses that increase the climate crisis: deforestation
  2. Consequences of the climate crisis: species extinction, die-off of coral reefs, and rising seas
  3. Consequences that are criminal activities: genocide
  4. Regulatory offenses: carbon trading fraud

Many countries and international entities criminalize ecocide.

The US has taken no action on ecocide.

The Human Cost of Ecocide

Brazil: Deforestation destroys indigenous land, homes, livelihoods, and cultures.

United States: 2.5 million people were displaced in 2023 from floods, severe storms, fires, and drought.

Sudan: The genocide in Darfur was precipitates by droughts and famine.

Pakistan: Floods destroyed thousands of schools, affecting millions of children.

The Parable of the Boiling Frog

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Place a frog in boiling water and it immediately jumps out. Place a frog in cold water, bring it to a boil, and the frog boils to death.

We are the frog. The pot of boiling water is our planetary home.

We are slowly cooking to death.

What we do matters.

 

 

 

Read about climate migration and the law here.

Read about climate change legislative developments here.

Read about the link between climate change and conflict here.

Find out how your city be affected by climate change here.

Take action here.

Find resources including scholarly articles, fiction and non-fiction books, documentaries, and other resources about climate change here.