Posted on 03/09/2008 9:36:26 PM PDT by M203M4
Embracing Earth Charter key to environmental salvation
Author and U of A professor Colin Soskolne says humans need to smarten up.
March 7, 2008 - Edmonton -- Human beings, laments Colin Soskolne, are a "seriously dumb species."
Just what kind of defect drives us to destroy the very ecosystems that provide us with sustenance? Why do we turn away from mounting, irrefutable evidence that we are sabotaging our very existence?
Such questions are asked in a new collection of essays, called Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance, edited by Soskolne, on the environment and human health.
"Our livelihoods and, in fact, life itself fundamentally depends on the ability of ecosystems to function [and] produce goods and services, the sources of which we have for too long taken for granted."
"So, with a track record of wanton destruction, how smart are we?" asks the professor of public health sciences who has spent much of his recent career taking stock of the human health impact of climate change and pollution.
He says the message is simple: people around the world must embrace the Earth Charter. Drawn up by Canadian Maurice Strong in 1992 -- and with help from such advocates as former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev -- it has since undergone a number of revisions and confronted hurdle after political hurdle. But by 2005 it had become became more widely accepted as the global consensus statement on how to define and achieve sustainability-providing a vision statement that ensures the basic rights of sanitation, water quality, food safety and air quality for all.
It is, says Soskolne, "the set of values and principles that will guide us, globally, onto a future path that provides for just, sustainable, and peaceful ways of living."
"I believe that even if (Alberta premier) Ed Stelmach read this document, he would feel that it resonated with him. This is why I feel that it has such promise, that we have to get the word through to people we don't even see as being our allies necessarily in this cause, because the issues are so grave."
In a lecture Friday that drew largely from his book, Soskolne took a moment to express his frustration at Alberta's lack of foresight on the environment.
"You can see how dumb we are-we've just had an election in which people stayed away from the polls instead of voting for people with values and principles allied with their own," he said at the talk sponsored by the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. "It was a watershed time in the history of this country, and we got a 41 per cent voting turnout. It was a very sad day."
Soskolne listed the myriad forms of environmental destruction humans have left in their wake, from the pollution of the oceans to unfettered development of the oilsands to the eradication of thousands of species. He said the only way to fend off a "gloomy" future is to join forces with people across the political spectrum who share a common concern for the planet.
This tone of urgency can also be detected in the forward to Sustaining Life on Earth. There is a deliberate attempt to make scientific findings, environmental policy and issues of global governance accessible to average readers, he writes, and especially students at all levels of study: "Now more than ever, future leaders in all fields of endeavor need to understand and embrace the message of this book."
Soskolne also urged the U of A - along with the governments of Alberta and Canada - to officially endorse the charter: "Maybe if we can invoke a little wisdom, we can change things."
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And, of course, the solution to our woes - our very salvation - must involve "global governance", which includes the embrace of something called the "Earth Charter," described as "the set of values and principles that will guide us, globally, onto a future path that provides for just, sustainable, and peaceful ways of living." Sharia law for environmentalists.
To provide some background on the talk of the recent provincial election in Alberta, the Progressive Conservative Party (fiscally center-right, socially moderate) won by an enormous margin last week across Alberta (something like 71 out of 82 seats), with the NDP and Green Party (the standard-bearers of leftism and envirofascism in Canada) failing even to hold onto official party status. This has been the source of much Schadenfreude for Alberta conseratives, who have been gloating over recent media coverage denouncing the result, the protestations of "important people" claiming that the election is proof that Albertans are ignorant, yada yada. Looks like good times all around.
And for some background on this researcher parasite, one particularly telling affiliation (hey, if the environuts are going to imply that evil devilish entities corporations are influencing skeptical scientists, then I think it is wholly reasonable to point out shady affiliations when their guys BRAG out about them):
Consultancy, Expert Witness for Wagners – A Serious Injury Law Firm: Class Action environmental contamination law suit by the local community against the provincial and federal governments, as well as some steel manufacturing companies and smelting oven operators, relating to the Sydney, Nova Scotia, Tar Ponds.
No bias there.
Arf. Arf.
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The “Earth Charter” is trying to get socialism and communism in through the back door. They have a whole section on “Social and economic justice”.
Capitalism is the most just economic system known to man.
Before anyone runs out and buys this book, I suggest they watch that show about 10,000 B.C. that was on History Channel tonight. If you pay close attention and listen to what is being said, the scientists in the film inadvertantly(?) torpedoed every “global warming” argument that the enviroloonies have ever come up with.
Oh yeah...
He’s one of the “save the earth by gov’t force” guys.
Scary.
This “Al-come-lately” has a lot of catching up to do. Maybe he could make a movie, something like “An Incombobulated Tooth,” or something like that.
A selection of the charter:
2 (b) Affirm that with increased freedom, knowledge, and power comes increased responsibility to promote the common good.
3 (b) Promote social and economic justice, enabling all to achieve a secure and meaningful livelihood that is ecologically responsible.
4 (d) Control and eradicate non-native or genetically modified organisms harmful to native species and the environment, and prevent introduction of such harmful organisms.
5 (d) Prevent pollution of any part of the environment and allow no build-up of radioactive, toxic, or other hazardous substances.
5 (e) Avoid military activities damaging to the environment.
7 (d) Internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in the selling price, and enable consumers to identify products that meet the highest social and environmental standards.
7 (e) Ensure universal access to health care that fosters reproductive health and responsible reproduction.
8 (b) Recognize and preserve the traditional knowledge and spiritual wisdom in all cultures [except Christian] that contribute to environmental protection and human well-being.
III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
9. Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social, and environmental imperative. 10. Ensure that economic activities and institutions at all levels promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner.
a. Promote the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations.
b. Enhance the intellectual, financial, technical, and social resources of developing nations, and relieve them of onerous international debt.
12. Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being, with special attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
a. Eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, language, and national, ethnic or social origin.
b. Affirm the right of indigenous peoples to their spirituality, knowledge, lands and resources and to their related practice of sustainable livelihoods.
IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIOLENCE, AND PEACE
14 b. Promote the contribution of the arts and humanities in sustainability education.
16. Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.
c. Demilitarize national security systems to the level of a non-provocative defense posture, and convert military resources to peaceful purposes, including ecological restoration.
d. Eliminate OUR OWN nuclear, biological, and toxic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
e. Ensure that the use of orbital and outer space supports environmental protection and peace.
They left out gun control. Everything else on the leftist agenda is covered.
Guys like him make me puke!
And unless we fight them every step of the way they’re going to win!
...and most sustainable - and without having some gestapo bureacracy telling you what you can and cannot produce!
Well, isn’t that special. Too bad the Maunder Minimum is making them look like fools.
Soon this crap will be replaced with a new sky is falling and only socialism can save us religion.
The Soviet Union, that is, ignorant Marx's stepchild, abolished private property, flattened human life, and mandated the "common good" for every citizen; in short, terminated human dignity. What is left is a vacuum of individual responsibility and consciousness. Indeed, the United States, right now, is probably the environmentally cleanest society on Earth. This despite the fact that it has been (up to recently) an envelope of individual and entrepreneurial freedom.
That is to say, freedom equals human dignity, equals mutual trust, equals faith, equals the exuberance of civilization. In no uncertain terms we are dealing here with the Borg versus the Federation, the bicameral versus the conscious. We are dealing here with fear ("all governments work through fear" - John Adams) versus imagination. We are dealing here with totally, totally opposite views of our human brethren.
Think of Maurice Strong, Hillary Clinton, and the Council on Foreign Relations, seriously misguided people - take it from the Suntrade Institute, not Duke University professors.
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