Start by taking away private jets and private flights from rich people. As all laws do, this one will also apply only to regular and poor people, not even big companies and certainly not for rich. Just look at what Musk is doing to nature reserve nears his launch pad. He was warned, didn't get launch permissions, doesn't have permission for letting untreated water into ground from cooling... and yet he does all that and no one bats and eye. Just look at the main page of Lemmy and you'll see news of some dude flying alone in 747 because he can. Royal family has been known to fly across the ocean to get lunch.
I meant you can live as carefully as possible, walk everywhere, never fly a plane and live only on solar for multiple lives and you couldn't offset what they fuck up in a day.
All the rich would be arrested
No, they'd be able to afford the best lawyers. It's the poor who would be punished the most. We already have fines for not recycling properly, even though the rubbish all gets mixed back together in Turkey or China and burned anyway. We have to use soggy paper straws with our drinks while the rich blanket the atmosphere in burned fuel from the private jets.
Thats a true revolutionary cry. But since being "rich" is quite a relative term, you might wake up in the realization that most of the world considers you rich and your lifestyle complicit in the mass destruction of the global environment.
That's quite the stretch. Don't regulate the rich cause we might be caught up?
I don't take private flights from one side of a city to another. I don't own a yacht (or 6). I don't own a fleet of vehicles with a staff that drives them around. I don't throw away more food than most people eat. I don't horde dozens of acres of land that contain nothing but wasteful lawn.
There's a pretty stark contrast between the ultra wealthy, and the vast majority of people living in highly developed countries.
This is a form of slippery slope fallacy. Rich in this context refers to portion of society contributing to pollution on a massively higher scale than even an upper middle class American. How many 'rich' Americans regularly fly private jets or take yachts? How many average joes own and operate a cruise line or a refinery?
I think with regards to poorer people in other countries, they'd be on the same page with 99.99% of Americans about who's considered so rich that they alone pose a threat to global health.
No, we would just abolish corporations
They should but never will, Laws don't apply for rich people and even if, jail would BE to good for them
Not like we punish war criminals that strictly either...
L m a o
This. Everything looks so tasty on paper tho!
I love the idea but wonder how it would be handled for things like oil spills in the international waters space. Those are more more often accidental versus the types of just bad practice things like forrest destruction or such. Take that along with the notion of it being in international space would make even deciding jurisdiction a mess.
Are they truly accidental? Or are they because of cutting corners on maintenance etc and then “just happen”
I think those responsible should be fined the same as you or I would be for dumping used motor oil down a storm drain.
By the quart.
Jurisdiction would be based on nationality of the business, just like it is now for other crimes. You can't just commit a crime in international waters and go home scot-free.
Same way we would handle a vehicle accident that kills people, I assume.
Looks like the non-profit founded by Higgins and Mehta is active in promoting this law on a worldwide scale, with ongoing legislative efforts in Spain, Finland, and Brazil. Here's their action page to get involved and offer support.
"On oil and gas companies who have spent decades burning fossil fuels - ramping up the world’s carbon emissions - Mehta said the law couldn’t go back in time and punish past activities."
Since we gave people the death penalty at the Nuremberg trials ex post facto, we can do the same with anthropogenic climate change. I would support such death penalties now already, tho I suspect more than a hundred million people would have to die directly from unambiguous climate change events within a short period like a week, before more people would agree. The problem is that the climate-change tipping-points will cascade, which means that the 1st one may cause other tipping points to be triggered, at which point billions of people will die unnecessarily in a Mad Max world.
I think we need to address this not just at individuals or corporations, but at nation states in which those individuals reside and are licensed.
We need to kick them in the wallet. Allowing rampant pollution? Extra trade tariffs, and exclusion from various international groups/events. Complicit in rampant pollution? Punitive economic Sanctions, and loss of access to certain technologies, financial networks, etc.
It's self defense. We have to get things under control before greed kills us all
That'll be the same Scotland with a shitload of oil rigs off the coast, would it?
Are the rigs purely Scottish, idk how the UK works
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/