It can now be reaonably claimed that the impacts of Climate Change are sufficiently significant that Climate Change is causing deaths around the world, through such things as extreme weather events, drought, flooding, crop damage and extremes of temperature. The international aid and development agencies are making this claim : Christian Aid, CAFOD, Oxfam and Tearfund amongst them. Bearing in mind that most Carbon Dioxide emissions and forest destruction are directly caused or indirectly attributed to the businesses of private national and transnational corporations, companies in Britain could reasonably be implicated in the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people worldside. In this respect, I wonder if campaigners would think of applying the law on Corporate Manslaughter to Climate Change :- http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2007/ukpga_20070019_en_1 It is not just cute little furry animals and gracious trees who are suffering the direct impacts of Climate Change. Climage Change is now known to be destroying the rates of survival of human beings. Is there a way to calculate how many people are dying each year as a result of the actions against the environment of such corporates as the Royal Bank of Scotland, or British Petroleum ? Are the corporations killing us by destroying the Environment ? Should they be held to account ? Your call. |
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Campaign against Climate ChangeUK activists portal |
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Yet more illogical rhetoric
Oh give over !
MMGW is NOT proven ! Therefore I fail to see how on earth this tenuous link between MMGW and corporate laws is established and verified.
You might have a better argument if you'd chosen the Gulf War as your topic....but not MMGW. It's too vacuous and ill founded to even appear at the doors of the Law Courts...let alone be heard in a case.
The problem with this is
The problem with this is that no such thing can be reasonably claimed.
Manmade climate change / global warming is simply a theory - a highly improbable one supported by no real evidence. Climate change is real and unstoppable, but mankind has nothing to with it.
If deaths are being caused by increased temperature, extreme weather and so on, we should focus on strategies to adapt to these inevitable changes. This is of course entirely possible - witness the difference in the amount of death and suffering when natural disasters occur in a rich, prepared country like the USA to the amount in poor Asian countries.
By the way, a warmer world should lead to less severe weather, not more. And cold is without doubt a greater threat to life than heat.
On a seperate matter, you accuse large corporations in the West of killing people via their environmental depredations. There seems to be a strong Marxist (or at least anti-capitalist) theme running through many of your posts. Yet global capitalism, for all its faults, has lifted countless millions out of poverty and squalor. It has also provided the resources for the developed world (and will eventually do the same for the developing world) to cope with inevitable changes in climate. The environmental record of Western countries and companies may not be perfect, but it is immeasurably better than the records either of the Soviet Union or of the developing world today.
Capitalism provides wealth and opportunity, and allows for the management and sensible use of nature and our environment. The other approach leads to the kind of ecological catastrophes that occurred in the Soviet Union, and still occur in China now.
Corporate manslaughter?
Corporate manslaughter? Everyone of you who has driven a car without need is by the same logic guilty of manslaughter.
I contest the idea that corporations and governments are to blame, it is the individual.
Governments and Corporates keep pumping Carbon
@harry
I'm going to have to disagree with you there.
There is an established use of Carbon by Governments and Companies, they say on behalf of their Citizens and Consumers.
50% of the Carbon Dioxide Emissions I am personally responsible for come from the emissions made on my behalf by policies enacted by my local and national government.
Fantastic
Using the "logic" of you and harry, by extension everyone living in a democracy is guilty and should be charged, and those living in dictatorship etc should be charged with willful neglect, failure to inform the authorities or similar.
So the entire planet should immediately resume a hunter gatherer lifestyle (but no cooking the food, fires are bad) as we obviously can't wait for new or refined energy sources as the children (please think of the children) would be equally guilty the moment they reach the age at which they are legally accountable.
There are all sorts of
There are all sorts of strategies that individuals use to distance themselves from the harmful consequences of their actions.
Barelysane has given a typical distancing technique, where the individual says they are only one small part of the machinery, and that it would be outrageous to blame the individual for their small role.
Oh no i didn't
I am perfectly aware of the consequences of my actions, and accept the responsibility that goes with them, so please make an attempt not to be so patronising.
If you want to play the game of proving "corporate manslughter". You first have to prove cause and effect, and no one has so far on AGW nevermind proving that AGW is directly responsible for an individuals death. This is the pesky little thing called proof, it's widely accepted that this is a necessary part of the legal process.
(yes, i am being patronising)