Unless... by: Chelsie Gordon

    This semester has been a wonderful experience hearing just how much each of us truly do care and are very aware of the climate crisis our future generations (and the current one) are facing. I asked you all how you are feeling about the current trajectory of our future as my personal feelings reflect curiosity. I remain hopeful, but I feel curiosity is the seat I will take on this journey. Curiosity leaves me room for optimism and new possibilities. 

                                                    

Environmental crime: A new page in the history of Europe

According to Marie Toussaint, a French lawyer and MEP for the Greens/European Free Alliance group, the EU is “adopting one of the most ambitious legislation in the world.”

“The new directive opens a new page in the history of Europe, protecting against those who harm ecosystems and, through them, human health. It means putting an end to environmental impunity in Europe, which is crucial and urgent,” she says.

According to Toussaint, current EU and national legislations are not dissuading offenders from committing environmental crimes, because offences are too limited and sanctions very low.

“Environmental crimes are growing two to three times faster than the global economy and have in a few years become the fourth largest criminal sector in the world,” she says.

Environmental crimes still occur in Europe. In its report on the fight against environmental crime in Europe, the European Environmental Bureau cites numerous examples of environmental crimes that were still going unpunished because they were not included in the old directive.

These include illegal fishing of bluefin tuna, agro-industrial pollution in protected areas, as well as illegal hunting practices and carbon market fraud.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/27/revolutionary-eu-criminalises-the-most-serious-cases-of-ecosystem-destruction

        In this article we can find  a sense of confidence that a nation is taking action. We have all read together in class the daunting amount of obvious avoidance and neglect the Earth and her systems are receiving. If you click this link you can further read you will see mention a term "ecocide". This particular directive in the EU does not include the term directly, but how does that make to feel hearing a government acknowledging the international destruction of the environment by humans at least in their preamble? Words have the power to create and destroy. What if "ecocide" was included in all nations legislature? Could we then re frame new possibilities for the future? Criminal laws draw moral lines.

 

https://www.stopecocide.earth/about#leading-states

                                                                 

                                                                 Unless.........

we demand for politicians to make the planet their priority we will not succeed. We can make futile attempts to reduce, reuse, ad recycle with no avail, or we can unite in larger ways. America is an individualistic nation and becoming a bonded and united front will only occur through education. The future generations will be most effected by the climate change and unfortunately will be the torch bearers. I wish I could blame decreased neuroplasticity on our elder's lack of concern, but unfortunately it is only greed to blame. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not. 

                                                                 

Maya Angelou

"The stories of older generations aren't relics of the past, they're seeds for the future we build together".