Rights of Nature?

Correct. The battle is already lost. At best, we can hope to salvage something from the defeat.All I can suggest is blood, sweat, toil and tears. Granting "rights" to nature is certainly not a solution.

Mother Nature responds on humans proposing Nature's Rights: Gaia Speaks

Do you live like a caveman?The fact is, the good life you're living right now is ONLY made possible through mining and oil production.

I was surprised to receive so many hostile remarks against 'mother nature' . . . But, I don't think anybody read my links. Giving rights to nature isn't so much about protecting nature, it is about protecting society from companies that poison our environment. With these legal tools in place we can prevent/reduce toxic dumping that corporations feel entitled to do in YOUR backyard.This is bad, does anybody want this in your backyard . . .Garbage Scavengers of the world. Dumped in Africa: Britain’s toxic waste
Children exposed to poisonous material in defiance of UK law Dumped in Africa: Britain’s toxic waste | The Independent | The IndependentPlease reconsider your stance.

What do any of those pictures have to do with Nature having any rights?

What do any of those pictures have to do with Nature having any rights?It would help if you read my links in the opening post.

I have read your links in the opening post and as I have said in the past, I see no more evidence that there are any innate Rights of Nature than that there are any innate Human Rights.

Innante rights is one thing. Rights that we might decide to bestow upon humans or anything else becuase we decide it is right or good or nice or helpful or beneficial or whatever are quite another. Do you agree that we can have human rights without them being 'innate'?Might we decide to do something similar to something else? In this example in this thread that 'something else' would presumably be the planet Earth....Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Then why not skip the silly rhetoric and talk about society's rights?

As long as we also understand that they are not universal, are not innate and are simply bestowed by humans and for human interests. No, I don't believe there can be animal rights or rights of nature.What we can do is proscribe and prescribe human behavior and human rights. The issue and problem is that proscribing or prescribing behavior must be done either voluntarily or though force. If voluntary then those rights are only among those who consent. If through force it devolves to the interests of the most powerful.We can say that within a given society, culture, state some actions are proscribed or prescribed. But such rights exist only within that particular society, culture or state.The US, as an example, could say that it does not have the right to use fracking or burn coal.

Why? Bestowed by humans - Sure. But we might place the rights of other things over our own interests and convenience. We might decide that a forest full of 1,000 year old trees shouldn't be demolished to build a shopping mall for example. We might do so on the basis that trees and the animals within the forest (or even some more abstract idea of nature) have "rights" that are more important in principle than the convenience to us of another shopping mall. And you can also say that within that society, culture or state there will be disagreements about the balance between human convenience and the rights that should be accorded to things (e.g. trees, animals, "nature" etc.) that stand in the way of human convenience.Personally I think it would be a sad world if we gave up all notion of anything non-human having the right to exist simply because it was inconvenient.Keep the 1,000 year old trees and build the shopping mall somewhere a bit less convenient I say........

Ringo, the part of society's rights was fully illustrated in my opening post's links.While I suppose my opening post could have been clearer about this, the reader is also partly responsible for reading the entire post.BTW, one of the reasons I post in the forum is to practice my writing. I think my style is often not as clear as it can be, so any constructive criticisms is welcomed.

I agree that society's righs were illustrated in the links, but perhaps this part of the heavy linking should have been fleshed out in your own words.Because Ringo is right. Calling the rights "Nature's rights" does not seem to be a very useful way of discussing them.

I'm not sure that you post does anything but support what I've been saying.We as humans can proscribe or prescribe our actions. If we convince enough people not to cut down a 1000 year old tree then we do not cut down that tree; but it has nothing to do with whether or not the tree has any rights. The decision is what humans want to do.As humans we can create any argument to support our desired position. That can include creating something as imaginary as "Natural Rights", but that does not mean the tree or hill or mountain or river or animal or view actually has any rights.

It does if we convince them of that on the basis that non-human things have the right to exist (even if their existence is in some way inconvenient to human needs or desires) It has the rights we bestow upon it. As is the case with any rights accorded by any society. That's the point. Or in some more noble cases what humans can convince themselves they should do.Foe example consider the great ape project:

quote:

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The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1994, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and other experts who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal rights on non-human great apes: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.

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The rights suggested are the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture.

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Now whilst it might be convenient or even beneficial to humans to treat other apes as objects unworthy of moral consideration there is a growing argument that it is wrong to do so.This an example of conferring rights on non-humans. Would you support that stance?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.