‘Unlimited Growth Assumes Unlimited Resources, and this is the Genesis of Ecocide’: Maude Barlow on Corporate Plunder of Natural Resources

“If ecocide were to be criminalized, we could not only punish mass polluters for the damage they cause but also prevent the advent of new fossil fuel companies and projects.”

There is a great hue and cry about ecocide as the planet earth is dying. World leaders, on the other hand, have so far failed to devise a constructive policy to save the planet. Recently, leaders met in Glasgow, Scotland (UK) for a summit (referred to as COP26) held at the SEC Centre from 31 October to 13 November 2021. The outcome was unsatisfactory.

According to an Aljazeera report, the word ecocide combines the Greek “oikos”, meaning house/home (and later understood to mean habitat/environment), with “cide”, meaning to kill. It literally means “killing one’s home”.

Are crony capitalists the main culprit? Who should we blame? Let’s find out. Crony capitalists along with people who run governments worldwide blame common folks for committing ecocide. On top of that, governments run PSAs to warn people about their actions of committing ecocide. The unpleasant truth is, crony capitalists are polluting the earth, depleting resources for their gains. And this has to be challenged.

To cut acts of aggression from the source seems to be the only way to save the planet. For instance, a factory owner producing hundreds of thousands of plastic products within 24 hours is both polluting the earth and deleting resources. This should be criminalized.

“If ecocide were to be criminalized, we could not only punish mass polluters for the damage they cause but also prevent the advent of new fossil fuel companies and projects,” said Nina de Ayala Parker opines. Ms. Nina writes for Aljazeera.

Let’s see what supporters of ecocide are saying about how corporate are plundering natural resources.

“We talked about holding the biggest corporate polluters to account and what that might look like in law. Would personhood of nature be enshrined in the same way that corporate personhood is?” ― Golriz Ghahraman outlines in her book, Know Your Place.

“These folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all ways that we can.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

“The genocide will not necessarily take the form of war or death camps. Most likely it will take the form of ecocide, in which landscapes are devastated and the populations that live there slowly starve or turn upon each other savagely because there isn't enough food or water to go around.” — Arundhati Roy

“Unlimited growth assumes unlimited resources, and this is the genesis of Ecocide. The move to commodify all of nature is the next step in its destruction. The earth is not ours to plunder. Nature has rights as surely as any that exist.” — Maude Barlow. 

Ms. Maude is a Canadian author, co-founder of Council of Canadians, Blue Planet Project, and Chair of Board of Food and Water.

The quotes used in this piece were extracted from Aljazeera, Goodreads, Stop Ecocide International, etc.