Chiswickite - formerly The Croydonian

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, fresh from his remarkably brief publicity stunt hunger strike, would look to be adopting a sort of secular Jainism:

"As the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed [22 April (#1)] International Mother Earth Day, Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma applauded the Members of the world body who had “taken a historic stand for Mother Earth” by acknowledging humanity’s common interest in the protection of the planet and its environment.

[Several cubic yards of hot air excised]

Some 60 years after activists had fought so hard to win acknowledgement of human rights worldwide, including social, economic, political and cultural rights, Mother Earth was now having her rights recognized, he continued. Indeed, animals and plants -- all living creatures and beings -- had rights that deserved to be respected and protected. Those that had supported the text in the Assembly would be heralded for their historic action, he said, expressing the hope that, as the twentieth century had been called “the century of human rights”, this new era would be known as the “century of the rights of Mother Earth”. Continuing, President Morales said that, by proclaiming the International Day, United Nations Member States now had the opportunity to begin laying out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. Such a Charter must enshrine the right to life for all living things; right to regeneration of the planet’s biocapacity; right to a clean life -- for Mother Earth to live free of contamination and pollution; and the right to harmony and balance among and between all things....He urged listening to the voices of indigenous people, who, despite all odds, had sustained their profound links with nature. He urged support for the world’s small farmers and food producers, who, with sustainable farming methods, could provide us with healthy food, while not being driven into poverty by unfair trade policies and the actions of rapacious agro-industries. “Our decision today marks one more symbolic step in changing the dominant mindset that has brought us so close to self-destruction,” he said.

Doubtless Morales will be closing down the Bolivian oil and gas industries, inter alia, and I do wonder how he squares the right to life of all living things with the plant deaths that do seem to be an unavoidable part of the process of non-fruit plant cultivation. I imagine that even if he can square that particular circle, there is then the problem of pesticides, inter alia. And to think that this guff, or at least the mother earth bit is 'supported by over 50 Member States'. Sigh.