From here:
United Nations diplomats on Wednesday will set aside pressing issues of international peace and security to devote an entire day debating the rights of “Mother Earth.”
A bloc of mostly socialist governments lead by Bolivia have put the issue on the General Assembly agenda to discuss the creation of a U.N. treaty that would grant the same rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Mother Nature.
Treaty supporters want the establishment of legal systems to maintain balance between human rights and what they perceive as the inalienable rights of other members of the Earth community — plants, animals, and terrain.
This sheds a whole new light on the sticks of asparagus whose rights I trampled by thoughtlessly ingesting them for lunch.
What, one wonders, is this really all about? Read on:
Communities and environmental activists would be given more legal power to monitor and control industries and development to ensure harmony between humans and nature. Though the United States and other Western governments are supportive of sustainable development, some see the upcoming event, “Harmony with Nature,” as political grandstanding — an attempt to blame environmental degradation and climate change on capitalism.
How unusual! A loose consortium of despot infested banana republics wants to take pot-shots at Western capitalism.
The mad hatters in the Anglican Church are playing their part too, of course.
concerning Environmental issues, may I make two points?
a) as Christians, we ought to be talking about the “creation”. Secular activists talk about “nature” or the “environment”, ie as a scientific object. So, as Christians, thinking about our world as ‘a creation’ or as ‘the creation”, does this affect our thoughts, our understanding, or how we behave?
b) I once heard of a Lutheran pastor, who wanted to change the first article of the Apostle’s Creed. Instead of “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth”, he wanted to say “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker and Owner of heaven and earth”. Interesting suggestion, eh?