Climate aggression

[jake williams]

At one point does an entity, say a state, damaging the environment, (local or global?), constitute an aggressor that it is just to go to war against? Because surely there is some point - a great number of countries have the capacity to do things to the air and water that represent real survival threats to the rest of the world. But what's the point? What are the conditions? Is anyone aware of any current international law dealing with this concept?

[thewoodcutter]

i cant say that im familiar with international law on the subject, but since it's corporations doing most of the environmental damage the parent-nation of those corporations could easily distance themselves. i mean, if the bhopal incident in india wasnt enough to start a war, then what would be?

*off-topic semi-rant* -> i saw a 'worst disasters of the century' tv program a few years back (an american program obv) and it had the bhopal incident listed near the bottom, while the challenger spaceship explosion was in the top 5. i just about lost my mind.

[jake williams]

but since it's corporations doing most of the environmental damage the parent-nation of those corporations could easily distance themselves.
Which of course is much of the point of corporatization and "privatization" - you set up a new government, essentially, it functions differently but there are important similarities, and it certainly governs, and pretends it's "private" and it's "markets", but you absolve the official government of responsibility.

But the whole point is, if a government allows corporations to do these things, they're responsible, period. They're not solely complicit, but I think we have to say that if a government allows these activities to go on, yeah, they're responsible.

[thewoodcutter]

oh yeah, i totally agree. in canada 80% of our beef industry is american owned (or owned by american corporations), and most of that beef is sent south. but as the massive industrial 'cattle factories' spew waste products into our rivers and lakes we get stuck with the cleanup job, or we just drink filthy water. war might not be justified in this situation, but doubling the price of the oil we sell them would be an option (although that would be prohibited by NAFTA...fucking NAFTA.)