Friday, March 19, 2021

Luna, See?

So a group of Aussies put together a proposal in line with things that are called declarations of "Nature's rights" that argues for the moon to be given rights.

The "Declaration on the Rights of the Moon" says that the moon is a "sovereign natural entity" in its own right and that it has a right to, among other things, "remain a forever peaceful celestial entity, unmarred by human conflict or warfare." Now, many people will mock these members of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance for suggesting that an inanimate object has anything resembling rights. They may suggest that this is what you get from people who walk around upside down all of the time. But for my money, the problem is not that they have set their minds to describing how rocks, dust and whatnot can assert the same kinds of rights that people can. No, the problem is that they have not gone far enough.

For one, the Moon is not a body separately orbiting the sun but is a satellite of Earth, meaning that it is a part of a total Earth-Moon system. And the Declaration says absolutely nothing about the way that the Earth possesses all of breathable atmosphere available to that system, as well as more than 99 percent of the total atmosphere and more than 90 percent of the water. Furthermore, the Earth uses its mass privilege to force the Moon to orbit it and has even enslaved it to the point that the Moon cannot rotate according to its own desires but must always turn one face to the oppressor planet.

Clearly, no Declaration on the Rights of the Moon that overlooks these astounding inequities can consider itself to be on the side of the oppressed or to have the full flourishing of the moon as its goal. The so-called Declaration makes a mockery of the Moon's rights by failing to address these inequities and the overwhelming privilege the Earth enjoys. I am appalled.

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