Venue: The Darmouth Inn Function Room, Warlands, Totnes
Arrival time: 7:30 for 8:00 to 10:00
Entry: By donation at door
Bookings: Contact Wendy on 01803 868305; wendystt997@googlemail.com
In this talk, international environment lawyer and barrister Polly Higgins asks “What does it take to step into a place where we can seed a different kind of conversation, one based on putting people and planet first?” Her book Eradicating Ecocide sets out to demonstrate how ‘compromise’ laws have caused the problem and why we can destroy the Earth without consequence. The solution offered is to create a law of Ecocide, the 5th Crime Against Peace. Such a law will hold to account heads of corporate bodies as well as other ‘natural persons’ in positions of superior responsibility. Polly argues that the opportunity to implement this law represents a crossroads in the fate of humanity; we can accept this one change and in doing so govern our Earth for future generations, or we can continue to destroy it, risking future wars over disappearing resources. Eradicating Ecocide was the 2011 winner of the People’s Book Prize for non-fiction. Polly’s second book, Earth is our Business examines the missing law of Ecocide in greater detail, arguing that law and carbon trading mechanisms are not enough: rather, she advocates a new form of leadership that places the health and well-being of people and planet first, and she demonstrates how law can provide the tools to build the bridge to a new way of doing business—and how Earth is everyone’s business, not just the executives of the world’s top corporations. In 2013/14 Polly held the Arne Naess Chair of Global Justice and the Environment in the University of Oslo. See http://www.pollyhiggins.com
Transition Town Totnes 