All assignments for the course Writing for Impact that will be given at Leiden University of Applied Sciences in the second year. I have obtained a 7.3 for my assignments.
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Assignment 1
Polly Higgins – Battling ecocide
Polly Higgins was a lawyer who felt the need to fight for our planet. While she was studying, she
became inspired by an ecologist. This led to her interest in our ecosystem and what humanity is doing
to it. She was so concerned about our planet that she started trying to criminalize ecocide
internationally. Even though ecocide is not a crime yet, Higgins managed to give it a legal definition
(pollyhiggins.com).
Higgins felt that the earth needed a lawyer to protect itself (Watts, 2019). So, she started fighting for
recognition of ecocide. It was important to her that people became aware of what they do to our planet
now. If they keep behaving like that, it will cause problems in the future. Her idea to make ecocide a
criminal offense would not make ecocide disappear completely, but it will discourage companies to
choose ways of producing that are bad for the environment. Maybe they will stop using plastic and go
with biodegradable packaging to avoid the consequences of committing ecocide.
Her idea is good but actually applying it would be difficult. We all ‘harm’ the ecosystem in a way and it
is impossible to punish people for driving a car to work every day or buying products that contain
plastic. It is not possible to force everyone to cycle to work and only buy organic products. Even if it
was possible, it still would not make a huge difference since producing bicycles causes CO2 as well.
In conclusion, CO2 is probably the biggest problem for our ecosystem and almost all companies all
over the world produce it. Even cattle produce CO2, so that would mean that everyone should become
vegan and even then, we still need clothes that have to be produced and will cause CO2 (Carbon
stock study, 2019).
What would criminalizing ecocide do to the economy of certain countries? In India or China for
instance almost the entire economy revolves around producing, selling and transporting products. If
you start giving vines to factories in those countries, how will citizens make money? What jobs will
they do? If this is closely researched and they manage to create a way that it will not deeply affect the
economy of these countries, there might be a tiny change that it will work. Apart from this, it is
important to take into consideration that there needs to be a system put in place to check whether
companies are ‘playing by the rules’.
In conclusion, criminalizing ecocide would be better for our planet, but will it be better for us? I am
skeptical about the execution of the idea. It will be hard to follow through with it and it is probably
impossible to stop the harm of our planet completely. In my opinion we could all make some
adjustments to our behavior in order to not totally ruin the planet. For example, we could stop buying
plastic if there are other options available. If people manage to create a way to decrease the effect of
the disadvantages that criminalizing ecocide might have and come up with a decent system, I would
definitely support it.
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