Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Good planet. It's a hard find. Zones of tropics climbs through current and thriving sea winds blowing.
Speaker 2 00:00:35 Hello, case squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability now, a biweekly case grid radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschitz. In our previous show, my guest was Katie sma, a journalist for Inside Climate News who writes on the rights of nature. The rights of nature is one way to rethink the relationships between humans and nature, but are there other ways to think about human nature connections and how might those ways be incorporated into human, social and legal practices? My guest today is Dr. Rosalind Warner, professor of Political Science at Okanagan College in British Columbia. She's also a research fellow with the Earth System Governance Project. Warner is studying the role of kinship metaphors in earth system law with kinship connoting, more ethical relationships among humans, nature and earth's non-human inhabitants. Earth system law is an emerging body of legal precepts, principles and practices that bring together ethics and law with the planet's dynamic, physical and biological cycles. Professor Warner, welcome to sustainability. Now.
Speaker 3 00:01:50 Thank you so much for having me. I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 2 00:01:53 Well, let's begin our conversation by having you, you tell us something about your background.
Speaker 3 00:01:58 Yeah, so I'm a continuing college professor of political science at Okanagan College. I grew up in the beautiful province of British Columbia, mostly in the interior. For my graduate work, I studied political science and I had a major subject of international relations, but when I started my PhD, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to focus on. And when you get to the doctorate level, they really expect you to, to have a specialization. So, um, one thing I was really happy to be able to do is to do a bit of traveling. Actually, during my first year of my PhD, because I was on a travel study tour for a 10 months program, and we went all around the world. The topic was peace studies, but we also talked about a lot of other issues including peace and conflict, the environment, um, development, activism, and human rights.
Speaker 3 00:02:55 The thing that was a big turning point for me was visiting Eastern Europe, and actually we were there before, uh, November, 1989 when the wall came down and we were in Germany actually at the time. Wow. Wow. But the week before that, we had been in Estonia and we had, uh, we had sort of regular little field trips that we did out to the country to meet the people and talk about what their experiences were. And we all climbed up this huge sludge pile. I, I've, I think it was probably two or three stories high, just complete, uh, black gray sludge. There was stuff coming out of pipes and it was being piped onto this huge pile. And when we stood on the top of it, I swear, you could look out and see nothing living for miles and miles, no trees, no bushes, not even any grass.
Speaker 3 00:04:00 And we learned a little bit of the background of this power plant, that it had been set up by Russia, that it employed mainly Russians, that Russians were trained to, to run the plant and had the opportunities of getting the jobs. And that most of the environmental cost, of course, was for the local people in Estonia. And then when we talked to the people there, they said, you know, for us, it's not just a question of the environment. It's not just a question of the pollution that's being caused. It's about the power. It's about the fact that this is being set up, that it's affecting us, and that we're paying all the costs and not really seeing any of the benefits. And so that was sort of the seed for this whole, um, independence movement in Estonia, Laia and Lithuania and Eastern Europe, which went from there.
Speaker 3 00:04:58 But all real, a lot of it was driven by environmentalists and a lot of it was driven by this awareness that it's about the power relationships. It's not necessarily just about nature. And what I took away from that was that what we're talking about is the environment isn't out there, it's not something separate from us. It's part of a system, and it is fundamentally political. So that was my inspiration to go on to do work in, um, disaster risk reduction and biodiversity protection. I've worked on the environment and trade, um, Canadian foreign policy, and I've also done some work on critical iPolitics mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it really, really kind of set the stage for my interest going forward.
Speaker 2 00:05:48 So you're a research fellow with the Earth System Governance project. What is earth System's governance?
Speaker 3 00:05:55 Well, I like to bring the definition provided by Frank Bierman, who is the thought leader of the Earth System Governance Project. And he talks about it as having two main components. The first is of course, as understanding of the earth as a system. The second is the recognition that governance has these steering processes that are a bit different from traditional concepts of government. One thing that I like to tell my students is that the origin of the term government is actually from the Greek term Kubernetes, which is the word used to describe the rudder or the helm of a boat. So in other words, it's the source of the direction, the navigation, the movement, orientation. The fundamental question of politics is where are we going? Right? And who's deciding that? Now, if you think in terms of government today, I mean, that brings to mind all of the things that we associate with the state, uh, population, a territory with set borders, and of course sovereignty.
Speaker 3 00:07:07 The single source of all authority. We usually think of sovereignty as being seated in a capital city of some sort, or in a central seat of government. And that authority branches out to all aspects of the state from there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, to my mind, governance is a little bit bigger than that. It's not just the state. We don't have a world state in the same way that we might say we have the state of Canada or the state of Angola or the state of Namibia. There's no world government in the same way that they think of government within the state. For one thing, there's no real territorial boundaries there, there's no governed world population. And probably most importantly, there's no single source of authority or sovereignty to steer the ship. It's a little bit like saying what's north of the North Pole <laugh>. There's no real basis for defining a world state or a world government in the same way that we think, uh, in terms of a national government. So that's how I see the difference.
Speaker 2 00:08:15 So part of the, uh, what's central to earth system governance is earth system law. Mm-hmm. Okay. Which is, which is what you work on and what, what, then, you know, what is law then in that context? I have this quote here from, uh, Anatol, France. He wrote the law in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges to beg in the streets and to steal bread. So, you know, law is political and law is usually formulated, uh, to support power. What is our assistant law and how does it differ from our conventional understanding and practice of law?
Speaker 3 00:08:56 Yeah, that's a great quote, <laugh> for, for so many reasons. Um, one of the great reasons, of course, is very ironic. <laugh>, of course, um, law applies in its majestic equality, but of course, the the rich don't need to do any of those things. The rich don't, don't need to sleep under bridges, and they don't find themselves butting up against the law very much as a result. It doesn't seem very majestic or very just, um, so the rule of law, you know, to my mind, it just means that the law applies equally to everyone. But then of course, there's everything else, right? There's, there's society and politics, but how is this different from earth system law? I, you know, just to take this as a jump off point, I would say that earth system law brings to the table the idea that things can be different, right?
Speaker 3 00:09:47 So it has a transformative potential. It doesn't just reflect the prevailing status quo. Um, it doesn't just say, this is the way it is, you have the freedom to do this or not. It doesn't just reflect power in the sense that it's saying, um, the prevailing system as it is, is, is what law is there to protect. Um, but it does see law and politics as fundamentally interrelated, as you pointed out. I feel like the purpose of earth system law is different. The purpose is fundamentally to challenge the prevailing power inequalities to actively disrupt them, and to come up with new rules, roles and responsibilities that are part of the emergent properties of the earth system as a whole.
Speaker 2 00:10:37 Well, when you use that term earth system, okay, I mean, you used system before. What's the difference between what is the system then in this context?
Speaker 3 00:10:46 Yeah. I think of a, a system as simply a, a self-governing set of relationships that has a distinct logic that components of it have relationships with other components, and it's the way in which those interact that produces the overall, uh, greatness, right? It's more than the sum of its parts in a sense. So it's a framework in which these relationships and interactions are created. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:11:19 <affirmative>, and, and in this case it's both human, human society and the natural world. Just to, to be sort of simplistic right. To, to together, there's some kind of system. Now you mentioned, I think you mentioned that international law applies specifically and only to countries, and there's no international body with the power to enforce E s L or, or systems law. So to whom does it apply? Who's the subject of E S L and can it be enforced?
Speaker 3 00:11:49 Well, I would say this is true that international relations and, and international law really only makes sense in the context of, uh, states, right? So that means we have to think differently in terms of what world governance or earth system governance might look like. So a couple things I would mention here. One is that, um, you're not just talking about one line of authority, you're talking about multiple lines of authority. So this means non-governmental organizations, private corporations, governments, scientific groups, ordinary people, and international organizations. Another thing that I would, uh, mention is that you're talking about a system in which it's working from the bottom up rather than the top down. So enforcement doesn't necessarily happen from the top. Um, there's lots of different ways to think about enforcement other than just the use of military force or police or courts. That's usually what we think about.
Speaker 3 00:12:51 But actually, ultimately, the purpose of law is to change people's behavior or to structure people's behavior. And that doesn't have to be done necessarily by force. In fact, there's a lot of arguments that using force can be counterproductive to changing people's behavior. It can also be done through education, through agreement, through contracts, um, and through learning and the experience of working together. I also would just add that when we're talking about a system, we're not talking about managing or directing the plan in some way, right? So it's not the same as a government that we would have within the state. We're talking about, uh, something that has its own logic, and that means when we make steering decisions, we have to do so with humility. The biogeochemical forces of the planet have a logic of their own. And within that system, logic, we have to live and we have to change with it. Ultimately, our main concern in earth system law is the human effect on the planet, and how do we adapt to the changes over which we have no control? So it's a question of having that humility, recognizing that we are part of this system, that we are not above it, we're not beyond it, and that therefore we have to, uh, govern ourselves accordingly.
Speaker 2 00:14:24 You're listening to sustainability now. I'm Ronnie Lipschitz, your host, and my guest today is Professor Rosalind Warner, who is in the political science department at Ogan College in British Columbia. And a re she's a research fellow with the Earth Systems Governance Project. And we've just been talking about earth system law and earth systems, and what they are and how they function. You wanted to tell a story about orcas, and I mean, it's a particularly interesting one, and I'm sure our audience is interested in, in orcas. Uh, so why don't you tell us about that? You know, how that, how our system law would apply to, uh, to groups of inhabitants that are not people.
Speaker 3 00:15:05 So people sometimes have trouble imagining what this might look like in the real world, <laugh> or in the practical world. Uh, we actually have a lot of examples right now that are coming to light to demonstrate actually how the earth system law could function in, in a really different way. So the southern resident orcas or community of about 75 individuals in three pods, they live in the Salish Sea, off the western coast of Washington and the inlets of the West coast of Canada. The southern residents are threatened by a lot of human activities. They're now considered critically endangered, both by the United States and by Canada, from the perspective of the southern resident. Orcas, they've been kidnapped, they've been killed, they've been imprisoned for human entertainment. They've been confined and put into unfamiliar tanks. They're feeding grounds, which are mostly Chinook salmon areas. So they're a little bit different from other orcas, and that they're, they only eat salmon.
Speaker 3 00:16:07 Their feeding grounds and parts of their habitat have been disturbed by noise, by curious humans, pollution, and from boat traffic. And as we've learned more about these poor outcomes for the Southern residents, we've learned a great deal about how they live, how they communicate, how they reproduce, how they thrive. We've learned about their psychology and their sociality. The SROs live in pods. They have close family bonds. They have unique ways of interacting. They have personalities, knowingness and learning. This, the laws surrounding the southern residents have changed from the 1970s. So we've moved away from the practice of confining them and using them for entertainment. So our ideas have changed, and along with our ideas, so have the laws, right? So it's actually not permitted anymore to remove southern resident orcas from from their wild home. We've learned how confinement affects them, how they suffer, and also how their habitat suffers.
Speaker 3 00:17:11 As a result. From this knowledge, we can infer that the orcas wanna live as orcas. We can infer that they would like to have their food sources protected and to be left undisturbed with the capacity to thrive in their family groups performing their role and function in the ecosystem. As we understand it, this represents a huge amount of progress, right? But at the same time, we've run up against barriers. The current system of law does not provide any way for any of this knowledge that we've learned to impact the governance of the Southern re uh, the Southern residents. They're governed by laws in which they have no role, no function, no value beyond money or voice. They have been reduced to property with no value other than monetary seen only in terms of their use for humans.
Speaker 3 00:18:08 S system law could provide a framework within which nature and the SROs might have a role. Now, this could take different forms, and, uh, one of the things we've been looking at is how can the current law be changed to incorporate non-human rights? It could, for example, involve something like a community round table or a guardian council, as they have in New Zealand. For the Wui River, there's a seat for the SROs. A lawyer or a guardian can represent their interests and their voice. It could also take the form of a legally protected zone. This would be a little bit different from a national park or a marine protected area, where it would be governed by indigenous guardians or trustees that would otherwise be tasked with ensuring that the needs and interests of the SROs are protected, where impacts on their wellbeing are closely tracked. Adjustments are made where their interests are threatened.
Speaker 3 00:19:14 Or it could even be in the form of a constitutional principle that specifically entrenches their rights into the existing constitutional provisions of Canada or the us. So a constitutional provision would mean that every law passed in the country would have to consider the non-human world. It would have to be consistent with the rights of the non-human world, its wellbeing and its rights in terms of enforcement. That would mean that, you know, all the way from thinking about how the law is formed to how it's operationalized, to how it's enforced at every level, we would take into account the rights of the southern resident orcas, or the rights of the Salish Sea as a whole. You know, it, this is being done. It's not pie in the sky, <laugh>, you know, it's being done in different parts of the world, and it's being adopted in different parts of the world. It's just that we are, our legal system right now doesn't cast the understanding of the non-human world in that way. It's not comfortable with it,
Speaker 2 00:20:20 But the system as it exists denotes nature, including the orcas as a form of property. I mean, who owns these orcas?
Speaker 3 00:20:29 Well, if, uh, if someone were to come along and say, I want an orca, I wanna just take an orca, you know, out of nature and buy and sell it. In fact, they could. So they're like, almost like, not that they're owned now, but they could be considered property. That's the only bucket that we have. That's kind of the only category that we have for thinking about their existence and their rights and their nature.
Speaker 2 00:21:00 I mean, what I meant was to say was, does the government of Canada or uh, own the pod? You know, because of it's within the territorial waters. I mean, I guess because it's also within the water around Washington.
Speaker 3 00:21:15 Mm. Yeah. Well, you have,
Speaker 2 00:21:18 Is is there any kind of, I mean, what is their stat legal status then? That's what I'm trying to get at.
Speaker 3 00:21:22 Well, that's the thing. I mean, they, they're, they're not under, um, the law of the sea as it exists right now. The conventional law of the sea ownership kind of only refers to about 200 nautical miles of coastline that you can prove that you can, you know, show, and you actually, countries actually own that in terms of their ability to withdraw natural resources and such. Now, the open oceans are a different matter. Um, they are highly governed, though they're not beyond property. Uh, parts of them can be broken down to be considered property. There's lots of different levels of governance of what happens on the open ocean. Everything from fisheries to pollution to plastics. And they all sort of might have their own agreement or their own sort of guidelines for what we should do on the open oceans. But for the most part, the way in which we think about it is still, in terms of property <laugh>, it's still kind of confined by that fundamental utilitarian anthropocentric framework.
Speaker 2 00:22:28 I mean, if we think about Phish, right? It's basically a law of capture. If you have the capacity right to to, to phish and to catch phish, then you own them. That goes back to John Locke. But in the case of orcas, uh, whose, whose utility, I suppose as a whale, you know, whale products, except for a few countries that's no longer germane. So I mean, in a way, are they their own subjects at this point? I'm, I'm, I'm getting into the weeds here. Um, yeah,
Speaker 3 00:23:00 We're
Speaker 2 00:23:01 <laugh> <laugh>, and maybe, maybe we shouldn't, we should get out of the weeds. <laugh>, um, earth science right, is an in integral is integral to earth systems law. Yeah. And I mean, I think of earth science in the, again, in the systems perspective. So how does earth science inform E S L
Speaker 3 00:23:21 Very closely? I believe, I think earth system law takes a lot of its cue from ecosystem science. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the ecosystem of the planet has properties like those of a complex adaptive system. It has, it's more than the, some of its parts. It has, uh, emergent properties that come from the interrelationships between the different aspects. And so the law, I think, also has these properties. Ecosystem science says that we live on a planet which things in which systems have non-linear impacts. In other words, things can happen quickly, they can happen in reverse, they can happen it, it's unpredictable. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's also adaptable. And therefore, you know, we, and we're part of it, right? Like human systems and ecological systems interact earth science. For me, I would think of it as the cumulation of all the human learning that we have about the planet.
Speaker 3 00:24:24 You know, the fact that it is systemic, that we use these various forms of data to interpret the patterns that we see, and that we then take that knowledge and test it and see where it tapes us. We follow that information. Those are the principles that are at the root of modern science. But they're also, I think, at the root of indigenous and traditional and local forms of knowledge, which also is accumulation of learning. And through experience and through observation, all of the, all of which are systematic, right? So we're not just talking about random facts, we're talking about a system of knowledge accumulation itself. And so the argument is that earth system law is also a system that we can learn through political systems, social systems, economic systems, and through scientific discovery and awareness and learning about our relationship with the natural world.
Speaker 2 00:25:25 Well, let me, let me be a little bit provocative here. <laugh>. Uh, so, you know, we're, he, we hear a lot often about, about the sort of the physical limits of the Earth's ecosystem in terms of various kinds of human caused impacts, right? Pollution, uh, climate obviously, and scientists who are interested in this kind of stuff, say, we must stop. Right? We have to stop doing this. Is is that then the basis for a, a law, I mean, for a formulation of a law, the, the, uh, un law of, of about the, uh, atmosphere is supposedly based on science, and it's based however, on what humans can tolerate and effects, impacts on humans. Yes. Although there's, you know, a lot of, a lot of acknowledgement about the role of nature and ecology and ecosystems in that, but that's not quite the same as as saying we have to stop this to protect ethically the earth system.
Speaker 3 00:26:29 I think I, I think I see where you're going. Um, I'm
Speaker 2 00:26:32 Not sure I do, go ahead,
Speaker 3 00:26:33 <laugh>. I, I think there's another way of thinking about a system of governance, and that is actually just the plain wording of the term governor. Like if you think of it, a governor on an engine, what does a governor on an engine do? It's, it controls the speed, it controls the gear ratios, it, it controls the force that can be used to move the machine in one way or another. It's, it is a break, but it's not just a break. It also sets the limits, which in which, within which things can and should happen. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, now, all law does that, I mean, in fact, if we often, we sometimes talk about, well, if there's no law against something, it's not illegal, which means there's no limit on it, <laugh>. And that's, there's a certain truth to that, right? The philosophy of law says you can't prosecute someone for a crime that doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 00:27:28 Hmm. So there's no law against something. So the, the assumption is that everything is permissible except for a law. Now, it can get a little bit philosophical here, but I think it's more regulate, it's more about regulation and permissiveness and prohibitive prohibition in a sense. So law is about prohibition. It's about setting down or the order of the society that we live in, but it's also about permissiveness. So what kinds of things are permitted in the pursuit of a certain value? I've, I've argued and, and wrote most recently in a paper that I just wrote, which is that the law is overly permissive with respect to property. It doesn't define, it doesn't define enough what people can do with property. It favors individual property, right? It favors private property. It's very permissive. It doesn't comment, right? So when the law doesn't comment on something, the assumption is what's permitted.
Speaker 3 00:28:30 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and here we are. We've had <laugh> the hottest July, the hottest week ever, the hottest day ever. You know, it, this is showing that there are boundaries to what we do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and that there may be <laugh> there. Maybe the planet is trying to tell us that we are exceeding these boundaries and we're exceeding these limits. Um, there is a project, as you probably know, called the, uh, planetary Boundaries Project, which sets down exactly what these are, right? When it comes to biodiversity, when it comes to, uh, the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, the use of natural resources, there really is only one planet. We sort of knew the limits were there, but they haven't been well-defined. And the, the purpose of the law has not been well-defined. Law is not just about, let's stop doing this. It's also about the reasons why we do things the way we do them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what's the purpose of why we do them? And part of thinking in terms of earth system law is to say, let's put that purpose at the core of our thinking about law, right? Let's think in terms of different values mm-hmm. <affirmative> and different purposes. What are we going to permit rather than just leaving That as an open question,
Speaker 2 00:29:55 You're listening to sustainability. Now. I'm Ronnie Lipchitz, your host. My guest today is Professor Rosalind Warner, uh, who works on earth systems governance and kinship metaphors in earth systems law. And we were just talking about, you know, what is the law for, and how should it regulate, I suppose, and govern how we behave? You've been working on this idea of the kinship metaphor at earth system law. And so I'm wondering why a metaphor? Second of all, why kinship?
Speaker 3 00:30:25 When I started thinking about it, I started to see metaphors everywhere I look, metaphors are the way, in not only the way in which we make sense of the world, it's the stories that we tell about the world and what our role is, what our rights are, what our responsibilities are, what our roles are, are defined by metaphors. So it's how, not only how we communicate, but also how we think. And it shapes how we act. It shapes our behavior. So if our, if our metaphor for the natural world is property, which sets down what the rights and rules and responsibilities are vis-a-vis property, then we are more likely to act in one way, vis-a-vis the natural world than we are to act in another way. And so I started to think about how metaphors work, and I started to look at what the metaphors are that governed a law.
Speaker 3 00:31:20 Right now. Property is a big one, but we also have other things like the idea of personhood. Um, it's actually a very specific legal concept, and it's actually, but it's also a highly complex legal concept. And it just means to, that you have standing, you have recognition, the court will hear your voice. And, um, so metaphors can shape how we act. They can shape how we think, but they can also shape who gets to sit at the table. And for me, ultimately, it comes down to the question of value, and specifically working away from anthropocentric values towards ecocentric or, uh, intrinsic value of humans, of, of sort of the non-human world, right? So it's, it's about recognize how do we recognize the value of the non-human world in the law, and what's the best way to do that? Well, the, the law is changed by the way we think.
Speaker 3 00:32:22 And metaphors govern the way we think about law. They're very fundamental to how we interact with the rest of the world. So for me, it's really about recognizing that intrinsic value and kinship comes into it for a few reasons. One of the reasons is that kinship is very prevalent. I suppose it's possible that an anthropologist could find a community that doesn't have some concept of kinship, but I think it would be extremely rare. Uh, for the most part, we know what we mean by kinship. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But for me, the power of kinship comes in when we start to compare it to other kinds of relationships. So how is a kin relationship different from one with a client or with a guest, or with a host, or with a patient, or with a citizen? All of these things are bundles of values and norms. Citizens have rights and responsibilities.
Speaker 3 00:33:21 Guests have rights and responsibilities. Kin has rights and responsibilities. We have rights to, as kin, we have responsibilities as kin. So I asked myself, what is it that kin have in common? What makes kinship relationships different from other kinds of relationships? A few things stand out. One is a common origin. So a story of where we came from and where we are going. The we being the members of the moral community. That's formed by the kinship relationship. So we ex extend that identity into the past. We all come from a common origin, and we all share a common faith. And so there's this shared sense of roles and rights and obligations that we have. I also would argue that a kinship relationship is non-instrumental. If you buy and sell each other, then your relationship is no longer one of kinship. It's something else. We call it slavery or property relationship.
Speaker 3 00:34:23 So a kinship relationship. It doesn't mean that ev in every case, fa people don't sell family members. I realized this happens. It's more about what are the values and norms that we agree on as being bundled together with this kinship relationship. And societies can differ about what those are. In fact, the fact that we argue so much <laugh> about the nature of kinship as a relationship just demonstrates how important it is and how vital it's, and for the most part though, what I ar what argue is that it's an argument about the roles and the rules around it, not the value of kinship as a relationship itself. That is still going to be there. It's still gonna be the container into which we put these different roles and relationships. That's the reason why we fight over it. And so kinship also defines limits, like who's part of the moral community and who's not.
Speaker 3 00:35:25 And this is where we can see the negative side of kinship is that we've defined others outside of the group as not part of our moral community. And then it does make it easier to commit violence. So when you're committing violence against others, you dehumanize them, but you also reject 'em as members of the moral community. And it makes it easier to commit violence. I do think it actually is harder to justify violence within a kinship relationship. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but it's harder to justify. So the trick is to extend the boundaries, so to include those others, those outsiders in the boundaries of the moral community, and then start to talk about how our rights and relationships and responsibilities are different as a result of that inclusion.
Speaker 2 00:36:22 So, so the move here would be to extend the kinship metaphor to the earth as a whole, rather than just seeing it as pieces of property. How would, how would you do this? Yeah. Is it, is it necessary then, just to speak metaphorically, a lot about kinship as a kind of the guiding structure for these relationships? Uh, you know, again, it gets down to the question of, you know, which comes first, the action or the law.
Speaker 3 00:36:48 Yeah. But,
Speaker 2 00:36:49 But what are your, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 00:36:52 Well, in the western world, and, and you know, I guess it could be argued in other parts of the world as well. We don't necessarily shy away from discussions about what humanity is, what nature is. I think, uh, was a one-off that I read that said, nature is probably the most contested, most misunderstood concept in the world, right? It's because nature is what is not human <laugh>, right? It's, it's like out there, it's separate, different from us. We're at least in western thinking, um, you know, just to look at some way, the way that some of the metaphors that we've used to understand nature, uh, machine, a clock, a garden, a wilderness, um, even a system is a metaphor. And so, despite everything, despite all of the barriers and the difficulties of thinking in terms of universal concepts and principles, we don't stop. We just don't stop.
Speaker 3 00:37:50 And so I think those are gonna be there no matter what. Like, we are always going to be searching for ways to understand what humans are and what are we in relationship with others and the planet. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I think it's a more of a process, you know, rather than a final, a final, uh, destination. I know there are lots of great people in the earth system governance project who are thinking about this and who are trying to think what does planetary thinking really look like? And they're coming up with some fantastic ideas about how it's different from what we do now, but ultimately, it's, it's going to be a process of comparing and constantly, constantly comparing and looking at where we are now, where we might be, where we've been in the past, and how are these different things going to come together if they do come together.
Speaker 3 00:38:45 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's a meaning making process. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's really about making that meaning. And, um, I, I don't think it's, I think it's just going to be something emergent, right? To use the terminology of systems thinking. It comes through the process of debating it. It's not something that's predetermined. I know, having said that, are we not planetary? I mean, take taken from a certain perspective. How can we avoid the knowledge? How can we ignore the knowledge that as far as we know, planet earth, this one place in the universe is the one place where this world exists, this particular world, we have nothing to compare it to. We have no compare. We have no comparison, <laugh>. So in a way, I don't know how that we, we can completely avoid thinking in that way. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, especially in the Anthropocene.
Speaker 2 00:39:38 You're listening to sustainability now. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschitz. My guest today is Professor Lyd Warner, who does work on kinship metaphors in inter and earth systems, law and earth's governance. Uh, we've just been talking about kinship as a metaphor for thinking about how the human world might build, I don't know, stronger connections to the natural world. You know, and I, I'm struck by one thing, um, and that is that the notion that orcas might be people too mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? And, and how does that then, right. How do humans build a, a productive relationship with pods of whales, for example? But I actually wanted to go in a different direction, and that has to do with, uh, indigenous nations incorporation of kinship relations into their worldviews and practices mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because I know that that's also an important element in how you're thinking about this. And maybe you can say something about that.
Speaker 3 00:40:34 So the idea that, first of all, thinking in terms of kinship is prevalent in a lot of different academic literature. It's actually very prevalent in the international relations literature. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we talk about the family of nations. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the fatherland, the motherland, the homeland. It's, it's a metaphor that really has a lot of power in international relations as well. It also is in the law, um, in different ways, and not just family, law, law, but thinking about all aspects of law. Now, the first thing that I would say is that I, I believe strongly that indigenous peoples, their worldviews, their cultures are theirs full stop. Right. It's not our job or our right to define those. Right. They, they are just like, we wouldn't want somebody else to define as a white settler. I'm speaking on unseeded first Nations land. I wouldn't like it if someone tried to define who I am.
Speaker 3 00:41:34 <laugh>, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so I'm absolutely, they're theirs. Full stop. I always think in terms of a conversation, what does the conversation look like? And we, we approach that with humility, I think, and with respect. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and with a, a keen awareness of the history and the positionality that has shaped that relationship. The, the ways in which indigenous people have had their activity circumscribed, the kinds of language that they have, have had to address their grievances. They're required in many ways to speak the language of territorial sovereignty, to speak the language of the state, and to speak the language of, of ownership of land and property. Although they, they might see things differently, right? <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I think what I can take, what what we could perhaps, uh, do is look at how are we coming to the conversation, um, how can earth system law take us some way towards that humility and respect, and to find a better way for the relationships to work towards better wellbeing and planetary health, uh, for ever for, for, for the whole community on the planet.
Speaker 3 00:42:48 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think more and more what we're seeing is that, let's face it, the current laws really are not living up to the purpose. They're not living up to the promise. Even laws that are theirs that supposedly protect the environment are just not working. <laugh>, I don't know how you can take any other lesson away from this. So that means not taking a metaphor for human nature relations based on kinship, not taking it, but revisiting it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right. Re-exploring it in a new context. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the context of where we are today, in the context of where the law is, where civilizations are, where we are in terms of our knowledge, where we are in terms of our learning, and to take the history seriously, but to recognize that we are not prisoners of our history either, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. We can, we can find a way that is different.
Speaker 3 00:43:54 We can live differently. We can think differently. We don't have to be constrained by every single decision that's been made in the past. That's the challenge. And it's really tough, frankly, because the thinking that got us here has been very successful for a minority of people. And those people are powerful, and it has been quite functional in many ways. So it's a question of saying, we need to look at, we need to be reflexive about our thinking and realizing that what is it that we are doing that is actually undermining the goals that we have if we are a planet of relatives, if we are all relations on this planet, if we are all kin on this planet, we need to work out a way of living together in the interests of everyone. And of course, because we are part of it, our interests are a part of the mix as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2 00:44:55 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Well, we're about out of time, and so is there anything else you'd like to, to mention?
Speaker 3 00:45:01 I would really appreciate, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to speak with you today. Um, but I would really, uh, like to invite your listeners to visit the website of the organization, legal Rights for the Salish Sea, to support their work they're doing. They have a GoFundMe campaign right now to create an Orca defense documentary film. And this would be a great example of how we can work towards thinking differently about our place in the world, and at least in this one instance, recognizing that the southern resident orcas, along with all of the other living beings in the planet, do have rights and do have interests, and do have their own sense of value.
Speaker 2 00:45:44 Okay. Well, Rosalind Warner, thank you for being my guest on sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:45:49 Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 00:45:52 If you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at ks qd.org/sustainability now, as well as Spotify, Google Podcasts and Pockets among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening, and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make K S U D or Community Radio Station and keep it going. And so, until next, every other Sunday, sustainability. Now
Speaker 1 00:46:23 Good planets hard find out tempera zones of tropic climbs, not through current and thriving seas, wind blowing, some breathing trees, and strong zone sunshine. Good.
