Issue 104: Environmental Crimes

The long arm of the law has about as much reach as a penguin when it comes to environmental protection. And while crime-fighting penguins are undoubtedly a cute idea, the general lack of strong regulations and enforcement mechanisms is a major reason why we’re in this climate mess in the first place. Rules must be established to limit abuse of shared resources in a closed system. But defining what constitutes a single environmental crime is hard. Enforcing it is even harder. Scaling that to a global level may feel impossible, but it’s absolutely necessary. Of course, an action has to break a defined law to classify as a crime. And what is labeled as a crime in one country may just be considered the cost of business in another. Which is why we’re not going to tango with international law here — that dance has too many steps for a newsletter anyway. Instead, we’re more concerned with limiting anthropogenic pollution in order to protect the world’s life support systems. The problem is that it’s not easy for governments, organizations, and agencies to uphold the laws currently in place. Environmental crimes are all too easily dumped somewhere else or swept under the rug. <a href="https://medium.com/@planetsnapshots/issue-104-environmental-crimes-8776d71bab33">Read More</a>