A Movement Through Linkage and Connection
By Kirk Boyd
A core part of the work done by Legal Pact for the Future is connection. Through linkage on our website we seek to connect people, NGOs/nonprofits, businesses and governments who support enforceable environmental and human rights through the rule of law.
In effect, we facilitate humanity reaching an agreement to live together built upon an international judicial architecture that makes environmental and human rights enforceable in the courts of all countries.
The first step to connect is a simple one - it takes about 30 seconds to become a link on the website. Still, this 30 seconds is one of the most powerful things that any person, NGO, business or government can do. There are some things, like the renewal of humanity's social contract, that can only be accomplished through an international social movement.
True social movements are not the result of some epiphany by a person or organization that suddenly "changes the world." Rather, when change is afoot, the key is to provide something into which that change can flow.
This is the case now with literally billions of people and millions of organizations, nonprofit and for-profit, wanting to have enforceable environmental rights so that we do not destroy our planet's biosphere and further advance the mass extinction of species on Earth, and enforceable human rights so that authoritarians do not dictate our lives, precluding us from saying what we think, controlling who we can vote for to represent us, and making us fund and fight wars.
The path is clear: linkage brings connection that bands us together with rights we share and enforce through the rule of law. The hard question is will you, the reader of this blog, take the 30 seconds to link and connect with others?
Albert Einstein was brilliant in several spheres. With respect to humanity solving it's problems here on Earth, he said: "The problems of the world do not exist because of the evil people, but because of the good people who do nothing about them." Failing to link, to connect, is doing nothing. Do not be one of the people he is talking about - take 30 seconds to link with others and exercise your power, the power you share in equal amount with every other human.
You may wonder what good will it do? I'm only one person, NGO, business, or government. The good it will do is leadership. Showing that you have the strength to not just stand by while environmental ruin and war proliferate.
Leadership is needed across the board: people of all backgrounds and professions; NGOs and nonprofits of all kinds, including philanthropies, that become green links because they see that environmental and human rights are inextricably intertwined; businesses who become blue links because they believe that enforceable rights and the rule of law benefit their business; and governments that support fundamental principles that apply across all countries.
This is the first of five blogs that will discuss why each of the four figures in the Legal Pact logo should link. As a starting point, each of the four, and each of the links within them, all bring the same degree of power to the table. The common person and influencers each bring equal power with their linkage, and both are needed. The same is true for the person, NGO or business who contributes $10 or a million, their act of linking is as important as their funding, or the amount of that funding. Taking a stand is the most important act before we take a step together.
There comes a time to act, even in 30 seconds, or a least ask yourself genuinely why you won't (and feel free to share your thoughts with us about it).
Inaction, or even incrementalism without a larger international movement bringing the incremental steps to focus together, has ramifications, as can be seen through the loss of glaciers and a host of calamities already occurring due to the climate crisis: the recent death by fire of over 500,000,000 creatures in the Australian wildfires being one example.
The movie ISS - International Space Station - shows a poignant image of this moment. I comment on the image, not the message of the movie. From the cupola, the viewing area of the space station with windows, the astronauts look down at Earth to see the flashes as nuclear war ensues below. This is a genuine possibility given the new nuclear arms race, including space, currently underway.
If I viewed this from above, or just from the window of my home as my children were incinerated, I wouldn’t feal anger to the evil people who brought this about, they will always be there, but dissapointment that the good people couldn’t muster up the strength to provide a small amount of time and funding to build a movement to prevent it.
Only a strong international movement can put humanity on a better path. We hope you will take 30 seconds to link/connect, and help us facilitate building this movement.
