geocide

English

WOTD – 5 June 2016

Land in the Indragiri Hulu Regency, Riau, Indonesia, on which a peat forest used to stand. The forest was cleared to make way for an oil palm plantation.

Etymology

geo- +‎ -cide.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒiːəʊsaɪd/
Audio (AU) (file)
Hyphenation: ge‧o‧cide

Noun

geocide (uncountable)

The destruction of the earth, its ecosystems, or some part thereof, due to human activity.
Synonym: ecocide
- 1991, Thomas Berry; Thomas Clarke; Stephen Dunn and Anne Lonergan, editors, Befriending the Earth: A Theology of Reconciliation between Humans and the Earth, Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications, ISBN 978-0-89622-471-1; quoted in Cristina Vanin, “Attaining Harmony with the Earth”, in John C. Haughey, editor, In Search of the Whole: Twelve Essays on Faith and Academic Life, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-58901-781-8, page 184:
  [T]here is the inability of the Christian world to respond in any effective way to the destruction of the planet. […] There is this terrible lack of concern for biocide or geocide. We have no moral principles to deal with them. […] Somehow, when I was quite young, I saw the beginning of biocide and geocide.
- 1993 fall, Lynn Berat, “Defending the Right to a Healthy Environment: Toward a Crime of Geocide in International Law”, in Boston University International Law Journal‎, volume 11, Boston, Mass.: Boston University School of Law, ISSN 0737-8947, OCLC 60648444, page 343:
  [D]estruction of any species or the serious impairment of any part of the global environment should be seen as geocide, which deprives humans of their right to a healthy environment.
- 1997, Virginia Journal of International Law, volume 38, page 377:
  Two common terms used to characterize injuries to the environment include “geocide” and “ecocide,” terms particularly applicable to rain forest damage because it is irreparable.
- 2013, Alexandra R. Harrington, “The Crime of Aggression and Threats to the Future”, in Sébastien Jodoin and Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, editors, Sustainable Development, International Criminal Justice, and Treaty Implementation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 161–162:
  It has also been suggested that environmental crimes might include the proposed crime of ‘ecocide’ or ‘geocide’, with proponents of this view attempting to draw parallels between destructive acts towards the environment and those against the qualifying groups for genocide. […] [M]any who advocate for the creation of either ecocide or geocide principally argue that the best place to try such crimes is through an apparatus created in a separate and environment-oriented treaty.

Anagrams

egocide