The SNJ’s new columnist Karen Eberhardt-Shelton was born in California but grew up in England.

She now lives in Stroud and is currently working on an education project called Learn, Think, Act and is hoping to develop an eco-community land trust.

Her thought-provoking columns will focus on how we all have to take responsibility for our actions and for our planet.

Join the ‘law against ecocide’ campaign “THE most important thing to know is what you don’t know,” — Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce, a great book published in 1993 and still decidedly worth reading, had the wits to remind us of that.

In that vein, I strongly believe, and have no doubt countless others would agree, it’s important to know who Polly Higgins is and the issue she is profoundly focused on is not just important but essential.

A lawyer with a base in London and a new home near Stroud, she realised that “laws and governance to prevent the destruction of our planet” urgently need to be put in place.

There are laws against homicide and genocide.

Now we need to establish a primary focus on laws preventing ecocide.

Her book Eradicating Ecocide was published in 2010 and calls for “exposing corporate and political practices destroying the planet, and proposing laws needed to eradicate ecocide.”

What could be more important than that?

I read the book and it turned my life in a new direction.

Now, essentially, I want to stop fiddling with the dots and join her in applying myself however I can to the big picture.

It was hugely moving to attend the day-long event she organised at Lansdown Hall on September 6. The photograph, taken by James Beecher, shows some of those who attended.

At least 100 individuals participated, many from other parts of England. Modestly dressed, completely genuine, without notes or a microphone, Polly guided us along interconnecting paths from beginning to end.

She described it as a “day of action to mobilise both locally and globally to support a law against ecocide.”

She’s looking for action and urging everyone to find out for themselves how to use their skills, and participate in a movement that supports the most significant action of all. This is the big picture — doing everything we can to prevent crimes against the Earth.

She says: “It’s about changing the narrative of how we engage with life. Yes, it requires courage to stand up and speak out, to act as a bridge that enables important messages to enter the mainstream.

“But it’s definitely possible to move forward with what we can do.”

Great words, moving thoughts, inspiring ideas and plenty of questions.

We have a ‘duty of care,’ we need more legal tools to prevent damage and wrong-doing, and greater accountability.

It’s not ‘what’s in it for me,” so how can we take part collectively?

She reminds us that today the earth is mostly about property and ownership. Shareholders come first, investments are protected.

Underlying everything is the sad fact that, for the most part, we fail to understand the consequences of what we do. Our checks and balances are inadequate.

Business as usual is the main way forward.

But ‘creation’s law’ is the basic law of the entire universe. All beings have the ‘right to life.’ That means we need ‘inter-generational justice’ so that life to come will be spared the travesties of ecocide. Meaning and purpose have far greater value than commodities and products. Too many laws exist that simply ‘regulate the destruction of nature.’ Her soft advice as the day draws to a close: “Bend with the wind rather than be a dry stick that breaks. A law against ecocide sits at the heart of how we choose to govern our world, it is a global story in the making.”

Every individual has a responsibility to do their best to ensure that this story has a positive ending.