Green license

The following was originally contributed to the predecessor of this wiki by anonymous trolls in 2004, except for sections in italics.

Related pages are peace license and science license, and a more current related proposal is a human rights license. Since 2004 many eco-label standards have been promulgated to mark low ecological footprint, carbon-neutral, no old growth and other kinds of green labels. Licensing works only to those who satisfy such audit criteria has accordingly become very much easier and more likely.

A green license forbidding ecologically destructive use (including perhaps military and some police uses as per peace license) is a potential candidate for a future Creative Commons Public License. What follows is speculative content:

While it would seem difficult to enforce it may not be: there are many efforts out there trying to uncover unsustainable or outright anti-ecological activities all over the world and it would not be long before anyone making use of something would be discovered. A civil copyright suit would be perhaps a minor discouragement but it would help to document the facts and help organize boycott and other activities to stop the damage. In some cases the right of discovery under a copyright suit might exceed that under an environmental complaint and be of great use to filing future complaints.

A company that violates copyrights might also be easier to portray as uncaring or abusive of "the little guy" and this may achieve attention to its more important abuses. It would be just one arrow in a quiver but perhaps an increasingly important one. Remember, Al Capone was only ever convicted for income tax evasion!

Also, there are quite organized groups such as the Global Greens who represent the hundreds of Green Parties, and already extant efforts to apply the Creative Commons Public License regime such as the Green Party of Canada Living Platform Terms of Use. Accordingly it would probably be very easy to assemble the expertise to debate the way such a license could be defined and also enforced. If you satisfy such picky people with such legalistic minds as Green Parties, you can probably satisfy any less legally or politically involved environmental group...?