We, the people of the United States of America, have long suffered the expense, damage and physical harm from activities detrimental to our common environment and life itself. Our country and people have now been pushed to a precipice of profound historical import that will determine the future growth and development of all humankind. The continued indifference to the people’s full interest with regard to the environment upon which all lives depend is politically unacceptable and biologically untenable as a nation and a world.
The government of the United States was founded upon the principle that all humanity has inherent rights as living and equal beings. We, the undersigned, assert that our inborn rights extend to the commonly shared environment upon which all life draws sustenance for survival and health. Moreover, we declare the natural resources of our country to be the province of the people.
Our age has witnessed and tolerated an assault on nature to the extent that the lives, property and health of the people are imperiled.
We therefore demand in the name of the people and generations of Americans to come the following inalienable rights be acknowledged and enforced:
The Right to Clean Air
The unaffected state of the world’s atmosphere enabled all life on the planet to arise and flourish. The prerequisite dependence of all land-based life upon clean air for sustenance makes an atmosphere free of corruption an absolute right of survival and healthy development.
Numerous chemicals, radioactive isotopes, carbon, heavy metals, and other non-natural elements have been introduced into our common environment, which has caused lung disease, poisoned our food supply, affected the planet’s climate and upset the delicate balance of numerous natural systems. We hold that the continued violation of this resource is an infringement upon the rights the people of the United States and all other life forms.
The Right to Clean Water
Water is the primary requirement for life to exist anywhere in our world and universe. Water’s unique and well-documented capacity to birth life of infinite form and variety makes it a miraculous and indispensable asset of our planet. Since the dawn of time, the quality of water has always been life-giving when left to its essential state of existence. Furthermore, humankind must have sufficient supply of potable water as a requirement for continued existence, which therefore makes clean water a natural right of all citizens and life forms.
The planet’s water systems have had aberrant elements introduced to them, and the life forms within the water have been killed and mutated. Human beings who ingest either the corrupted water or food from those systems are likewise susceptible to painful and debilitating health problems, genetic mutation or death. Therefore those who alter the balanced and unspoiled state of water, or who directly and artificially reduce or diminish natural clean water levels to the point of doing harm in a country, county or province, trod on the rights of all who depend upon the water.
The Right to Healthy Food
Humankind has cultivated crops, fished the seas and raised livestock for at least 10,000 years to acquire the necessary nutrients to sustain life and to properly develop the internal bodily systems required for a life free of disease and pain. The human body must ingest organic material for its energy and nutritional value. Since all life forms depend upon the environment for their growth, any pollution of the biosystem must and does get deposited within the human being. Humanity is intrinsically deserving of food that has full value and is free of contamination.
Pesticides, growth hormones, water pollution, air contaminants and artificial genetic modifications have been introduced into the food supply without a full understanding of the effect on the living. At the very least, the nutritional value of modified foods is reduced, and in many cases the corruption may cause illness or death. The extent of tampering with natural systems extends from the unintended consequence of burning coal that deposits mercury and arsenic in fish to the deliberate genetic mutation of crops. The former makes large fish such as tuna unsafe to eat more than twice a week and the latter may severely lower the nutrients in food even as it increases the volume of supply.
Any method of tampering with the food supply that causes harm or death, either directly or indirectly, is a violation of the right to healthy food. Read more …
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