The Bill of Environmental Rights

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. 

The Right to Abundant Energy 

Energy is in abundant supply in the world and cosmos; indeed, Einstein’s work of more than 100 years ago proves energy is omnipresent.  These energy forms have existed since the origin of the universe, and have not negatively impacted the development of life or ecosystems.  

While our technology’s ability to capture, store and utilize the virtually unlimited energy spectrum is somewhat restricted, there are energy collection and utilization methods in existence entirely consistent with the health and well being of humanity.  Wind, solar, kinetic, hydrogen and water energy are just a few of the viable, promising technologies available right now.  The unmitigated production of energy at the expense of human welfare and the biosphere in the presence of workable, healthy alternatives is irresponsible and negligent.

We therefore demand that energy technologies compatible with human life be developed with all due haste and urgency.

The Right to a Balanced Biosphere

The world’s biosphere is a finely tuned system that has evolved during countless millennia to sustain all native life forms on the planet.  Balance is the natural state of the biosphere, and without interference from others, it is remarkably efficient and effective at providing the environs to sustain healthy life. 

Only in the past century of humanity’s history has the introduction of sufficient interference altered the inherent stability of our biosphere with potentially cataclysmic effects to the health and well being of all humankind.  The continued promotion and propagation of detrimental activities to interrupt the natural balance of the biosphere negates the rights of all who depend upon it. 

The Right to Health 

Human beings are naturally healthy in the overwhelming majority of cases when our systems are not subjected to contamination of the natural environment to which we have been genetically attuned during the course of at least 11 millennia. 

Approximately five generations of humanity have had their bodies and environment assaulted by contaminants ranging from chemicals to radioactive elements.  There is no viable natural protection from the effects of these pollutants, and the consequences have included diseases ranging from asthma to several varieties of cancer. 

We find there has been a negligent poisoning of humanity that cannot continue unabated.  All people have an inalienable right to their natural health without interference from outside influences.  Any activity that harms or negatively affects humankind’s natural state of health is an affront to humanity’s inherent rights, and any new technological advance must be longitudinally studied for the effects on the overall health of humankind prior to being approved for use.

The Right to Know

Organizations and individuals operating among the people routinely engage in activities harmful or potentially harmful to the health of those in the community without any disclosure of those activities.  In innumerable cases, these crimes were discovered only upon the manifestation of unusual rates of disease and illness among the surrounding population.  This situation is clearly unconscionable and must not continue. 

The people of every community have the right to be notified every five years about the possible health effects resulting from the creation, use or discharge of any materials within a five mile radius not commonly found in similar concentration levels among natural systems.

The Right to Review

Whenever a community discovers that an organization or individual is using, creating or discharging an unhealthy amount of unnatural elements within a five mile radius, that community has the right to review and vote on whether the activity will be allowed to continue.  Further, the community has the right to seek redress for the expense of detoxification and any harm done to the members of the community at the offender’s expense.  Community financial claims arising against an organization or individual take precedence over any other claim against assets in the event of bankruptcy or insolvency.

The Right to Refuse

Any organization or individual seeking to move into a community must first obtain the permission of the people by popular vote when that organization or individual uses, creates or discharges any material that may be harmful to the surrounding environment.  Failure to fully disclose potentially harmful activities or the impact of those activities will result in a full seizure of assets until the concerns of the community and the common environment are adequately addressed.

The Right to Redress

Whenever the commonly held environment has been harmed, or the health of the people has been adversely affected, the community’s grievances and damages are rightfully the first to be redressed to the exclusion of all others until compensation is made in full. 

We hereby assert our inalienable rights of environment in the name of humanity and all life forms that are dependent upon these foundational conditions for survival and health.  We reject the notion that these are options or luxuries to be dispensed at the pleasure and convenience of government or any other organizational entity.  The technology exists to properly protect the common biosphere, and we demand these innovations be developed at full capacity.  Further, we set these rights as the standard for the development and deployment of any and all technological activities present and future.