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The respected journal Science has just come out in favor of "Nature Rights", which in the briefest definition, favors granting parts of the environment the same sorts of rights as actual persons. In fact, recently the City of Toledo, Ohio created a "Bill of Rights" for Lake Erie, which says among other things:

Lake Erie, and the Lake Erie watershed, possess the right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve. The Lake Erie Ecosystem shall include all natural water features, communities of organisms, soil as well as terrestrial and aquatic sub ecosystems that are part of Lake Erie and its watershed.

https://lakeerieaction.wixsite.com/safewatertoledo/lake-erie-bill-of-rights

https://spectator.org/major-science-journal-embraces-nature-rights-movement/

Most people will have a knee-jerk reaction to this idea, one way or another. However, this topic deserves some deep thought before one replies. I would suggest to you that Great Evil could be wrought this way, as it was when corporations were granted rights as people.

The issue goes back in the legal community at least to this seminal work from 1972, "Should Trees Have Standing"

https://iseethics.files.wordpress.com/2 ... anding.pdf

And it is pretty clear that the Great Evil has been with us for quite some time now.

KaiserJeep wrote:....the City of Toledo, Ohio created a "Bill of Rights" for Lake Erie, which says among other things:

Lake Erie, and the Lake Erie watershed, possess the right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve. The Lake Erie Ecosystem shall include all natural water features, communities of organisms, soil as well as terrestrial and aquatic sub ecosystems that are part of Lake Erie and its watershed.

https://lakeerieaction.wixsite.com/safewatertoledo/lake-erie-bill-of-rights

Like so many things that liberals and leftists do, this sounds nice in theory but in reality accomplishes nothing and may accidentally make things worse.

Before the clean water act was enacted Lake Erie was one of the most polluted lakes on earth. Its better now, but still is quite polluted and subject to algal blooms.

voluntary-efforts-arent-enough-stop-lake-erie-pollution-

Giving Lake Erie "personhood" does nothing to reduce the pollution. All it does is divert attention from the governments around Lake Erie who should be taking action now to stop the pollution. Its in the spirit of Obama's Paris Accords, which diverted pressure on goverments to reduce CO2 emissions by endorsing a meaningless limit on global warming.

CO2 emissions have increased significantly since the Paris Accords, and I won't be surprised if pollution continues to flow into Lake Erie producing huge algal blooms even after Lake Erie was awarded "personhood."

Cheers!

Well corporations have been declared to have the rights of humans, so why not nature?

not a legal expert at all, but isn't the problem that 'nature' is not a substanative entity (ie doesn't really exist except as a concept) so you cant give it rights, you can only give rights to specific things.
Whether this will work is another issue, maybe it will allow people to sue on behalf of the entity so that would act as a deterrent

More Gaia worship nonsense that is the hallmark of the tree-hugging hippies.