Environmental rights

I am an optimist, but in writing a blog about the environment I found myself dubious about the value of small progressive steps. I just don't see buying a Prius or hydrogen fuels happening in time. So I've written about what I see as the obstacles instead. We need to look at environmental rights as fundamental human rights, but won't. Here you go.....

This blog is influenced by The Rambler, by Samuel Johnson. I suggest that environmental rights are human rights, and like all human rights, they should be enforceable in the courts of all countries. It may be, however,that although an International Convention on Human Rights is capable of broadly protecting our environment, it may pass without notice, huddled in a variety of things, and thrown into the general miscellany of life. Even though our natural environment is comprised of individual parts comprising a whole, our environmental community does not operate that way. Admittedly, the hardest work is done by the valiant efforts of those who struggle to protect every forest, river, and species. I have done this by arguing many lawsuits in state and federal courts. But the law which is the will of the people and the guardian of the environment is inadequate to the task.

The answer is not in breaking law, it is in making more of it. Please join this effort by going to our website to create an International Convention on Human Rights at the UC Berkeley Law School: www.humanrights.berkeley.edu. This document in creation includes a legal right to a clean and healthy environment with protection for species in all countries.