One thing all previous movements all have in common is their centered on human rights. The battles for these rights are far from over, even in our own country, which was founded on a concept of human rights for "all". But the fight for environmental rights may eclipse all others if it is left undone. For without drinkable water, breathable air, food (soil), or a livable climate, these other rights seem less essential.
Of course they (human rights and environmental rights) are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many human rights issues hold environmental justice (equality) at the core. The fight for food sovereignty is an environmental issue, the fight for indigenous rights would not be achieved without the right to live with the land they were ejected from.
So back the the Declaration of Independence. What can this document teach use the fight for the environment? A lot, I think.
For those who are not familiar with this document, the writing of Thomas Jefferson, or the man, himself, please read up, ask someone, google and glean. His influence on our society today and the movement of democracy world wide is undeniable. He was a man of paradox, no doubt, but he could write, which is the focus of this piece.
The following is an attempt (perhaps weak, somewhat tongue-in-cheek) to resurrect Thomas Jefferson, through his words and ask: What Would Thomas Do? Knowing what he did with his life, what he wrote about, what he loved, I have no doubt he would be a tireless advocate for the environment.
Please comment, revise, heckle, etc:
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to end the practices of extracting wealth from Earth and its inhabitants for personal gain and to engage in cooperative existence with the elements we depend upon. It is the inherent need to which the Laws of Nature entitle them, a decent respect for life on Earth requires that should seek to insure its continued existence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all creatures are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Natural Elements on which they depend. That to secure these rights, Nature’s cycles of governance has allowed peaceful advancement and proliferation Earth’s beings. That whenever any form economy acts to deprive it’s members from the fundamental elements of peaceful endeavors, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute a new economy, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their continued existence.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Economies long established should not be changed for light and transient cases. Accordingly, all experience has shown, that humans are disposed to suffer and not right themselves by abolishing accustomed practices. But when it has become clear an approach has failed, thus increasing the pain of humankind it is their duty to throw off such constraints, and to provide new guards of their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of current peoples; and such it is now the necessity, which constrains them to alter their former System of Economy. The history of the present form of economic structure of nations is a long history of exploitation, devastation, and near annihilation of the surrounding natural elements from which wealth in invariably extracted, all having direct object the establishment of absolute tyranny over the fundamental natural elements on which all life is based. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:
It has destroyed the once seemingly endless wilderness of the “New World” in 400 years.
It has changed the atmosphere of the whole planet threatening all forms of life currently known.
It has degraded all aspects of terrestrial existence for all life forms through the release of chemical pollutants and contamination of water, air, soil and food.
It has refused to pass reformations to accommodate a population of humans rapidly expanding in numbers and needs.
It has avoided any consideration of the needs of future generations in meeting current desires.
It has resulted in countless atrocities of suffering, disease, famine, and conflict without enacting motions for major reorganization.
It has given rise to conditions of mental, physical, emotional and spiritual crises. And the production people devoid of understanding, dependent on chemical assistance, whose actions are dominated by enervated spiteful outbursts.
It has degraded our sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings rendering them agents of harm and conflict.
It has combined with others to subject us to a corporate jurisdiction foreign to our basic human rights, giving the Assent to their Acts of pretended Political Representation:
For quartering large areas of environmental sacrifice zones among us:
For protecting them, with disinformation purporting individual materials and boundless economic growth are the goal of the Inhabitants of these States:
For depriving them many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For abolishing the free System of the Legal Supremacy of populations over corporations.
For taking away our local farms, abolishing our most valuable local commodities and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Nourishment:
For suspending our jurisdiction over indigenous genetic information, and declaring for-profit corporations invested with power to overrule the rights of local populations in all cases whatsoever.
It has ravaged our oceans, forests, rivers, and deserts, northern and southern, in the shameless conquest personal gains.
Without direct and positive change our children will never realize the joy of earthly existence and we will never understand the potential of the human species.
It has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring the former inhabitants of our land, the native peoples, plants and animals, which has resulted in the undistinguished degradation of all ecosystems, habitats, and populations.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. An economy, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free land.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our corporate institutions. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their systems to extend an unrelenting domination over our environment. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our health and prosperity. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our continued fecundity and prosperity. They too have been deaf to the voice of nature and of astral consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our reformation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
