This letter to the editor by Sol Solomon appeared in the Concord Monitor on September 5th, 2019.
The natural world is under siege. Rather than heed the dire warning signs staring them in the face, those who ravage the Earth’s resources are stepping up their efforts. They are in a frenzy to wrest every drop of oil and gas from the ground, to remove every tree, to destroy every species standing in their way.
The burning of the Amazon rainforest is a global catastrophe, made worse because it’s being done to graze cattle, a major cause of global warming. Icebergs melting in the Arctic are spawning a mad race to claim rich oil, gas and mineral resources accessible for the first time.
How do we put a stop to this insanity? Who speaks for nature? Does the natural world have rights? Who do natural resources belong to?
In a sane world, the Earth’s natural resources would be the birthright all humans inherit. With this comes a responsibility to maintain those resources for future generations. Indigenous people for millennia have understood this. Our Native American ancestors enjoyed a veritable Garden of Eden before our Caucasian ancestors trampled over it.
Fortunately, there’s a growing movement to protect the environment through legal action. If corporations can be considered to be people, as the Supreme Court declared in the Citizens United case, so can a lake, a river, a mountain, or a forest have its own rights. There is a certain blissful irony that the same law allowing unlimited funding of elections by corporations can work against them when they attempt to compromise the environment.
(To read the rest of this article at its original source please click HERE.)