Ian James’ September 19, 2024 Los Angeles Times article “‘It’s really sad’: River dries up abruptly in Bakersfield, leaving thousands of dead fish” noted Kern River was diverted for crops and storage by the City of Bakersfield, California resulting in “more than 3,000 dead fish.” James added, “California wildlife officials are now investigating whether the drying of the river constitutes a violation of state law.”
Contrast this with “CHAPTER SEVEN, Rights of Nature” in Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution. According to Inside Climate News writer Katie Surma’s February 21, 2022 article “Can Rights of Nature Laws Make a Difference? In Ecuador, They Already Are,” “The most important of the decisions came in the Los Cedros case, where the court blocked a mining project in a protected forest, finding that it violated the rights of nature.”
Specifically, Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution “CHAPTER SEVEN, Rights of Nature” text translated into English by Georgetown University’s Political Database of the Americas (PDBA) notes:
Article 71. Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.
All persons, communities, peoples and nations can call upon public authorities to enforce the rights of nature. To enforce and interpret these rights, the principles set forth in the Constitution shall be observed, as appropriate.
The State shall give incentives to natural persons and legal entities and to communities to protect nature and to promote respect for all the elements comprising an ecosystem.
Article 72. Nature has the right to be restored. This restoration shall be apart from the obligation of the State and natural persons or legal entities to compensate individuals and communities that depend on affected natural systems.
In those cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including those caused by the exploitation of nonrenewable natural resources, the State shall establish the most effective mechanisms to achieve the restoration and shall adopt adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate harmful environmental consequences.
Article 73. The State shall apply preventive and restrictive measures on activities that might lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of ecosystems and the permanent alteration of natural cycles.
The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that might definitively alter the nation’s genetic assets is forbidden.
Article 74. Persons, communities, peoples, and nations shall have the right to benefit from the environment and the natural wealth enabling them to enjoy the good way of living.
Environmental services shall not be subject to appropriation; their production, delivery, use and development shall be regulated by the State.
The above fits Cherokee Elder Stan Rushworth’s point about “rights vs obligations” included in my November 4, 2021 post “Reframe, Redefine.”
My favorite recent climate items are Nate Hagens’ September 19, 2024-published YouTube “Rapid-Fire Answers to the Biggest Climate Questions with Stefan Rahmstorf | TGS 141”; Stanford University’s September 9th, 2024 Stanford Report “Methane emissions are rising faster than ever” noting “Atmospheric concentrations of methane are now more than 2.6 times higher than in pre-industrial times – the highest they’ve been in at least 800,000 years” and “The trend ‘cannot continue if we are to maintain a habitable climate,’ the researchers write in a Sept. 10 perspective article in Environmental Research Letters published alongside data in Earth System Science Data.”; and Christopher Flavelle and David Gelles’ September 13, 2024 New York Times article “U.K. to Fund ‘Small-Scale’ Outdoor Geoengineering Tests.” Readers of this blog may recall my September 11, 2019 post “A Sept. 7, 2019, CNBC video notes ‘This Bill Gates-funded chemical cloud could help stop global warming’ [with ‘significant risks and uncertainties’]” with over 800 views as of today.
I also enjoyed Tim Fox’s essay “The Last Anthropangaeans” that originally appeared in Dark Mountain: Issue 25 (Spring 2024) and was republished by them online July 10, 2024. My favorite parts were, “I’m a child of the totally assimilated, of those who survived in body by joining the wave, becoming a part of the sweep, and forgetting who they were before, then passing the amnesia on and on, right down to the present.” and “Landcestry is about recognising how, despite millennia of increasingly rapid, profound, and in many cases irreversible socio-ecological degradation, fragmentation and displacement, there is a deeper continuity, even now, twining us all together. By drawing inspiration from this continuity, we stand a far better chance of finding ecologically sound and spiritually inclusive landscape relationships and practices appropriate to the places where we are in the present moment than we do if we continue to root our identities in bloodlines, traditions, and memories from far off elsewheres and long ago elsewhens.” and “Just in time for Anthropangaea’s break-up. And the explosion of life poised to follow.”
Tim Fox had a guest post “Openings” on this blog Aug 12, 2024.
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