New Jersey is just one of the 48 U.S. states that fails to recognize and protect the right to clean water, clean air and the healthy environments necessary to support healthy lives and economies. New Jersey, along with New York, is also poised to become the next state to recognize and protect this right. On
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We Need to Recognize Environmental Rights as Inalienable Human Rights In Our Constitutions United Nations officials visiting communities in California and Alabama have been shocked by the level of environmental degradation and poverty they have witnessed. As one investigator recounted: “raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits.”
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Forty-seven years ago, on April 22, 1970, communities around the nation marched to defend the earth. They brought banners, signs, chants, and a realization that environmental degradation damages every aspect of our lives and our communities. When we pollute the water, the air, and the land, people suffer – our health is impacted, recreational opportunities
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The New York Times’ seemingly objective and forthright piece titled “Climate Change is Complex. We’ve Got Answers to Your Questions” is instantly undermined by its assertion that fracked gas from shale, including for use at power plants, is part of the solution rather than a devastating and growing part of the climate change problem. Among
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The NY Times article, Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots, exposes the efforts by Donald Trump’s EPA to undermine critical protections for communities from dangerous toxins like PFOA, TCE and the pesticide chlorpyrifos. As long as the EPA can make a defensible claim that it is acting
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In the NY times article “Corporations Have Rights. Why Shouldn’t Rivers?” we learn about a recently filed lawsuit in which a judge is being asked to recognize the Colorado River as a person. This lawsuit is testing an important legal theory — giving rights to nature — similar to Ecuador’s model. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to
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Department of Defense Photo found at: https://www.defense.gov/Photos/Essay-View/CollectionId/17251/ I am struck by the two different ways we, as a nation, are talking about two vitally important and fundamental issues — freedom of the press and access to clean water. Just the other day, President Trump tweeted: Appropriately, there is now a robust conversation about the fact that the President
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A study published online October 25, 2017, provides a detailed and scary new analysis of the devastating impacts pollution emanating from unconventional oil and gas development, including fracking for gas from shale, is having on the health and development of our nation’s children. This research also makes an even stronger case for why we
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New Mexico’s rivers are most threatened waterways in US, report finds
www.theguardian.com
Supreme court ruling left more than 90% of state’s surface waters with no pollution protections, since they don’t run continuously
