720: Maya Van Rossum, part 2: You Don’t Have a Right to a Clean Environment. You Have to Work for It.
Do you think government should protect people’s life, liberty, and property? What if it turned out it didn’t, if it said other people could destroy your life, liberty, and property, and would help them do it?
That’s what pollution does. A lack of a clean environment means that someone polluted it and hurt you, your children, your loved ones. You don’t have a right to a clean environment if you are an American, or likely anyone. Instead, others have the right to destroy your life, liberty, and property.
Three states have amendments where you can sue for it, but it’s hard and the nation doesn’t overall.
What would you do if you lost your right to free speech? Would you not work like hell to restore it? Wouldn’t you recognize that others would figure out ways to profit from limiting your speech, maybe charging you for it, as a bottled water company would charge your for water? You’d act fast to prevent them from eroding your lost rights more and holding them from you.
Maya is doing that work for your potential right to a clean environment. We start with this perspective, then consider how serious it is, what you can do about it, and how important it is.
In short, you would much prefer life with the right to a clean environment at the constitutional level, as much as you want all the rights in the Bill of Rights.