EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. #OvercomingOvershoot was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
Creating new laws and changing the ways of thinking to protect the natural world.
About #OvercomingOvershoot:
#OvercomingOvershoot takes a deep look at the myriad symptoms of ecological overshoot by way of thoughtful conversations with experts and visionaries exploring not only what’s going wrong but also what solution pathways are available to overcome overshoot. Moderated by eco-rockstar, Gary Wockner, this show will serve as an essential hub to connect people from around the world on this most pressing concern.
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EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. #OvercomingOvershoot was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
Creating new laws and changing the ways of thinking to protect the natural world.
About #OvercomingOvershoot:
#OvercomingOvershoot takes a deep look at the myriad symptoms of ecological overshoot by way of thoughtful conversations with experts and visionaries exploring not only what’s going wrong but also what solution pathways are available to overcome overshoot. Moderated by eco-rockstar, Gary Wockner, this show will serve as an essential hub to connect people from around the world on this most pressing concern.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Follow Us:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxmedia/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EarthXMedia/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthxmedia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthXMedia
How to watch:
United States:
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- DIRECTV (267)
- Philo
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#EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #EcoFriendly #Conservation #EarthX
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TVTranscript
00:30Hi, I'm Gary Wapner, the host of Overcoming Overshoot here on EarthX TV.
00:44I'm very excited for this episode, which we are calling Rights of Nature, Creating New
00:50Laws and Ways of Thinking to Protect the Natural World.
00:55With me today are two guests who are among the world's leading advocates for rights of
00:59nature.
01:00First is Linda Sheehan.
01:01Linda is a co-founder of the Earth Law Center.
01:06Linda has also worked for the Global Waterkeeper Alliance, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation,
01:10and currently as the director of Environment Now, a California foundation that funds environmental
01:16protection in California and in Baja.
01:19Welcome to the show, Linda.
01:21Thank you so much.
01:22Thrilled to be here.
01:23And second is Corinna Gore.
01:25Corinna is the founder of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New
01:31York, as well as being a frontline activist on the issue of climate change and a board
01:37member of the Hudson Riverkeeper.
01:39Welcome to the show, Corinna.
01:42Thank you, Gary.
01:43And hello, Linda.
01:46And I know you've both actually been to Dallas in the past at the Earth Day festival there.
01:51So kind of welcome back to Earth Day.
01:53I mean, you probably haven't met each other, but we're all going to have a nice little
01:56chat here today.
01:57Great.
01:58So I like to start these shows out with what I call kind of the aha moment.
02:05We have a lot of young listeners and maybe people sometimes they're in career changes
02:10too.
02:11And I think for activists like us to tell the aha moment of like sort of what got us
02:14into this or what made us move in the direction that we did is really kind of fun and useful
02:19for people.
02:20Corinna, do you have an aha moment or moments that sort of sparked you to spend your life
02:26and career as an environmental activist and got you into this issue specifically, rights
02:30of nature?
02:31Well, thanks so much, Gary.
02:35And let me say I'm honored and delighted to be with both of you.
02:39I know of Linda's extraordinary groundbreaking work in this field.
02:45And I also have had the pleasure, as you noted, of being in Dallas for what used to be Earth
02:51Day Texas and then Earth X.
02:53So this is a really wonderful occasion to be with you.
02:56And for me, my aha moment came actually somewhat later in my life.
03:03I grew up around a lot of talk about what was called global warming and then climate
03:10change and now climate crisis, because it was very much a part of my father's work.
03:16But I myself did not really go into it or see my own contribution or role.
03:21However, I was very, very much informed and concerned about the urgency of the climate
03:26crisis.
03:28And I found myself mid-career, midlife at Union Theological Seminary as a student.
03:35I now work there.
03:37When I was a student there, I learned about the doctrine of discovery, about the history
03:47of the European presence on this land, so-called white people on this land.
03:54And that was really an aha moment for me, and I'll tell you why.
03:59Because I grew up in the wake of the civil rights movement.
04:03Union Theological Seminary is very animated by the role that religion played in the civil
04:07rights movement.
04:09And in the case of the doctrine of discovery, what I learned is that in the mid-15th century,
04:17there were these declarations called papal bulls, and they were to launch the age of
04:23discovery.
04:25And the message in them was to conquer, vanquish, and subdue all of the flora and fauna of these
04:33new lands of the Americas and Africa, so-called new lands.
04:36And that the people who were there were part of the flora and fauna.
04:41And for me, it really was like a light bulb, because it connected to me, it connected to
04:47me the strands of the dehumanization of Black people, Indigenous people, and the license
04:55to pillage the natural world.
04:58And as a person of European descent who grew up in this country, it also kind of made me
05:04realize how confusing and toxic it is to feel that sense of privilege, that there's some
05:11sort of divine mandate to kind of ownership and domination over this space.
05:16So I hope that's not too long-winded, but for me, that was the aha moment.
05:20And when I went into this work, I went through that doorway, and very happy to be in this
05:26movement with all of you.
05:29Okay, Lynn, now it's your turn.
05:30And you sent us a picture of the beach in Santa Monica, which reflected your aha moment.
05:36So tell us a little bit about that.
05:39Yeah, and first, I'd like to echo Crenna's thanks for being here and for hosting this
05:45incredibly important set of dialogues, not just the one we're having today, but all the
05:49work you're doing to bring these types of discussions out into the public board, and
05:54to Crenna for your work on ethics, which I'll talk about was definitely one of my aha moments.
05:59I actually grew up in Massachusetts, and both the, I may be dating myself here, but both
06:06the beaches and also the creek behind my house were just desperately polluted, really well
06:15before the Clean Water Act had kicked in.
06:18Sewage releases on the beaches, and in my own creek in Massachusetts, upstream tanneries
06:25would regularly belch all kinds of contaminants.
06:28And the fish that I liked to watch in the creek would die.
06:31And when I was very small, I would ask the adults, the teachers, the grownups, why can't
06:38we fix this?
06:39And they'd say, well, it's a big problem.
06:40We're not sure what to do.
06:42But I hear maybe there's some things being done.
06:44And whatever those things being done, that's what I wanted to do.
06:48So since I was a small child, those impacts of pollution in our waterways were really
06:54what inspired me.
06:55But that wasn't my only aha moment.
06:58It was just the first one.
07:00After I'd gone to work and worked for a number of years with water keepers, with other
07:05nonprofit organizations trying to make these waterways clean, I began to get, with my
07:12colleagues, get better at it.
07:14And with some very talented colleagues, we made together some important gains.
07:19But ultimately, I felt like we were losing the war.
07:22So I started to look around and read people who wrote about ethics and environmental
07:27ethics and Roderick Nash's Rights of Nature, looking at the history of environmental
07:32ethics and the deep ecology movement and trying to think, what does this all mean?
07:38And I realized for myself that the rules are rigged.
07:42The rules are set up, the environmental laws, our economic system are set up so that we
07:47will fail as environmental advocates.
07:50So we can address some of the really acute problems, like those big sewage and toxic
07:54industrial releases.
07:55But ultimately, we are going to lose with regard to the chronic problem, as we're seeing,
08:02for example, with zoonoses and COVID, but also climate change and biodiversity
08:07disappearance.
08:07So ultimately, I started to think, gosh, there's got to be other people thinking about
08:13not only human rights, but rights of the natural world.
08:18And at the time, this was about 15 years ago, there were not very many.
08:23And the people writing about ethics and philosophy were the lifeline.
08:26And so to me, that was the next moment where I needed to work to try to start.
08:31And I was fortunate to be able to help co-found Earth Law Center and take this Rights of
08:35Nature work together with other colleagues around the world and really expand it to where
08:40it is today, thriving and growing even further.
08:42So this is a great opportunity.
08:44I would have never imagined 15 years ago, we could actually have a discussion like this
08:49about rights of nature.
08:50But I'm just thrilled to be able to have this conversation today.
08:54Yeah, and I think, you know, for some of our younger viewers, and for people who maybe
08:59aren't so familiar with it, I want to sort of just get a little bit kind of elementary,
09:03if you will, and just like define what rights of nature is.
09:06So who wants to take a shot at that one?
09:10I think Linda should.
09:14I could give it a try.
09:15And I think it's helpful to start with what it's not.
09:18And what it's not is existing environmental law.
09:22And existing environmental law is grounded in this idea of nature as property.
09:28Fundamentally, our legal system, our economic system,
09:31views natural, the natural world, ecosystems, species, etc, as property.
09:35And our environmental laws, they were groundbreaking at the time, half a century ago.
09:41But they are not, they're not recognizing natural systems as having their own inherent
09:48worth, their own moral worth, and their own physical worth.
09:52And so they're always relegated to second place.
09:56So what rights of nature laws do is they recognize that nature is not just property,
10:03that nature, natural systems are instead fraternal.
10:07Indigenous peoples have recognized this for eons, and we just forgot it when we parceled
10:12out ecosystems and species for ownership and degradation.
10:16So in order to reverse the degradation that we've caused, we need to rethink our frame
10:24and how we think about natural systems.
10:26And rights of nature laws, by allowing natural systems to have inherent rights or to recognize
10:33the inherent rights that they enjoy, just as we humans enjoy inherent rights, that allows
10:38us to be able to behave differently on a day-to-day basis in terms of our actions towards natural
10:43systems.
10:46Anything you want to add to that, Corinna?
10:48I think that's wonderful.
10:51And thank you for that.
10:53I would say that the only thing I have to add is, and this is probably because my work
11:00is based at a seminary and kind of grounded through belief systems and worldviews and
11:07such, that I would see it as an acknowledgement of the intrinsic worth and value of non-human
11:16beings in the world.
11:18And I want to raise two points.
11:22You know, although this sounds to maybe new viewers a little bit obscure, it's actually
11:26gaining traction, I think, in the United States and around the country.
11:30There was a climate council on the Democratic National Convention that proposed putting
11:35rights of nature in the Democratic Party platform before the election.
11:39They weren't completely successful, but it was sort of the, it was the biggest bar I'd
11:44seen that it was trying to jump over here in the United States, at least, you know,
11:49in the mainstream political paradigm.
11:51And then it's also come up in the United Nations.
11:54And Linda, you wrote a piece about that a while back.
11:58Corinna, I listened to, you gave a talk at Tulane University a couple of years ago, and
12:03you started out your talk by saying, our nation has profoundly lost its way.
12:11And I don't know if you remember that talk exactly, but you were trying to give an introduction
12:16to this concept of rights of nature and some of the history of it.
12:19And one of the things you pointed out in there was about how laws of nature are actually
12:25in the Declaration of Independence.
12:27Tell me a little bit more about that, which I found fascinating.
12:30And I actually had to go look it up because I'm like, oh, is that really true?
12:33So tell us about that.
12:36Well, thank you so much.
12:37I think that we're talking now, of course, in an incredible context and moment in history
12:44where we just endured this insurrection attempt in the Capitol.
12:53And so I just want to acknowledge that that is, in many ways, I think the tone of that
13:03particular event was the culmination of a sense that there is a divine, of a confusion
13:14of white Christian nationalism, in some cases, with the foundation of this country.
13:22And to go back to the Declaration of Independence, as you pointed out, the only authority that
13:32was given to grant this, that was cited to grant this nation was the laws of nature and
13:37nature's God.
13:38And that was asserted as a principle, as for the principle of equality of human beings.
13:44Now, we all know that we did not actually live up to that in the founding of our country.
13:49And it's taken us a while to get to the point where we are now, which is still not perfect
13:56to include women, Black people, Indigenous people, and so on in that circle.
14:05But I think that what's important is to look at how in all of those cases, well, inalienable
14:15rights, what does that mean?
14:17Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
14:20It assumes clean air, clean water, nourishment, food to eat.
14:26All of this is provided not by corporations that package goods, but by the earth.
14:32All wealth is derived from the biosphere.
14:36And so I think it's very important that we realize that where we are now is threatening
14:41the foundation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all of us.
14:46And the same way that women, that Black people were once considered property in this country,
14:56and actually the only way that the death of a slave was considered a loss of property
15:03to the slave owner rather than a homicide of a person.
15:07It is not a moral equivalent to talk about human beings and nature in many ways.
15:13But it is very useful and important to see how that thought system had to be dismantled
15:19in order to make the change to expand the circle of moral concern to include all human
15:24beings.
15:25Now we need to expand the circle of moral concern to include the natural world.
15:30It doesn't mean that the rights of rivers and trees and other species will be the same
15:35as human rights, but it means that we acknowledge their agency, volition, and right to exist
15:42and flourish alongside human beings in this land.
15:46And Linda, in your work, you have focused a lot on, you know, actually the actualizing
15:54of these ideas and turning them into law.
15:57And I know in a number of places in the United States and around the world, there is, has
16:02been a movement where laws have been passed, city councils, some states and some countries
16:08actually creating rights of nature laws.
16:11So tell us a little bit about that.
16:13Give us some examples in places.
16:15And I know I just, there was just one in the past election in Orlando, Florida that I think
16:19was kind of interesting.
16:20And so tell us, give us some kind of a summary of where these laws are and just the process
16:26that they got created.
16:29Yeah, no, I will.
16:32I just wanted to respond quickly to one important thing that I can kind of brought up with regard
16:37to this idea of life, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness.
16:42And I think what's been happening is there's been sort of a revisionist thinking a bit
16:48about that in recent years, and especially, unfortunately, in recent weeks, as we've been
16:53seeing that it tends, people are tending to view that from a much more individualistic
16:58lens than originally intended.
17:01This idea, the way that I read it and have studied it and just in my own way is that
17:09it's more about community.
17:11It was thought about more about your responsibility to community.
17:14And without your ability to be able to exercise your agency, your inherent rights, you would
17:20not be able to take care of yourself and your community as well.
17:24It's not just about your own individual sense of well-being.
17:28It's your larger sense of responsibility.
17:30And the idea of rights of nature, just like human rights, it's not specifically focused
17:36on the individual.
17:38You were just talking about expanding the notion of community and the moral worth of
17:44life, the different humans, as well as the natural world, extending that outward.
17:52And it's about, ultimately, not just rights, but really responsibility.
17:57And that's where Indigenous peoples have understood their sense of agency and their
18:03responsibility.
18:04So this idea that you bring up, Gary, of the different laws that have been enacted to recognize
18:11the rights of nature, ultimately, I'm hoping, we get to the point where the real focus is
18:16on a sense of responsibility.
18:18How do we order our lives to be able to take care of the larger community where that includes
18:24both people and natural world in a way that we are all thriving together?
18:30So with that little bit of an introduction, I want to be able to articulate that these
18:36laws are the first step.
18:37So some examples of the types of rights of nature laws that have been passed, they really
18:43span different categories of lawmaking.
18:48So courts, constitutions, national statutes, local ordinances, regulatory, administrative
18:55regulatory provisions.
18:57We have seen rights of nature crop up across all of these.
19:01So a constitutional example that's well known is that in 2008, Ecuador amended its
19:07constitution through a vote of the people to recognize the inherent rights of natural
19:12systems and communities to exist and thrive and evolve.
19:16And not only was that recognized, but that also, that recognition was enforced through
19:24a provision that allowed individuals in Ecuador to be able to bring lawsuits.
19:29And they have brought lawsuits since then.
19:31There have been a number of different court cases that have been won on behalf of natural
19:36systems and also judges and administrative agencies have implemented those provisions
19:41in Ecuador.
19:42So they're getting further along.
19:44United States, we've seen a proliferation of local ordinances, local laws that recognize
19:52rights of nature, about 50 of them so far.
19:54And Gary, you mentioned Santa Monica earlier.
19:57That's one that I worked on.
19:59The first rights of nature law on the West Coast of the United States.
20:03And that one is particularly interesting because not only did they pass a law recognizing
20:07nature's rights, they passed it not in response to a particular threat, like say a mining
20:12threat or fracking threat, but they passed it in response to Citizens United, the Supreme
20:19Court case that came down and threatened to expand corporate rights and did expand
20:25corporate rights significantly.
20:27Santa Monica was worried that the expansion of corporate rights would prevent their community
20:32from taking care of each other, taking care of natural systems in their community.
20:38They were still wedded to this idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in its
20:42real sense, taking care of each other.
20:45And they were worried with that pushback that this larger economic system driving the
20:50way that we think about corporations now would allow more rights for corporations than for
20:55people and natural systems.
20:57And so not only did they pass a rights of nature law back in 2013, they passed another
21:02law since then, recognizing and reinforcing the rights of groundwater in their community
21:07and banning the extraction of groundwater completely by private wells until they could
21:13figure out what more needed to be done to protect groundwater.
21:16They've also since recently built that into their budget systems, into their work plans,
21:20et cetera.
21:22I think I want to leave space for other conversations, but there have been other countries like Colombia,
21:28where the courts have found nature's rights, where it wasn't even fun or where there are
21:33no statutes in place.
21:35India, that's happened as well.
21:38Bangladesh has had a court case.
21:39Of course, Florida, which you mentioned, Gary, was the most recent county in the United States
21:45to pass a rights of nature ordinance, Orange County, Florida, which is a very significant
21:52advancement as well.
21:55Corinna, I know that your organization has a program, it's kind of made an effort to
22:02engage with indigenous communities to bring some of that traditional knowledge to bear
22:10in the rights of nature movement.
22:12A few years ago, I went down to New Zealand and went on a canoe trip on the Wanganui River,
22:18which was the first river on the planet to get quote unquote personhood status.
22:23I spent a couple of days there with the Maori tribespeople who helped move that forward.
22:28It was really, you know, it's a different worldview, you might say, and I think what
22:35your organization is trying to do in part, the Center for Earth Ethics, is to kind of
22:39set the backdrop, sort of the philosophical and the spiritual values where we can allow
22:44ourselves to make that shift in the worldview so that we can see things from a perspective
22:50where we not only have individual and personal rights, but we have responsibility to the
22:53nature around us.
22:54So tell us a little bit about your work with indigenous communities and how you see that
22:59playing into this.
23:01Oh, thanks for that question.
23:04And I'm glad you brought up the Wanganui River in New Zealand.
23:10Am I pronouncing that correctly?
23:13I've heard it pronounced multiple ways, just stick with Wanganui works, yeah.
23:18Yeah, well, it's interesting.
23:22For those that are really new to the conversation around rights of nature, I think one question
23:26they often have is, well, shouldn't rights be only for people?
23:31And so I think what Linda was just saying is so important to remind people that in this
23:36country, we actually have personhood for corporations.
23:40And that itself is quite an ontological, to use a theological term, ontological claim
23:47about being, about what we will acknowledge as a being worthy of its own legal standing
23:54and representation.
23:56So for those that would say that it's some sort of spiritual religious idea to have a
24:02river have personhood, then they need to confront the fact that we have actually conferred that
24:07on corporations.
24:08And that is about a value system, a belief system, a worldview.
24:12And it is certainly not the only way to live on this earth as human beings.
24:16And we can see that from indigenous peoples.
24:19So 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity is in the hands of indigenous peoples, which
24:25ought to tell us something about the value of their life ways and wisdom.
24:33I'm at Union Theological Seminary, founded the Center for Earth Ethics there a little
24:37over five years ago.
24:39And when we started it, it was because we had a conference that was about the climate
24:45crisis.
24:46And the conference was Religions for the Earth.
24:49And so historically, interreligious dialogue has been usually Christian, Muslim, Jewish,
24:58Buddhist, Hindu, and not necessarily indigenous traditions.
25:03And there are reasons for that.
25:07Some of them are good reasons, like the indigenous peoples, many of them do not self-identify
25:13as religion because institutionalized religion has been a force for bad in many cases, in
25:19many situations in the world, and has a lot of trappings around it that they don't associate
25:23with their cultural life way.
25:27But yet, the traditions that these indigenous people bring include, in most cases, prayer,
25:34ceremony, all of the hallmarks of deep spiritual life and belief.
25:40And so in the course of that conference, the Religions for the Earth conference, I
25:46was very struck and deeply enlightened by hearing from indigenous peoples from around
25:55the world about how they view nature and about the impact of colonization on not only their
26:05ability to relate to their own place in the natural world around them, but also in kind
26:14of demonizing and banning their own belief systems and relationship to nature.
26:21And so we, as part of the Center for Earth Ethics, we have the original caretakers program
26:25very much led by our indigenous partners and friends.
26:30We really seek to learn from, engage, and honor indigenous peoples and many people within
26:40more conventional mainstream religions.
26:43Christianity, for sure.
26:45Those that are waking up to the ecological circumstances that we're in.
26:49Those that are really interrogating what role Christianity might have played in terms of
26:58its partnership with colonization, which started with the conversion of the Roman Emperor
27:03Constantine in the fourth century.
27:05An empire likes to extract resources.
27:09And so it really helps to promote a belief system among local people that is amenable to that.
27:16So in many ways, Christianity, although it doesn't have to do with the essence of Christianity,
27:20was distorted in that way.
27:22And there's a well-known thesis on this by a medieval historian named Lynn White, who
27:29wrote it in 1967, called The Historic Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, that says that the
27:36biggest psychic revolution in the history of humanity was the victory of Christianity over
27:41paganism.
27:42And that's in medieval, in Europe.
27:44And so that is the thought system that then came into the papal bulls, which launched
27:51the doctrine of discovery, which became manifest destiny in this country, which we still live
27:58with today.
27:59And so I think when we look at where we are, where we have symbols like Mount Rushmore,
28:08and we have indigenous people saying, well, that was a sacred place for us.
28:12And we have many Americans who are trying to make sense of how our relationship to land
28:19has been influenced by religion and spirituality and the worldviews that they engender.
28:23So it's very interesting work that we do at the Center for Earth Ethics, focusing on that
28:30theological conversation and what role it has played in the ecological circumstances
28:35that we're in now.
28:37You know, that's kind of a nice segue, because when I came back from New Zealand and being
28:43on the Whanganui River and hanging out with those people, I kind of had two take-homes.
28:47One was that it took them 175 years to change that law and to create a federal law in New
28:57Zealand, which gave right to those people and a person's status to that river, which
29:01is fascinating because, you know, it's a long-term goal.
29:06These aren't short-term, you know, little red-hot fights that we're going to get in
29:10and just fix with the rights of nature, you know, ordinance at the city council next week.
29:16And the second thing I learned was, okay, well, now you have this person of status and
29:20rights of nature.
29:21What does it mean?
29:23How do you enter into the court system?
29:25How do you enforce it?
29:27Who gets to do that?
29:28Linda, I wonder, you know, as a kind of an implementer of some of these statutes and
29:34also, you know, now you're involved with trying to fund some of that work too, how
29:40have you seen that sort of progress in terms of like, you know, getting some kind of nitty-gritty
29:44on the ground successes and where the law has been implemented?
29:47What can you tell us about that?
29:49Yeah, it's a great question and it really needs to be thought of on a global sense.
29:56I've written a bit on, you know, how you might think about implementation in the context
30:02of the United States, which I'll talk about in a second, but to keep in mind, you know,
30:06we have a very insular understanding of law and how law progresses if you're a lawyer
30:13or a policymaker here in the States.
30:15In many other countries, law evolves in a different way and law gets implemented differently.
30:22Different nations we've seen with rights of nature, different court systems have learned
30:27from and referenced other nations' decisions on rights of nature and coming to their own
30:33conclusions in making decisions for how to do that.
30:39And I'll use the example of Colombia, which I brought up a minute ago.
30:44Colombia, one of the courts had a decision on a case similar to our Children's Trust
30:51here in the States, it was a climate case with a number of young people.
30:54And this was what they called a tutela action in Colombia, and that it means that if your
31:02human rights are being violated, then they have a streamlined court procedure for that.
31:07And so the plaintiffs argued, at least young people argued, that their rights were being
31:11violated because of climate-related issues.
31:14So they had this streamlined process and the court added to their arguments that, yes,
31:19in addition to that, the ecosystem's own rights were being violated by climate change
31:26and climate issues.
31:27And so in coming out with that decision, they didn't just stop there.
31:32They ordered the environmental ministry to move forward to implement actions to address
31:40one of the chief causes of climate change in Colombia, which is deforestation.
31:45And they set a goal for zero deforestation, and they ordered the ministry to come back
31:50with objectives in terms of how they would be speckled.
31:52And they also ordered the ministry to go around to each of the areas where these plaintiffs
31:58were represented.
31:58They were spread geographically throughout the nation.
32:02And to hear from the community as to whether or not they were complying with these objectives
32:08in a timely way, and then invited all the plaintiffs in their communities to come back
32:13to the court on a regular basis and say, hey, are they doing their job?
32:17Are they actually implementing this?
32:19So that is an example of a court that found nature's rights and implemented them through
32:26a strategy that there was.
32:27And I talked specifically with the judge on that case when I was down in Ecuador, and
32:32he relayed that to me and his commitment to making sure that that process was followed.
32:38Another way to think about it is the example of Santa Monica, which I brought up a few
32:43minutes ago.
32:44Not only did they pass the law, they implemented through a different groundwater law.
32:49They reorganized their environmental code within the city and prominently placed the
32:54Rights of Nature Ordinance front and center as the foundation of what they were trying
32:58to implement in terms of their environmental work.
33:01And now by integrating it through their budget processes and their work plans, which is the
33:05process they're undergoing right now, they're trying to examine sort of on a day-to-day
33:10basis, how do we operate?
33:13You know, what are our purchasing options?
33:15You know, how do we implement our laws?
33:17How do we enforce them?
33:18What are our priorities for what we do as a city?
33:22With that in mind, with not only nature's rights, but also the human right to a healthy
33:26environment in Santa Monica.
33:28And then finally, another way that we can start to think about implementation is to
33:32think about and contrast the existing laws that we do have here, for example, in the
33:38state and offer alternatives that are more grounded in rights of nature.
33:43So for example, you know, under the Clean Water Act, there are a number of different
33:49ways to develop standards to decide whether or not you are violating the act.
33:55But they're grounded in this idea primarily of waterways to be extracted and polluted
34:00and used for human consumption.
34:02And thinking about the science, thinking about how you develop these standards, what
34:07a healthy waterway looks like from a scientific perspective that looks at it as a system
34:12instead of isolated by contaminants.
34:15There are many, many actors, scientists, and other partners that we can bring in to this
34:22implementation discussion to really examine under our existing laws, how we can begin
34:28to rethink how we're implementing them under the existing system, while we are also
34:33moving forward with rights of nature laws that we can plug into later with these lessons
34:39learned from the existing laws that we have.
34:44Corinna, I know that you and your personal professional life have also made a bit of
34:49a transition at the seminary.
34:51You're working on more of the philosophy and the spiritual backbone of the rights of
34:58nature movement.
34:59But you've also recently kind of jumped into the front line and gotten involved in some
35:05activist situations.
35:07And so tell us a little bit about your activism and why you've decided to do that, and then
35:13how it ties into trying to move the public dialogue forward and the law forward to protect
35:19nature and people.
35:22Well, thank you.
35:26It's true.
35:26I have done activism on various issues, but I would say probably have the most experience
35:34with being part of opposition to fossil fuel infrastructure build out.
35:42We've talked about the urgency of the climate crisis.
35:45And of course, one side of that is the deforestation and the depletion, the removal of the
35:51carbon sinks of our planet.
35:54And then the other side is continuing to fill the air with all of this heat trapping man
36:00made greenhouse gas pollution, which comes primarily from the burning of fossil fuels.
36:06So one thing that I noticed is that in each of these projects where there's a pipeline
36:13that is proposed to continue out this fossil fuel system, in each individual case, there's
36:22all kinds of arguments around it.
36:24And it seems very, very complicated.
36:26And often these pipelines prevail, yet the aggregate effect of all of them is what is
36:32going to kill life.
36:34It is harming and killing life on this planet.
36:37And so when you look down at these individual cases, and I'll start with the Dakota Access
36:43Pipeline and the Standing Rock situation, which many people were familiar with a few
36:50years ago, because that does relate to the doctrine of discovery that we were talking
36:54about before.
36:57And it also relates to environmental racism, which happens that the number one indicator
37:02of the placement of a toxic facility in this country is the race of the people that live
37:06nearby.
37:07Because, of course, it generates the same activity that harms our planet's atmosphere.
37:13It also generates local pollution that harms people's health in air pollution, in water
37:18pollution.
37:19Of course, there are accidents, there are explosions, there are spills, and so on.
37:23But one of the things that's interesting to bring it back to the rights of nature conversation
37:29is that when people are opposing these pipelines, the arguments that you can marshal on the
37:40side of opposition include things like loss of tourism revenue, because the forest is
37:48going to be ruined or the lake is going to be polluted.
37:50It doesn't include the actual life force of the body of water itself, that it is, as
37:59Linda has been saying, this is what we should think of as wealth, commonly shared, life
38:09giving for now and future generations, not private property parceled up.
38:15My activism has been to support people who are opposing these fossil fuel pipelines.
38:24I was able to join in solidarity, as were many others, with the Standing Rock Sioux
38:28in opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline.
38:32I just want to note that that was an important shift, I think, in the climate movement, because
38:36they were saying, we're not protesters, we're protectors, we're water protectors.
38:40That became a new parlance in the climate movement where people are speaking that way.
38:45I also was involved in opposing fracked gas pipelines, more in my region, and that includes
38:54the Constitution Pipeline in New York State and also something called the Algonquin Incremental
39:00Market Pipeline.
39:01Notice the names of these pipelines are always used to act like it's on the side of something
39:06good.
39:07And in that case, I was involved in an action of nonviolent civil disobedience in opposing
39:17that pipeline.
39:18And then finally, I just want to mention the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which was in the
39:23South and where I was part of the resistance was in Virginia, where a big compressor station
39:30was going to be located in a historically Black community.
39:34And I think that the way in which the opposition was marshaled against it, it was very interesting.
39:42People were wanting, a lot of people were very interested in talking about rights of
39:45nature, because the people, and this is a community that really, if you look far back,
39:53actually, it was a plantation that was located there, a slave plantation.
39:56And it was the people who were descended from the owners of the plantation that sold the
40:01land to the company, Dominion.
40:04And when you talk about what we were talking about before, the distortion of Christianity,
40:08it's the notion of dominion that actually has been interpreted to mean domination, that
40:14we are here in this land to dominate, to take, because only human beings are in God's image,
40:19and this is what we are meant to do.
40:21And that's the distorted belief system that is really operating on many levels.
40:27And so the people who were descended in many cases from those who had actually been enslaved
40:34on the plantation were those that were living there, that were going to be suffering from
40:38the toxic effects of this compressor station.
40:42And many of them were voicing also arguments, drawing from faith about stewardship, about
40:50caring for the earth, and also about being concerned about wildlife around there, about
40:55really caring for that land.
40:57And we live in a system now in which the people that care deeply for their place are often
41:03told that they have no say in what happens, because decisions made about all these projects
41:09are made by people in tall buildings looking at balance sheets, who are supposed to know
41:13better than the rest of us, because they're operating according to a system that is based
41:17on economic growth, which is held up as the primary moral good.
41:21So that action, and I'm going to wrap this up, I don't mean to go on so long.
41:25Was really gratifying, because the people who were resisting that compressor station
41:31in Union Hill, Virginia, were so effective that not only was the compressor station going
41:39to be put on hold, the entire Atlantic Coast pipeline, and there are other reasons for
41:42this too.
41:42There were lots of efforts at the same time.
41:44Entire Atlantic Coast pipeline was canceled.
41:47So that's an example of a victory, but there are few and far between.
41:52And as we know, mostly these projects are signed off on, and mostly you can't even make
41:57the argument about the well-being of the ecosystem itself.
42:01You have to find a way within the current law to talk about economic damages, which
42:06is something that Linda knows very, very well.
42:09And I want to thank you for your work on the legal cases and progress in that regard.
42:16And you threw me a softball, because I want to make just a quick transition and ask one
42:20more question.
42:21It's probably a little bit harder.
42:23As an activist myself, I've started moving towards this issue of rights of nature later
42:27than you two have, because I'm a little slower, obviously, for a couple of reasons.
42:32One is that if you go through the traditional legal system, you can lose, lose, lose, lose,
42:38and the laws are what they are, and that's all you have.
42:40And then you're just out of darts to throw at the wall.
42:45The second, though, that I really run into, it's based in a place like Colorado, which
42:49is growing rapidly.
42:52And I'll leave this with a quote.
42:54It was by David Brower.
42:55I think he once said, when you're fighting a protective environment, every victory is
43:00temporary and every loss is permanent.
43:03So there's so much growth in Colorado that you feel like it's like this Pac-Man.
43:10It's just eating everything constantly, devouring the landscape and devouring the rivers.
43:15And so I guess a little harder question, and Corinna, you brought it up with the concept
43:20of economic growth.
43:21If either of you want to dabble in, well, what about population growth and growth and
43:27economic growth in general?
43:30How can rights of nature, and I'll try to make it a little easier for you, rather than
43:34just going after population growth, but how can rights of nature, Karna, help us in that
43:40fight, and what can we do about it to try to turn the corner?
43:43Karna, Linda.
43:46It's a bit of a button.
43:49So I think what rights of nature is really is trying to create a legal system that is
43:57earth-focused.
43:59And this idea of development is not, as we understand it right now, is not earth-focused.
44:06And that's where we're just illogical.
44:08I mean, my undergraduate degree was in engineering, and part of the attraction to rights of nature
44:13for me is that the current system is just not logical.
44:16The way that we've structured it, as Karna was just saying, is that this neoclassical
44:21economic system that we invented 200 years ago, not even that long ago, and its neoliberal
44:27overlay, which is just a few decades old, which we also invented, is somehow really,
44:32you know, it's become almost our collective religion.
44:36It's put as the overarching thing that we all must protect, that that's what must
44:43evolve, that's what we must aspire to making better, brighter, stronger, faster.
44:48And that's just not logical, because ultimately, it's the earth itself that is the overarching
44:55and color-encompassing umbrella entity, and that society, human society, is a blip on
45:02earth radar so far.
45:03I hope, you know, I hope we're a good blip, that we're shifting always in that direction.
45:09And then the economic system is a human construct.
45:12It's just something that we made up.
45:14And so this idea about development is really sort of the colonization of our own minds.
45:22We're so far gone that, and myself included, that it's, you don't really understand the
45:29frame that you're swimming in, like the fish saying, you know, what water?
45:34We don't really understand.
45:35And for me, that second aha moment that you asked about earlier was when I realized, like,
45:40I'm colonizing my own mind.
45:42I'm preventing myself from simply asking for what I want.
45:47So that, I think that a, it's a University of Victoria law professor and environmental
45:52scientist, Michael McGonigal, who said it best, he, and this was a great moment for
45:56me when he explained it this way.
45:58He said, it's like an adjective noun problem.
46:00We as environmental advocates have structured what we think of as solutions to our environmental
46:07challenges as an adjective noun issue that's just completely flawed.
46:12So we say sustainable development, green economy, protecting natural resources, and all of these
46:19things, natural capital, all of these things, the noun reinforces the economic system, development,
46:26capital resources, that's the, that's the overarching entity that we're paying homage
46:32to the adjective, you know, green economy, sustainable, natural.
46:37That's what we think we're aiming towards.
46:41But in reality, it's a throwaway.
46:43The goal is the noun.
46:44And the goal is to protect the economic system.
46:46And once you start to see it from that flawed frame, you realize you've got it upside down.
46:52The goal, and this is where rights of nature laws help us think about this more clearly.
46:57The goal is, you can make up whatever goal you want, since we're making all these things up.
47:02I like thriving communities where community includes humans and natural systems thriving
47:08together, which is in fact, what science shows is happening.
47:12We are interconnected with the natural systems with which we co-evolved.
47:17And we want to have economic systems and legal systems that make sure that
47:22those communities are thriving, not just sustainable.
47:24I don't even know what that means.
47:27Thriving is what flourishing is what we should be aiming for.
47:31And trying to organize ourselves around law, like rights of nature and economics,
47:36ecological economics is an offshoot that is starting to try to move in that direction
47:40that recognizes the earth as the overarching entity, not the economic system.
47:45I think all of these different earth-centered,
47:48substantive areas are where we are starting to help move forward to that sense of thriving
47:54communities, which is where ultimately I hope that we'll, a goal that we'll be able to achieve.
48:01And Corinna, real quick, to kind of tie to what you said earlier, because, you know,
48:07and I've been involved in some fracking fights and dam fights and all sorts of fights.
48:10And they'll always say, well, there's always more growth.
48:13There's always more growth.
48:14There's more people.
48:14What are you going to do?
48:15What are you going to do?
48:16They need oil.
48:16They need water.
48:17What are you going to do?
48:18They need food.
48:19And so how do you sort of, you know, I guess, come to come to a place in your mind
48:25where you are can wrestle with the growth question and, you know,
48:29find some kind of conclusion that allows you to work on these issues constructively?
48:35Well, I think, I mean, in terms of population growth, I think we do need to look at that
48:42clearly, simply to contextualize the place of human beings in the natural world.
48:47The year that the declaration, Universal Declaration on Human Rights was signed in 1948,
48:52I think the population, if I'm remembering correctly, was something like 2.8 billion
48:57and 7.8 billion today.
48:59And we've lost half forests and about half wetlands and a million species at risk of extinction.
49:07And yet we know that there are ways in which human population stabilizes.
49:14There are factors that have been identified, which have access to fertility management,
49:22infant or child mortality rates going down.
49:26So ensuring survivability of children, education for girls and opportunities and power for women.
49:34And so those are also facets in this whole conversation around earth ethics is, you know,
49:42let's not, just because the question of human population is problematic,
49:47it's problematic because some people have talked about population growth in a racist way
49:53and have tried to impose measures of, you know, even sterilization on people from low income
50:02and particularly in a racist way.
50:04And so that is, of course, abhorrent.
50:08But just because that has happened doesn't mean that we can't talk about it at all.
50:12You know, we have to be able to talk about it in an intelligent, ethical way that population
50:17growth, human population is a factor.
50:19And we have to talk about that it's not, it's the consumers, by far the most consumption
50:28is done by a tiny percent of those human beings.
50:31You know, of which I am a member in terms of my sociological location on this planet,
50:38in my place in time.
50:39Right.
50:39So speaking with humility about that, but honesty that we have to look at our levels
50:43of consumption as well as population growth.
50:46Okay.
50:48Then I want to say a word about, you know, about the, you know, wonderful analysis that
50:52Linda has on economic growth and sustainability, which I agree with.
50:57You know, when I was thinking about the climate crisis and really trying to think about earth
51:03ethics, I felt like there were two root causes that of the climate crisis.
51:08One was this illusion of separation between humanity and the rest of the natural world.
51:14It's an illusion that has been bolstered in many cases by religion and theology.
51:18And we've talked, I've talked a little bit about that so far.
51:21It's one reason why I do this work in religion, because I think that actually even people
51:26who don't identify as religious, I think are very much influenced by the religious roots
51:32of some of our ways of thinking about the natural world.
51:34And the second is, the second root cause, I would say, is the economic development paradigm
51:39or the way we conceive of economic growth and the way we conceive of development.
51:44And, you know, I watched a great video, Linda, on your website, if you're speaking at the
51:48UN, I agree with everything you said.
51:50And I just want to add something about why the development paradigm has developed the
51:58way it has so that it encourages production and consumption so much.
52:04And I think it's important to remember the UN was founded 75 years ago this year in the
52:09wake of these two devastating world wars.
52:12And there was this saying that, you know, when goods don't cross borders, armies do.
52:17There was a sense that trade was really positive for peace building.
52:23And I think that what happened is production and consumption got kind of confused with
52:27peace building.
52:28And we really got off on the wrong track so that now it still has this ring of a kind
52:34of moral mandate when we're talking about economic growth and trade.
52:39But everybody is waking up to the fact that it is actually destabilizing and it's
52:45counterproductive.
52:46And so I think Rights of Nature, this conversation is absolutely at a time in which we can
52:55introduce it in terms of those policy decision makers on the national and international
53:00levels.
53:01If I could just follow up on your excellent points, trying to just say one more thing
53:08in addition to that, because you can see this is such a topic of great passion to both of
53:14us, is that this idea of human, you know, all we need to take care of human need first,
53:21you know, and then we'll take care of the environment in the meantime.
53:24This idea of need is just sort of accepted implicitly that, you know, this sort of, but
53:30we never really examine the difference between need and desire.
53:34You know, I, you know, in the states, you know, where I am, you know, I might conflate,
53:39you know, needs and desires.
53:40But there are many things I desire.
53:42They absolutely do not need.
53:44And Gandhi, you know, I mean, we should have sort of just used a series of Gandhi quotes
53:49for, you know, for a lot of this conversation.
53:51You know, it's like the world has enough for people's need, but not enough for people's
53:55greed.
53:56And I think that if we actually start to think about what nature, thinking about Rights of
54:00Nature, nature doesn't have desires.
54:02Nature has needs.
54:03And if we start to learn from indigenous peoples, listen to nature, learn from nature, how is
54:09it that we can alter our lives to have just what we need and not necessarily what we desire?
54:16I mean, nobody sort of thinks at the end of their life, gee, I wish I played more with
54:19all of the toys that I accumulated in my life.
54:21You think, no, I wish I'd spent more time with the people in the community that I love.
54:27And that element of need is one that our economic system does not value.
54:32It's marginalized.
54:33And in addition to food and water and housing and energy, which we need to make sure that
54:39people's needs are absolutely met, we also need to think about those other needs as well
54:45and reject the types of desires that the economic system is is ginning up for us to be able
54:51to pursue.
54:54OK, we are out of time.
54:58And I could have done I could have had this conversation all afternoon.
55:04It's been just incredible talking to both of you.
55:07You know, I actually think that we should try to bring you both back at some other time
55:10and just continue the dialogue here about rights of nature on Earth X TV, because I
55:15think this issue is growing and growing dramatically around the United States and beyond.
55:21And also, I'm starting to do more work in this professionally, too.
55:25And, you know, I'm the host of the show, so I get to talk about mostly what I want.
55:28So we're going to talk about rights of nature more often here, I think.
55:32So, Corinna, thank you for being on the show on Overcoming Overshoot.
55:36And Linda, thank you for being on Overcoming Overshoot.
55:38And thank you to the viewers for watching Overcoming Overshoot here on Earth X TV.