Fossil fuels and chemicals harm our health
Burning fossil fuels and ecological destruction infringes on our constitutional right to a healthy environment. We need to demand governments take action to protect us.
Air pollution from fossil fuels, plastic pollution that leaches into our drinking water, toxic fertilizers and pesticides, rising temperatures that lead to deadly heatwaves, toxic algae blooms, mosquito borne disease, and the spread of bacteria and viruses are some of the health threats that human-caused climate and ecological breakdown is creating. These will worsen over time, unless we get a handle on our behavior and stop burning fossil fuels and protect and care for the land and water. Existing health threats will likely intensify and new health threats will emerge.
Read a roundup of the headlines:
“Can the U.S. Constitution encompass a right to a stable climate? Courts around the world are finding that their constitutions afford a right to a clean and healthy environment, including to a safe climate. In the United States, this claim is being tested in the case of Juliana v. U.S., brought by 21 children argu- ing that governmental actions and inaction have caused or contributed to an “environmental apocalypse” in violation of a fundamental constitutional right to a stable climate.”
UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, Can the U.S. Constitution Encompass a Right to a Stable Climate? (Yes, it Can.)
“The right to a healthy environment is recognized in law by at least 155 Member States. The failure of states to take adequate steps to address climate change may constitute a violation of the right to a healthy environment, as several courts have recognized.
As detailed in the Safe Climate report, governments have an obligation to take effective measures to mitigate climate change, enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable populations and prevent foreseeable loss of life. This includes preventing the potential violation of rights by third parties, especially businesses, as well as establishing, implementing and enforcing laws, policies and programmes to fulfil their citizens’ rights.
Importantly, the Special Rapporteur calls on wealthy states to contribute their fair share towards the cost of mitigation and adaptation in low-income countries—as countries are not equally responsible—nor affected—by the climate crisis.“
UN Environment Programme, Human rights are at threat from climate change, but can also provide solutions
“In many parts of the world, people are facing multiple climate-related impacts such as severe drought and flooding, air pollution and water scarcity, leaving their children vulnerable to malnutrition and disease. Almost every child on earth is exposed to at least one of these climate and environmental hazards. Without urgent action, this number will go up.”
UNICEF, The impacts of climate change put almost every child at risk
“The world is facing a climate change-fueled health crisis — from increased emergency department visits due to heatstroke, exacerbated asthma and even heart attacks to injuries and illness linked to severe storms.
Why it matters: The growing threats to human health only promise to get more complex and expensive, and health systems have to make major changes to how they prepare for those threats, experts say.”
Axios, The Climate-driven health crisis
“Climate change could be driving a potentially deadly ocean-dwelling bacteria capable of causing “flesh-eating” infections up along the East Coast of the United States, researchers warned on Thursday, the latest in a long list of ways global warming threatens not only the environment but human health and wellbeing as well.”
Forbes, Flesh eating bacteria are migrating up the east coast as climate change warms seas scientists say
More Reading
The Guardian, Microplastics found in every human testicle in study
Bloomberg, WHO Warns Europe at Risk of Dengue, Zika Summer Outbreaks
Smithsonian Magazine, Microplastics Detected in Human Blood in New Study
The Guardian, Land degradation threatens human wellbeing, major report warns
The Lancet, The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels