Before spring break I went to talk in the Law School by Trish O’Dell entitled “Should Nature Have Legal Rights.” This talk was centered around the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, which I have previously learned only a little bit about in my Environmental Law and Policy class. A group of citizens wanted to give Lake Erie a Bill of Rights because it is a really crucial resource that is not being protected adequately. Though this Bill of Rights was later overturned, it still made a big impact on the way we think about natural resources because it allowed a much wider audience to be exposed to the idea of rights of nature. 

The Lake Erie Bill of Rights illustrated that we need more than just a law when it comes to changing how we care for nature, we need a culture change. Right now we are so stuck in the mindset that we have the right to use any part of nature that we want to. But the reality is, we have no right to harm nature, certainly not at the rate that we are currently. This comes down to an issue of the tragedy of the commons, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. We have all been using nature to benefit ourselves close to as much as we want for so long without truly considering the longterm impacts of that behavior. Soon we will be left with an earth that is no longer inhabitable.

O’Dell also pointed out how our leaders are failing us on the environmental front. There are have been almost no environmental regulations since the 1970s and 1980s. They are so hard to get passed because our country is polarized and so divided that people cannot agree on what to pass. Even though we do have some environmental regulation, things are worse now than ever before despite these regulations. The current system of environmental protection is based on a regulatory fallacy. We are only regulating the harm that continues to happen, we are not actually doing anything to stop it. We are only trying to mitigate the impacts of continued harm. It is disappointing that our leaders do not make better decisions for the environment. It feels like a failure to the people they represent because if we don’t protect that natural world we do not have a future. O’Dell emphasized the power of the people to advocate for what we want and think is right and the power to vote and shift who has power.