Who's violating your environmental rights?

New website and other resources to help you find out

By: Suzanne Elston

  It's official. Living in a world free from pollution and environmental degradation is considered a basic human right. This proclamation was made recently at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. Remarkably, this marks the first time that the Commission has addressed the links between the environment and human rights.
  According to Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), many of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have significant environmental dimensions.
  "Human rights cannot be secured in a degraded or polluted environment," he said. "The fundamental right to life is threatened by soil degradation and deforestation and by exposures to toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes and contaminated drinking water."
  Toepfer and Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, have been invited to organize an international seminar to explore how environmental and human rights principles can be strengthened. According to the UN, the results of the seminar will be considered at the Commission's next session in March 2002 and will feed into the review of progress towards sustainable development that has been achieved since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. This 10-year review will form the basis for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be convened in Johannesburg in September 2002.
  "Environmental conditions clearly help to determine the extent to which people enjoy their basic rights to life, health, adequate food and housing, and traditional livelihood and culture," said Toepfer. "It is time to recognize that those who pollute or destroy the natural environment are not just committing a crime against nature, but are violating human rights as well."

Locate pollution by postal code
  Thanks to a powerful new website, Canadians are now able to track down exactly who is violating their human rights in their own backyards. Pollution Watch is the collaborative effort of the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund and Environmental Defense. According to the site, over 150 million kilograms of toxic chemicals are release by manufacturing facilities into Canada's environment each year, including 7 million kilograms of carcinogens.
  By simply entering a postal code, visitors to the site can find out who is polluting in their community, the type and quantity of pollution being released and the associated health risks. You can also compare the release of specific substances in your community to communities in the United States and find out what Canadian municipalities have made the Top Ten Polluters list. The information on the site comes from the National Pollution Release Inventory (NPRI), which is compiled by Environment Canada.
  It's critically important that when we consider both the UN declaration and the data located on the Pollution Watch website, we don't lose sight of the fact that individually we are violating our own human rights. The cars we drive, the energy we consume and the garbage we generate all contribute substantially to the toxic loading of our environment. We consider it our fundamental right to drive the vehicles of our choice, heat and light our homes and offices and indulge our whims as consumers. We are also righteously indignant about the quality of the air we breathe and the water that we drink. Sadly, we rarely make the connection between cause and effect.
  For example, according to Pollution Watch the top polluter in my community of Clarington is Ontario Power Generation's Darlington nuclear plant. I don't know of a single soul in this province who doesn't depend heavily on the electricity that the Darlington plant provides. The second top polluter is Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and the third is Blue Circle Cement. Our communities could hardly survive without tires for our cars or concrete for our homes, offices and sidewalks.
  In striving to protect our environment and our human rights it's time that we recognized that we are the greatest threat to both.

WEBSITES OF THE WEEK:
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights

Pollution Watch

Check out Environment Canada's website

Other articles from the series Down to earth

Posted: May 21, 2001

[ Front Page ]