Talk:Right to a healthy environment

Environmental justice?

Should this topic be a separate article? It appears to overlap with the environmental justice article. Sandcherry (talk) 16:46, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Sandcherry: Its a Human Right, enshrined in international law -- so its a legal concept, while environmental justice is a movement and practice that seeks justice. They are very different -- and have very distinct roles in different parts of the environmental movement's attempts for equity, etc. They are certain related, but are very different, Sadads (talk) 00:34, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

And/also environmental justice is much more grounded in the environmental movement, especially from the United States and the civil rights movement, whereas human rights law comes from a more global perspective, and is treated as a legal theory, Sadads (talk) 00:44, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

This article includes the following sentence "The right creates an obligation of the state to regulate and enforce environmental laws, control pollution, and otherwise provide justice and protections for communities harmed by environmental problems." The right to a healthy environment is an environmental justice cornerstone. I suggest this article be incorporated into environmental justice as a separate section.Sandcherry (talk) 15:41, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Justice is only one way in which this happens: justice is transformative, a human right is foundational -- these are two different issues -- and are treated in two very different literatures. Besides that environmental justice article is a train wreck in terms of a well scoped article: it has too much information as it is, and has many different competing ideas going on. Sadads (talk) 15:56, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

For example, this scholar actively says they are in conflict as approaches, for example, and everything I read suggests these are actively in tension/solving different problems, Sadads (talk) 16:10, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as follows:

Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. This goal will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards, and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.

This appears to be foundational and not transformative. Your opinion of the environmental justice article may have merit, but is not a reason to add a separate article like Global environmental inequality which you proposed combining with EJ. Sandcherry (talk) 20:31, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Um... you just proved my point: "fair treatment and meaningful involvement" is a process -- its taking inequality, and seeks transformative systems so that individuals having access to the "decision making process" related to a healthy environment. Human rights on are unrevokable, foundational rights guaranteed by a mix of national and international law. The process of bringing all people to experience those rights would be justice...but also, based on your comments so far, I am guessing you are an American: as a fellow American, let me just point out that you probably don't have a intuitive understanding of how human rights work, because American legal systems are based on legal rights (or civil rights) that are revocable and mixed up with constitutional law. It took me a long time working internationally to fully understand: but human rights come from a very different legal tradition, and operate irrevocably (inalienably) and you can't mix them up with processes of guaranteeing them (like environmental justice or local law). Environmental justice is a philosophy underlying a movement and a set of environmental activist practices -- that happens to be embodied in certain parts of US institutions like the EPA. You can't mix these two radically different things.

On the other hand the global environmental inequality article isn't a well scoped article, its an essay written by students about a concept that may exist in the literature (environmental inequality), but is not addressed in the current article (the concept global environmental inequality barely exists in the literature and the way it is framed, it is describing a simple truth : that they are unevenly distributed in communities, and it makes arguments about relative inequality through sources that make no mention of the concept "environmental inequality" as a concept). Sadads (talk) 00:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The Right to a Healthy Environment should not be merged with environmental justice. If it weren't to have its own article, one could equally (or perhaps better) argue that it should be merged with various human rights articles, or climate justice, or maybe even environmental law -- although it's a human rights concept. It just needs to have its own article. Larataguera (talk) 12:50, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Removing essay-like content (about improved cookstoves)

I agree with the removal of this essay-like content yesterday by user:sadads. It had been added by a new editor, user:FahnbullehV. While I am sure the edit was a good faith edit, it nevertheless doesn't meet the criteria for encyclopedic content nor reliable sources. It might even contain WP:OR. Sentences that include the word "should" are usually a sign that the content that follows is not encyclopedic. I am copying it below so that we can see if any of it could be salvaged (maybe one sentence about how improved cookstoves can reduce indoor air pollution in developing countries? Maybe also a link to energy poverty and cooking?) +++++++++++ The right to a healthy environment, for the poor, by the poor, is with a view to accomplishing SDG 1, No Poverty. There should be a right to the knowledge of the use of the human and natural resources that tend to be abundant all around low-income communities, for the means of production and implementation of safe drinking water and clean cookstoves.

All over the developing world there are potters of long oral tradition who produce such products as water containers and cook pots that are affordable within the economy of their communities. Once the potters and their neighbors are trained in quick forming processes of duplicates, using models and molds, they will be able to fabricate insulating rocket stoves and form candle water filters. Community members will then get water filters and clean cookstoves, interventions that are affordable for the first time.

The community and its households should no longer be vulnerable to the respiratory illnesses caused by cooking on open fires, due to the smoke around these. They should no longer be vulnerable to waterborne illness and death, caused by pathogen contaminated drinking water. As a result of these improvements of environmental health their communities should gain resilience. The quick forming processes of ceramics, new to the potters, should make possible a wide array of ceramic and other products of high temperature processes, at the origin of industry. ++++++++++

EMsmile (talk) 04:08, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

References