Category Archives: Environmental Rights

Guest Post: Euthanasia and Disability Rights

Monique and I both live in Ontario, Canada, where there are new discussions happening both provincially and federally regarding “assisted suicide”, “death with dignity”, the right to die, and euthanasia (I may have missed a few other terms used).

We both have MCS/ES, and are confronted with systemic discrimination and barriers to access with almost every breath we take. Breathing is not optional. And we are not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of us in Canada, and millions around the world.

Open letter in support of Euthanasia and Rights for those with diseases that defy accommodations

Guest Post by Monique

I Am Easy to Ignore

I am female
I am over 60
I am divorced and alone
I am a student
I have lower employability
I have invisible disability
I was abused
I have depression + ADD.
I do not feel strong

The biggest and most painful ordeal is people who lack the ability to reduce the perfumes they wear in public… who value their vanity above the good of others. I cannot exist without the kindness of strangers. I do not want to live without my Right to life-sustaining air. I do not want to explain why I cannot breathe your scents and subsist in the lifestyle you value and have grown attached to. I cannot live in your chemical soup.

I am a canary. I have MCS. Although canaries have saved many from disasters, their deaths are never celebrated. I feel like I will soon be sacrificed so that many will continue to breathe good quality air.

I would like to give a voice to those canaries. I’d like to call upon every canary on this planet to stand up and be counted. I want every canary not to die in vain. Continue reading

What If an Industry was Allowed to Disable Us and Keep Us Housebound?

Something Is Really Wrong With This Picture

Imagine this 1

There’s a global proliferation of artificial fragrance and methods of dispersing it. Fragrance concoctions are added to almost everything imaginable (with more ridiculous ideas emerging all the time). They are sold and used everywhere at the same time as more people are developing adverse health effects from them, effects like serious allergies, disabling “sensitivities”, migraines, asthma, neurological disorders, lowered IQ, birth defects, etc. (the list keeps growing).

These health problems are due to unregulated and secret ingredients, ingredients which pollute our bodies, our air, and the waterways they get washed into from our sinks, tubs, and showers, ingredients that are impossible to avoid now, even when we don’t want them in our lives.

If you or your child had celiac disease or a severe peanut allergy, it would be the same as the peanut and gluten industries adding peanuts and gluten or peanut and gluten mist along with doses of mood altering drugs to every product imaginable, including building materials. That would be in addition to having peanut and gluten essences worn by everyone (in their hair, armpits, clothing …), pumped out of air ducts, automated devices in public washrooms, transportation, stores, apartments, offices, hotels, even medical offices, and your neighbours burning peanuts and gluten in their fireplaces, washing with laundry with them, and then pumping the residues out of their dryer vents 24/7.

You could imagine cat allergies too, but they are usually more inconvenient than life threatening and disabling.

The fragrance industry is very aware of the adverse effects its products have on people and the environment, yet they continue to look for more ways to pollute us and every product and environment conceivably possible. They knowingly create concoctions that harm and act like drugs! Yet they consider these risks reasonable and acceptable, and choose to dismiss or ridicule those who have problems, using similar tactics the tobacco industry used to deny there are problems and to continue to profit from them.

Continue reading

Human Rights, Property Rights and the Environment

Toxic Chemical Trespass

Human Rights and the Environment No More Toxic Chemical Trespass

Human Rights and the Environment
No More Toxic Chemical Trespass

Forgive us our (chemical) trespasses
By Carolyn Raffensperger
This is not a trespass in the property sense. It is a violation of our shared rights to a clean and healthy environment. Forgive us for destroying the Earth, our bodies, our communities, each other.
http://www.sehn.org/blog/?p=176

and

and this

What is done to the planet, is done to us…

Do We Not Have the Right to a Healthy Environment?

In Brazil, they now have the right to a healthy environment!

Learn more about Human Rights and the Environment here:

Continue reading

Dr Vandana Shiva, Wisdom Woman

Dr Vandana Shiva

Image from Seed Freedom

Image from Seed Freedom

Truth-teller, quantum physicist, heroine, wisdom woman, life saver…

Please watch this short (10 minute) video clip of her being interviewed on GritTV, and if you have time, the longer one from Bill Moyers, to learn more about the very important issues surrounding the corporate control of our global food supply. There are many great interviews available online, and it’s hard to choose or remember which might be the “best”. Here are three that  I have stumbled across again during the past week as I have been thinking of  posting something to honour her and her work. Her book “Stolen Harvest” changed my life’s direction and goals many years ago.

Continue reading

Sandra Steingraber: Prepared Sentencing Statement 2013

Sandra Steingraber was arrested while demonstrating against fracking. Sandra is one of my heroines.

“In my field of environmental health, the word trespass has meaning. Toxic trespass refers to involuntary human exposure to a chemical or other pollutant. It is a contamination without consent. It is my belief, as a biologist, that Inergy is guilty of toxic trespass.” …

“In closing, my actions were taken to protest the trespass of Inergy into our air, water, bodies, safety, and security. My small, peaceful act of trespass was intended to prevent a much larger, and possibly violent one.”

Sandra Steingraber: Prepared Sentencing Statement for the Reading Town Court, April 17, 2013.

She has written a lot about the dangers of fracking, as well as other environmental health issues that affect us all. Well worth checking out what she has to say.

I have heard Sandra speak once, after I read her book “Living Downstream” but before “Raising Elijah” was published. In fact, it was very shortly after he was born that she was there. Sandra was in Toronto again just before I left, and a friend (because I was too sick to go) brought me this wonderful gift from her :

Continue reading

Ecocide as a Crime Against Humanity

Do you live in the EU? If so, please sign on to the current campaign to end Ecocide in Europe. Opportunities for  global involvement also exist (see below).

This short video describes the issue, please watch and get involved. We need legally binding laws for things to change, and this would be a good one.

“Ecocide is the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystems of a given territory.  Ecocide should become a crime for which companies and individuals can be held responsible according to criminal law and the principle of superior responsibility.”

The Problem: Ecocide

Ecocide, the extensive destruction of ecosystems, is occurring today. For example:

  • Large-scale land use change that causes the direct destruction of habitats – as is the case with deforestation in most tropical rainforests;
  • Significant pollution whether deliberate or incidental – such as oil dumping and spills;
  • Open cast mining where entire landscapes are removed – as is the case with oil sands and some coal and gold mining;

http://eradicatingecocide.com/overview/what-is-ecocide/

Wish to End Ecocide

See  End Ecocide in Europe for more information on how you can get involved there.

Eradicating Ecocide has more information on global efforts.

Everyone can sign on here

Toxic Trespass and Other Images

Simple images with catchy phrases are popular these days. I recently discovered that the photo program on my computer has more features to play with, and my brain is finally capable of a little bit of exploring. Computer graphics is something very different from the manual art I’ve learned and practiced in my life, so my attempts will surely improve over time as I learn more about the technology, as well as recover my visual brain functions and co-ordination.

I thought I’d share some of my early  attempts here. Feel free to download and use in a not for profit way if you find them useful. However, if you want to use them in any money making ways, please discuss it with me first.

Continue reading

Do We Not Have the Right to a Healthy Environment?

The way things are now, polluters have more rights to pollute than we have to clean air and water. That is not the way it should be, and it can be changed.

air and water

In Brazil, they now have the right to a healthy environment!

From Ecojustice, where you can learn more and take action:

the Right to a Healthy Environment

But it’s not just chemical plants and industries that pollute our air and homes. 

People  also seem to expect the right to do what they want on their properties, even if that activity impairs the ability  of someone else next door or down the block to breathe  on their property.

Woodsmoke, tobacco smoke, pesticides, herbicides and toxic laundry products are some of the things that also leave the user’s property and enter neighboring  properties and homes, with sometimes devastating effects on the health of people and pets.

I think our right to do what we want on our own property should not include the right to prevent the next person from breathing properly on their property.

What do you think?