Environmental rights cause more and more attention in many countries nowadays. Same with Canada, people desire to live in a state where the environment is guaranteed, at least, it makes people feel safe. In fact, the ethics contained in environmental rights are not difficult to understand. The so-called environmental rights mean that people live in clean air, the air quality meets standards, and the drinking water is not polluted. And our food, meat, and vegetables, etc., are not contaminated and can be eaten with confidence. This is caring about everyone’s most basic living conditions. However, the population covered is also very wide. Environmental rights include not only the environmental quality of modern humans but also our descendants. However, since the rapid development of industrialization and rapid economic development, people have often sacrificed the natural environment to meet the interests of economic development. People have begun to use large amounts of coal, fossil fuels, etc., and emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases regardless of the consequence, thus, causing global warming and climate change. In addition, the pollutants discharged in the water have gradually reduced the area of water available for people to drink and caused a large number of aquatic life to die or become extinct. Isn’t this a very disappointing thing?
In fact, I am deeply impressed by this matter. In China, the city where I live has a severe haze every winter. Haze has now become a catastrophic weather phenomenon and often appears in weather forecasts. The main cause is the burning of coal for heating in winter, as well as automobile exhaust, industrial emissions, construction dust, garbage incineration, and many other acts that harm air quality. For a long time, people can only wear masks, and homes install air purifiers to protect the most basic air quality. This has also caused many elderly and young children to suffer from cardiovascular or respiratory diseases in winter. Therefore, many people have been deprived of their environmental rights, even though this is our reluctance. Because the environment is a public resource, no one has the right to deliberately manipulate it, and everyone should have a fair environmental right. So I think it is necessary to protect Canadians’ environmental rights through the Constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And I also agree with David Suzuki’s point of view that ensuring the people’s environmental rights is not to restrict the development of industry and cause economic retreat, but to ensure that the government always regards the people’s health and well-being as the original intention of all actions, and also to make the government and many companies operating in Canada are always moving to maintain the highest standards. Moreover, action to ensure environmental rights have indirectly inspired many Canadian companies to innovate or adopt green technology and advocate other corporate transformations, which is conducive to the further optimization of the social structure and the upgrading of the industrial chain. On the other hand, by protecting the environmental rights of human beings, the medical pressure caused by the Canadian medical system in response to environmental problems can be reduced, and the people will become healthier and healthier. Therefore, to ensure people’s environmental rights become legal, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
work cited:
Baike.”Fog and haze.” (2020). Retrieved from https://baike.baidu.com/item/fogandhaze/731704?fr=aladdin
Suzuki, David. “Canada Has to Join the Environmental Rights Movement.” Huffington Post. Nov. 5, 2014. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-suzuki/environmental-rights_b_6103258.html?utm_hp_ref=ca-right-to-a-healthy-environment