A few months ago, I posted about a Republican-sponsored bill in Wisconsin that would preempt local communities from enacting “nature rights” ordinances. I wrote at the time:
If the bill passes, I suspect that the Democrat governor will veto it. Nature rights was adopted into the platform of Florida’s Democratic Party, and I predict it will eventually become a plank of the national party as it is becoming a zealous progressive cause as a means of combatting climate change and hobbling capitalism. But at least a veto would be clarifying.
Later, Wisconsin Democrat legislators heightened my expectation by filing a resolution in support of granting nature “inherent rights, including the right to exist, flourish, regenerate, and be restored.”
The Republican bill ultimately passed, and as I suspected he would, Governor Tony Evers just vetoed it. In his veto message, he claimed (laughably, in my view) that it was to protect the prerogatives of local governments. But here is the core reason. From the governor’s veto message:
Climate change is affecting our Wisconsin way of life, from crops and products to outdoor recreation to flooding and drought. I am also vetoing this bill to because I object to the legislature’s ongoing efforts that fail to acknowledge this basic fact, or worse, make it even harder for Wisconsin to respond to and mitigate the effects of our changing climate.
Never mind that granting rights to nature would be more likely to impede mitigation efforts–such as flood control projects that interfere with a river’s supposed “right to flow.” Moreover, most such laws grant anyone who believes nature’s rights to have been violated standing in court to bring suit, opening the door to extreme lawfare and making it almost impossible to obtain liability insurance. Talk about bringing development to a screeching halt!
Here’s the bottom line: The nature-rights movement is ultimately about thwarting human enterprise and preventing us from harnessing natural resources by suing fossil fuel industries, mining companies, timber interests, farming, and other commercial activities into the dirt in the name of ensuring nature’s right to exist and persist.
But only in the West. China would never be so stupid as to hobble its own economic thriving in such a manner.
The actions of Wisconsin’s Democrats — from the governor to members of the legislature — to further and defend nature-rights advocacy are indeed “clarifying.” Radical nature-rights environmentalism is no longer a fringe element in progressive environmental politics. It now has the whip hand.