Guarantee the Right to a Safe Environment : Constitution: Amend it to stop politicians from sacrificing our natural resources for short-term constituent gains.

Even the remarkable visionaries who drafted the U.S. Constitution could not have foreseen that one day liberty and life itself could be endangered more by environmental threats than by foreign armies. Against a backdrop of seemingly limitless wildlands and natural resources, they took for granted that we would always pass on to our descendants a fundamentally undamaged natural estate. Fortunately, they may have made up for their mistaken assumption by creating in the Constitution a living document intended to “promote the general welfare” not only for themselves, but also for their “posterity.”

Today, the natural environment has been so drastically altered that scientists warn that the quality of future human life is dependent upon much more effective conservation of our shrinking biological wealth. If we are to protect the natural birthright of our descendants, the only alternative may be to amend the Constitution. There is growing sentiment for this; in August, state legislators in 37 states called for a constitutional amendment expressly intended to protect our descendants’ environmental future.

As industrialization and habitat destruction increase exponentially, so does the loss of biological diversity. Scientists predict that as more and more ecosystems are degraded, the rate of species extinction--already at an incredible one-half percent per year, according to Harvard evolutionary biologist Edward Wilson--will accelerate.

So alarming is the ecological decline that in 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board reported a scientific consensus that loss of species and loss of natural habitat are two of the highest-risk global environmental threats to human welfare.

The danger lies around the world and close to home. A recent report prepared by scientists for Defenders of Wildlife identified no fewer than 21 types of ecosystems that are critically endangered, ranging from Pacific Northwest old-growth forest to Midwestern wetlands and south Florida pine rocklands. Ten states--led by Florida, California and Hawaii--face “extreme risk” to the health of their natural ecosystems and 24 face “high risk.” No state faces low or no risk.

A growing number of moral theorists is joining scientists in urging society to acknowledge the long-term ecological damage we are causing. They focus especially on the fact that widespread human imposition of harm on our own posterity is a new development. Previously, the subject of our ethical obligation to the future could be ignored as irrelevant. Now that is not so.

We are not only the beneficiaries but also the trustees of our natural environment. We have a right to utilize the Earth’s resources, but also an obligation to conserve them for the benefit of generations to come.

The strong anti-environmentalism of the current Congress, highlighted by its hostility to protecting biodiversity even on our public lands, is only the latest evidence that our political system has a fatal flaw. It rewards politicians for sacrificing natural resources to maximize benefits for current constituents at the expense of future generations.

Unfortunately, our legal system is unlikely to rescue us, burdened as it is by case law developed when permanent ecological harm was not an issue. Furthermore, it allows only those who suffer direct harm to petition the court for protection, while the frightening consequences of biodiversity loss will be felt primarily by those not yet born.

Here is my proposed amendment to address the flaws in our political and judicial systems: “Each person has an inalienable right to a clean and healthy environment and to the permanent sustaining capacity of the natural resources of and in the United States. The United States and the several states shall not impair that right and shall ensure that those resources are conserved and maintained for the benefit of all the people and their progeny.”

The language would impose on government an obligation to secure the right of every citizen to a healthful natural environment. And it would guarantee to citizens the standing to sue to enforce that obligation, for themselves and for future generations. This would advance considerably our ability to protect the natural estate upon which human life depends.