Appalachia Puts Environmental Human Rights to the Test

Do we have a fundamental right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and eat safe food? The idea of environmental human rights is receiving growing attention worldwide, driven by our global ecological crisis. But the United States has lagged behind in codifying these rights into laws and in successfully furthering them.

An explosive is detonated at an A & G Coal Corporation surface mining
operation in the Appalachian Mountains on April 16, 2012 in Wise County,
Virginia. Critics refer to this type of mining as 'mountaintop removal mining'
which has destroyed 500 mountain peaks and at least 1,200 miles of streams
while leading to increased flooding. The Appalachians are some of the oldest
mountains on Earth.

While this may seem like an issue for legal scholars, it has very real importance for regions like Appalachia, where I work. Coal mining has caused widespread ecological and health damage here for more than a century, alongside other industries such as chemical manufacturing and, recently, natural gas production.

Many Americans elsewhere view Appalachia’s environmental health conditions with ambivalence or outright classist indifference, and some have written us off as a “national sacrifice zone.” But our environmental struggles echo conflicts over the Dakota Access pipeline, the Niger River Delta oil fields, and other places that are trying to limit harms from extractive industries.

Read the Yes! Magazine story by Nicholas F. Stump - “Appalachia Puts Environmental Human Rights to the Test.”