ABSTRACT
Acting upon the recommendations of the United Nations Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the General Assembly declared that safeguarding the environment is a prerequisite to “the enjoyment of basic human rights—even the right to life itself.” For the first time in Earth’s history, our species has the capacity to violate the environment on a scale that endangers the existence of all species. Regardless of our political, economic, or social organization, the lessons of natural science must guide all human affairs. The nations gathered at the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment proclaimed that protection of the human environment is the “duty of all Governments.” Governments violate our human rights by ignoring the intimacy between the natural and human environments. Such behavior threatens the security of nations, individually and collectively. Members of the United Nations have welcomed petitions seeking to assure fundamental rights.
