People laugh when I warn that “nature rights” is a serious threat intended to squelch human thriving. “It will never happen here,” they say, rolling their eyes. But it is happening — and will get worse if we don’t forcefully slam the door shut on this radical green gambit.

A Pennsylvania town passed a law personalizing “nature,” giving it “rights.” And now, the aforementioned “ecosystem” has filed a motion to become part of a lawsuit. From the story in the Akron Beacon Journal:

Today, an ecosystem in the United States filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit to defend its own rights to exist and flourish.

Rights of the Crystal Spring Ecosystem were secured in law by Highland Township in Elk County, PA, in January 2013. The Highland Township Supervisors enacted the Community Bill of Rights ordinance, establishing the rights of human and natural communities to water and a healthy environment — including the rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish — and banning frack wastewater injection wells as a violation of those rights.

The ecosystem filed a motion to intervene in Seneca Resources Corporation vs. Highland Township, Elk County, PA, in which Seneca is suing Highland Township to overturn the Bill of Rights. Seneca claims that the Bill of Rights violates the constitutional right of the corporation to inject frack wastewater in the Township.

“The ecosystem filed a motion!” Do you see how insane we have become?

It is crucial and urgent that the court reject this gambit out of hand. Indeed, I would hope — but don’t expect — the court to sanction those behind the attempt with monetary sanctions for filing a frivolous claim.

This small intervention demonstrates that “nature rights” is — as intended — a clear and present danger to humans developing land and extracting natural resources. The intent and clear potential behind this movement is to materially and adversely thwart economic growth and throttle our liberties if exercised inconsistently with the radical green agenda.

Of course, the “ecosystem” is not sentient, nor an entity. Hence, the entire concept is a pretext that allows environmental radicals to sue anytime they don’t like a field being cleared for plowing, a housing development being built, or natural gas extracted. You get the drift.

The current targets are frackers. But why not wind farms for the birds they kill, or solar farms for the animals they fry? Indeed, why not anything, since these laws allow anyone to sue in the name of nature?

Pass anti-fracking laws and see if they hold legal muster, if you must. But no court should ever recognize that “nature” has “rights”!

For more on the nature rights movement, see my book The War on Humans.

Image: Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania, by IvoShandor (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.